Ladies and Gentlemen, I present, for your delight, the tale of one Fred Brown. An upstart small businessman, renowned for his fantastical parties. Due to circumstance beyond his control, a client was unhappy with the service he provided, and despite his offers of a partial refund, she chose to sue him in AMERICA'S COURT.
Now, I can't give the ending away. And I don't know when it's airing. So you'll just have to watch America's Court (With Judge Ross - He's got this. He's Boss Ross.) forever.
We were given a case and told to make up our arguments. Then the director came in and told us to argue more, and not back down until the judge has told us to settle down at least 3 times.
My co-star was a very nice lady (from Seattle. WhaaaT?). Who's been in LA for the past 7 years. She's an animal care provider. (She was a vet assistant, then owned a doggy day care, now owns a doggy dentistry place.) She's also a funtabulous actress, who told me about IO west. It's an improv group that I'll look into.
I got HD makeup and a dressing room just shared between my costar and me. Pretty awesome. I can see why I want to be an actor. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.
Oooo. I just thought of an argument I should have made. Oh, well. My character didn't think of it in time.
Showing posts with label Los Angeles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Los Angeles. Show all posts
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Adventures in Photography!
This morning, we were surfing the Facebook on our phones, as we do every morning before getting out of bed, and Stina saw a friend of ours from New York say a thing about Los Angeles. Being the people we are, we were all like "OMG LOL R U N LA? US 2!". Being the sober adult our friend is, he responded with a phone call. Sooooo last century.
As it happens, he needed someone to take pictures of some cargoes he was thinking of purchasing (he works for a company that does that; he's not an eccentric millionaire, but if anyone was going to be one, I can imagine him as one very well). He hadn't found a photographer via his usual routes yet, and was I interested in doing the work? I was. And this is my story.
I headed out at quarter to noon, because he said everyone was on lunch breaks from 11AM until 1PM. I bought some batteries up the street from Unicorn Jesus.
I caught the Red Line to the Blue Line (and went past the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Shopping Center "I have a dream... of convenient shopping at affordable prices!" (credit to Adam Sauer)) and got out at Del Amo Station, where I saw this sign:
I was At Del Amo and Santa Fe. Remember that. It makes later funny/sad. I ran to the 192 bus, which had just arrived. Showing her my $6.00 Day Pass, I asked if she went to my stop. She did, but my Day Pass was no good to her. I need a $0.35 transfer from the subway. Could I pay her $0.35? No. I could pay her $1.25. I ran back to the subway, helped a possibly blind man buy his ticket to Los Angeles, bought my $0.35 transfer, and ran back to the bus. She took the transfer from me. (Sidenote: my friend and employer paid for all my transportation expenses, so yay!)
I rode that bus for 5 blocks. Then my stop arrived. Los Angeles seriously needs a new Metro trip planner.
Los Angeles (the city of Long Beach, really, but come on, it's Los Angeles) also seriously needs useful sidewalks. I crossed the road to my destination and walked on the vine-age they had in lieu of a sidewalk. Entering where the trucks would because I saw no other place to enter, a security guard directed me to the office where I found my contact on her lunch break. I waited. "I'm looking for the peanut brittle," (peanut brittle is code for what I was really looking for. It's all very spy movie.) I told her when she came to me. "He'll show you where it is," she responded. And he did. He showed me to 50 barrels. They had markings on them, which I took pictures of. They were...barrels. They could have had kittens inside them or the archangel Michael and his cronies. But I assume they had peanut brittle in them. Then I called my friend/employer to ascertain if I had what he wanted. He asked me to ask for paperwork explaining why the barrels said they came from one place when the ad he had said they came from another place. She went to find out. She came back to tell me these were not the barrels I was looking for. They had multiple shipments of peanut brittle. She told me where I could find this other peanut brittle, at a different warehouse. "I'm walking," I said. "Is it far?" She looked taken aback. I swear, there are plenty of people in L.A. who don't have cars and get around using public transit, but the ones who don't can't comprehend it. "I'll see if I can find someone to drive you."
She found the man who had shown me the earlier boxes. I felt like I was on the road again. An adventure and I was hitching a ride! This ride lived in long beach and liked it in the summer and had an ear infection. I answered all his personal questions, but was evasive when he asked about my employer... according to him (and I may be exaggerating for emphasis) evil supervillains win if they can guess who is buying what. We arrived at what were presumably the correct barrels. I took more pictures of kitten-containing barrels, and I bid adieu to my ride. I stepped out the gate of this new place. I had directions from my old place to my next place, not from this place. So I asked the man putting dirt in a hole with a shovel. He didn't know, but his buddy might. They yelled across the street in Spanish. I thought the word that was supposed to be my street sounded like a different word, but chalked it up to my Sesame Street Spanish. I walked the direction the man told me...past the Del Amo Subway Station. The distance she thought was too far for me to walk? 5 blocks. But I'm not complaining, there's plenty of walking ahead. I walked that way for half a block. Why half a block? Because the sidewalk ended in the middle of the block. I shrugged off the impression that I was part of an absurdist theatre piece, and walked jay. I walked past that sign again, the one about the kiss and ride, to Del Amo and Susana. I doubted the directions I'd been given, and went on the Kindle in my backpack to double check. Indeed, I was walking towards not my street. I retraced my steps and found the correct street. No problem, still an hour and a half until the warehouses close. I reach my destination. "I'm looking for a lot of toenail clippers." I say to the receptionist (again, not really toenail clippers). "Are you looking for Awesome Delivery Service?" (also not real) "Yes, yes, I believe I am." "They moved." Oh. "Are they far? Can I walk there?" "You should take a car." "I don't have a car, can I walk there?" "Yes" I follow her directions to...Del Amo and Susana. 3 miles round trip from point A to point B and back.
So get this, I'm walking up Susana, and suddenly: No sidewalk! Okay. I clamber over some bushes and get this: A crosswalk! If I were coming from the other direction, I would have crossed the crosswalk, and come to a terminal point. No sidewalk leading away from the crosswalk in any direction. Who designed this thing? What do people think pedestrians want? Pedestrians want sidewalks! Not just anywhere, we want USEFUL sidewalks.
Seriously.
I go to the warehouse. They send me to the office. They send me to the warehouse. I take pictures of toenail clippers. There are no customs officials present. I come home.
As it happens, he needed someone to take pictures of some cargoes he was thinking of purchasing (he works for a company that does that; he's not an eccentric millionaire, but if anyone was going to be one, I can imagine him as one very well). He hadn't found a photographer via his usual routes yet, and was I interested in doing the work? I was. And this is my story.
I headed out at quarter to noon, because he said everyone was on lunch breaks from 11AM until 1PM. I bought some batteries up the street from Unicorn Jesus.
I caught the Red Line to the Blue Line (and went past the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Shopping Center "I have a dream... of convenient shopping at affordable prices!" (credit to Adam Sauer)) and got out at Del Amo Station, where I saw this sign:
I was At Del Amo and Santa Fe. Remember that. It makes later funny/sad. I ran to the 192 bus, which had just arrived. Showing her my $6.00 Day Pass, I asked if she went to my stop. She did, but my Day Pass was no good to her. I need a $0.35 transfer from the subway. Could I pay her $0.35? No. I could pay her $1.25. I ran back to the subway, helped a possibly blind man buy his ticket to Los Angeles, bought my $0.35 transfer, and ran back to the bus. She took the transfer from me. (Sidenote: my friend and employer paid for all my transportation expenses, so yay!)
I rode that bus for 5 blocks. Then my stop arrived. Los Angeles seriously needs a new Metro trip planner.
Los Angeles (the city of Long Beach, really, but come on, it's Los Angeles) also seriously needs useful sidewalks. I crossed the road to my destination and walked on the vine-age they had in lieu of a sidewalk. Entering where the trucks would because I saw no other place to enter, a security guard directed me to the office where I found my contact on her lunch break. I waited. "I'm looking for the peanut brittle," (peanut brittle is code for what I was really looking for. It's all very spy movie.) I told her when she came to me. "He'll show you where it is," she responded. And he did. He showed me to 50 barrels. They had markings on them, which I took pictures of. They were...barrels. They could have had kittens inside them or the archangel Michael and his cronies. But I assume they had peanut brittle in them. Then I called my friend/employer to ascertain if I had what he wanted. He asked me to ask for paperwork explaining why the barrels said they came from one place when the ad he had said they came from another place. She went to find out. She came back to tell me these were not the barrels I was looking for. They had multiple shipments of peanut brittle. She told me where I could find this other peanut brittle, at a different warehouse. "I'm walking," I said. "Is it far?" She looked taken aback. I swear, there are plenty of people in L.A. who don't have cars and get around using public transit, but the ones who don't can't comprehend it. "I'll see if I can find someone to drive you."
She found the man who had shown me the earlier boxes. I felt like I was on the road again. An adventure and I was hitching a ride! This ride lived in long beach and liked it in the summer and had an ear infection. I answered all his personal questions, but was evasive when he asked about my employer... according to him (and I may be exaggerating for emphasis) evil supervillains win if they can guess who is buying what. We arrived at what were presumably the correct barrels. I took more pictures of kitten-containing barrels, and I bid adieu to my ride. I stepped out the gate of this new place. I had directions from my old place to my next place, not from this place. So I asked the man putting dirt in a hole with a shovel. He didn't know, but his buddy might. They yelled across the street in Spanish. I thought the word that was supposed to be my street sounded like a different word, but chalked it up to my Sesame Street Spanish. I walked the direction the man told me...past the Del Amo Subway Station. The distance she thought was too far for me to walk? 5 blocks. But I'm not complaining, there's plenty of walking ahead. I walked that way for half a block. Why half a block? Because the sidewalk ended in the middle of the block. I shrugged off the impression that I was part of an absurdist theatre piece, and walked jay. I walked past that sign again, the one about the kiss and ride, to Del Amo and Susana. I doubted the directions I'd been given, and went on the Kindle in my backpack to double check. Indeed, I was walking towards not my street. I retraced my steps and found the correct street. No problem, still an hour and a half until the warehouses close. I reach my destination. "I'm looking for a lot of toenail clippers." I say to the receptionist (again, not really toenail clippers). "Are you looking for Awesome Delivery Service?" (also not real) "Yes, yes, I believe I am." "They moved." Oh. "Are they far? Can I walk there?" "You should take a car." "I don't have a car, can I walk there?" "Yes" I follow her directions to...Del Amo and Susana. 3 miles round trip from point A to point B and back.
So get this, I'm walking up Susana, and suddenly: No sidewalk! Okay. I clamber over some bushes and get this: A crosswalk! If I were coming from the other direction, I would have crossed the crosswalk, and come to a terminal point. No sidewalk leading away from the crosswalk in any direction. Who designed this thing? What do people think pedestrians want? Pedestrians want sidewalks! Not just anywhere, we want USEFUL sidewalks.
Seriously.
I go to the warehouse. They send me to the office. They send me to the warehouse. I take pictures of toenail clippers. There are no customs officials present. I come home.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Our First Full Day in L.A.
Today was AWESOME! Aside from running into a wall about 10 minutes ago, today was ideal. We woke up this morning feeling fine. I had something special on my mind.
That's how it's been going all day. I've had a song in my heart, and a smile on my lips. We set out from our couchsurfers' place and walked to the Ralph's to buy our bus passes for November ($84 each). Then we took the bus to Wilshire center. We missed our stop by one, but the day was beautiful and the walk was pleasant.
Our first apartment was on the north end of Koreatown (hereafter referred to as K-town). It was close to some shops; a grocery store in particular encouraged us. The apartment was the same deal as so many others - run by Statewide Enterprises, $695/month, a $2.96/month admin fee, utilities included, no refrigerator. What's that? Where are we, Germany? No fridge? Indeed, place after place (with a few exceptions, like Germany - thanks, Sven!) had no fridge. No big, though, we can use our Amazon wedding gift cards to get a fridge. The place was (in hindsight) largish, it had a space for a breakfast table, and had a "first two weeks free" special. Also, like every place that follows, it had laundry on the premises: $1.25 wash, $1.00 dry.
Just around the corner, Stina had contacted someone about another place, not Statewide this time. We stood outside the building and called. Then someone let us in. Then we stood outside the manager's apartment and called and knocked. No answer, so we moved on. It will turn out, I am sure, that that apartment had a magic sink that grants wishes.
Proceeding on to the southern part of K-town, we saw another studio. This one had a nice outside entrance and bigger kitchen, but overall it was smaller and had carpet instead of hardwood. It just didn't make us AS happy, so we left quickly.
Heading East now, we checked out a pad WITH a fridge. The kitchen was significantly bigger, and this one was $670 instead of $695, PLUS the laundry was $0.75 and $0.50, so over 24 months, we'd save $700. It was smaller, though.
By this point, we were about an hour ahead of schedule, so we sat and discussed the places we had seen. The 3rd place we saw and the first place were the 2 contenders for the top spot. After figuring out the money and envisioning our lives in each, we walked to lunch. Our next appointment was the immediate neighbor of our last, but we're speedier than we expected and were 1.5 hours early. I mean, we'd been early for the last couple, but there was someone on site; this lady said she could come later. So we walked to lunch and decided that the first place was better than the third, though we were still kinda up in the air and hoping something would jump out at us so we wouldn't have to make that awfully close decision.
We ate at a market/taqueria/pupuseria. I had 2 tacos, and a pupusa. All were delicious. So delicious, they musta had to violate a health code to do it, 'cause I noticed after the meal that, while every other place we had passed had a grade of A posted in their windows from the health department, this place had a C. A delicious C.
We walked back to the apartment. No lady. We called some other numbers we had for Statewide people ('cause her voicemail was full...). Sergio picked up and sent someone over from his office, which was, we later learned, half a block away. Saw the apartment. It was okay. It had a nice big closet that we almost thought we could sleep in. And I noticed a wide windowsill that I'm sure we could grow plants on. Ultimately, it was smaller though, with none of the perks of place number 3, so we proceeded on to apartment number 5.
We walked through MacArthur Park. We started telling ourselves to get used to the idea that this apartment was going to be smaller and worse than all the others, because the area is so nice, if it's the same price, it must be crappier, right? WRONG! Perfect! It even has a second room that we'll use as a studio, and a breakfast nook. No fridge, or really ideal place to put a fridge, but the VIEW! And a fridge can go anywhere, and we don't need a large fridge.
So we called Sergio. He summoned us to his office. We spent an hour relaxing with him, filling out paperwork and chatting. He was super nice, and he gave us a ride back to our couchsurfers' place. He likes the observatory, and came to L.A. when I was 1 year old. He only has a sister or two still in Mexico. Almost all the rest of his family did what he did, and moved to the U.S. - L.A. and Chicago. We know more about him than that, but you'll learn more if we get the apartment and he becomes our property manager. We're crossing our fingers that happens. We have great credit scores, but no income... so...
In all, we walked 5 miles today, and my missing appendix is tired. Oh yeah. And the place where we're staying has a pond. I slipped, almost fell in, didn't fall in, but "oh no! a wall!" I'm fine.
In other news, our CS hosts are awesome. One of them owns a car, but only uses it once a month. They bike everywhere. They're at the end of a 30-day dumpster challenge. They've eaten only dumpstered food for the past 29 days.
We saw couches and mattresses on the roadside. Not as many as in Magdeburg, but plenty. We think we'll use our Zipcar gift from Nikki to wander about the city picking up useful trash to furnish our new apartment.
I can't wait to chop veggies in my own apartment!
That's how it's been going all day. I've had a song in my heart, and a smile on my lips. We set out from our couchsurfers' place and walked to the Ralph's to buy our bus passes for November ($84 each). Then we took the bus to Wilshire center. We missed our stop by one, but the day was beautiful and the walk was pleasant.
Our first apartment was on the north end of Koreatown (hereafter referred to as K-town). It was close to some shops; a grocery store in particular encouraged us. The apartment was the same deal as so many others - run by Statewide Enterprises, $695/month, a $2.96/month admin fee, utilities included, no refrigerator. What's that? Where are we, Germany? No fridge? Indeed, place after place (with a few exceptions, like Germany - thanks, Sven!) had no fridge. No big, though, we can use our Amazon wedding gift cards to get a fridge. The place was (in hindsight) largish, it had a space for a breakfast table, and had a "first two weeks free" special. Also, like every place that follows, it had laundry on the premises: $1.25 wash, $1.00 dry.
Just around the corner, Stina had contacted someone about another place, not Statewide this time. We stood outside the building and called. Then someone let us in. Then we stood outside the manager's apartment and called and knocked. No answer, so we moved on. It will turn out, I am sure, that that apartment had a magic sink that grants wishes.
Proceeding on to the southern part of K-town, we saw another studio. This one had a nice outside entrance and bigger kitchen, but overall it was smaller and had carpet instead of hardwood. It just didn't make us AS happy, so we left quickly.
Heading East now, we checked out a pad WITH a fridge. The kitchen was significantly bigger, and this one was $670 instead of $695, PLUS the laundry was $0.75 and $0.50, so over 24 months, we'd save $700. It was smaller, though.
By this point, we were about an hour ahead of schedule, so we sat and discussed the places we had seen. The 3rd place we saw and the first place were the 2 contenders for the top spot. After figuring out the money and envisioning our lives in each, we walked to lunch. Our next appointment was the immediate neighbor of our last, but we're speedier than we expected and were 1.5 hours early. I mean, we'd been early for the last couple, but there was someone on site; this lady said she could come later. So we walked to lunch and decided that the first place was better than the third, though we were still kinda up in the air and hoping something would jump out at us so we wouldn't have to make that awfully close decision.
We ate at a market/taqueria/pupuseria. I had 2 tacos, and a pupusa. All were delicious. So delicious, they musta had to violate a health code to do it, 'cause I noticed after the meal that, while every other place we had passed had a grade of A posted in their windows from the health department, this place had a C. A delicious C.
We walked back to the apartment. No lady. We called some other numbers we had for Statewide people ('cause her voicemail was full...). Sergio picked up and sent someone over from his office, which was, we later learned, half a block away. Saw the apartment. It was okay. It had a nice big closet that we almost thought we could sleep in. And I noticed a wide windowsill that I'm sure we could grow plants on. Ultimately, it was smaller though, with none of the perks of place number 3, so we proceeded on to apartment number 5.
We walked through MacArthur Park. We started telling ourselves to get used to the idea that this apartment was going to be smaller and worse than all the others, because the area is so nice, if it's the same price, it must be crappier, right? WRONG! Perfect! It even has a second room that we'll use as a studio, and a breakfast nook. No fridge, or really ideal place to put a fridge, but the VIEW! And a fridge can go anywhere, and we don't need a large fridge.
So we called Sergio. He summoned us to his office. We spent an hour relaxing with him, filling out paperwork and chatting. He was super nice, and he gave us a ride back to our couchsurfers' place. He likes the observatory, and came to L.A. when I was 1 year old. He only has a sister or two still in Mexico. Almost all the rest of his family did what he did, and moved to the U.S. - L.A. and Chicago. We know more about him than that, but you'll learn more if we get the apartment and he becomes our property manager. We're crossing our fingers that happens. We have great credit scores, but no income... so...
In all, we walked 5 miles today, and my missing appendix is tired. Oh yeah. And the place where we're staying has a pond. I slipped, almost fell in, didn't fall in, but "oh no! a wall!" I'm fine.
In other news, our CS hosts are awesome. One of them owns a car, but only uses it once a month. They bike everywhere. They're at the end of a 30-day dumpster challenge. They've eaten only dumpstered food for the past 29 days.
We saw couches and mattresses on the roadside. Not as many as in Magdeburg, but plenty. We think we'll use our Zipcar gift from Nikki to wander about the city picking up useful trash to furnish our new apartment.
I can't wait to chop veggies in my own apartment!
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