Michael Jackson's Death Rocks (Pops?) LA

Michael Jackson's funeral has certainly been the main source of drama in LA for the past week or two. I live very close to the UCLA medical building, and it was absolutely mobbed the week he died. Almost everyone I know was asked to work late or put in over-time in order to handle the massive amounts of press coverage all the TV and radio stations had to deal with. Did you know that every year, entertainment news stations create a list of every celebrity or media figure they believe will die within the next 12 months? Then they cut press releases with all sorts of commemorative footage about that particular person's life. My friend at Entertainment Tonight told me that they did pre-cut memorials for both Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon's deaths, as well of a lot of others - most of the people they do it for are sick or old or have some other death-tempting quality. He said that they also created on for Britney Spears back when she was going off the edge last year - so they will be ready if and when she actually does go off the edge. It's smart from a business and reporting perspective I guess, but it's also a bit creepy to know that there are a bunch of living people walking around who have TV eulogy videos already made.

But if nothing else, it's amazing to see how just much of an impact Michael's presence made on the entertainment community. Especially since he lived here and raised his kids here. If John Lennon's murder rocked New York City, MJ's death certainly popped LA.

Speaking of John Lennon...that is probably my biggest question in all of this. I know that they have to deal with child custody and estate ownership. But what about the rights to all the Beatles' music? That is clearly the most important asset of all (okay, maybe a close second after the kids.) Will they go back to Paul, since Michael outbid (read: stole) most of the rights from Paul in the first place? What about Ringo? And Yoko and Sean, and George Harrison's family? Wherever they go, I just hope that the new owners will reconsider how the songs are licensed. These days it's impossibly easy to get a Beatles' song licensed for a commercial purpose (like a McDonald's commercial) because it's only a few seconds of the song, and most of the buyers are large corporations with generous advertising budgets. But it's very difficult to get a Beatles' song on a film soundtrack, because most studios want to use longer cuts of the tracks. Therefore, they can't or aren't willing to pay huge amounts of money for one song, which is only one part of a whole movie that already has a lot of other large expenses. What usually ends up happening is that the producers will commission a cover of whichever song they wanted (for example, the gospel version of "All You Need Is Love" in Love Actually), or buy the rights to a cover that has already been recorded (like the Fiona Apple cover of "Across The Universe" from Pleasantville"), because both of those options are still cheaper than buying the real rights. The actual movie "Across the Universe" must have been a nightmare, because they had to rearrange and rerecord all the tracks just to avoid copyright infringement!

As a soundtrack-oriented person myself, I'd love to see the day where I or any other filmmaker can use "Here Comes the Sun" or "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" in a scene at my own leisure, without having to worry about paying $700,000 to Michael Jackson. That is all I'm saying. 

It's very sad that he died, though. 

Not much else to report on the home front, though. My four roommates and I have been going to the beach a lot on weekends. At night we're all so tired from work, so most nights end up on the couch. We just finished watching season 1 of summer heights high. My fifth roommate Nick went home to NYC last week for the rest of the summer, to be with his dad who has unfortunately been having health problems. I feel very bad for him, though to be honest I'm a tiny bit jealous that he gets to spend all summer traipsing around the UWS, shooting movies in Brooklyn and (for ten days later this month) gripping on a set in the Catskills! I told him that there is a really great old folks' home family resort up there called The Nevilly - some readers may be familiar with it - and that he should definitely check it out if he's in the mood for a few games of squash and perhaps a Jewish-humor comedy show. 

Other than that, life has been normal.  

Happy Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July! We had a bbq at the pool on our roof. I even baked a cake. I won't take credit for the actual pastry (filling and frosting both courtesy of the Duncan Hines corporation) but I did create the word art. Missing the Chicago fireworks - the beaches here are completely packed and every road is backed up, so there is pretty much no chance of seeing anything tonight. In the meantime, I'll visualize Grant Park. 

Not entirely related, but I found this article on The Onion Online. It reminds me of roughly 90% of all the college boys I've ever met. 

Jobs

Just finished my first week of work. I really like my radio promotion job especially, which basically consists of me sitting and listening to music all day. It's a good way to discover great new artists for personal listening too, and most of the stuff we get is very good. 

It took me about three days to realize that as a city, LA is lame. If I were to pick one word to describe this place, it would be a tie between "narcissistic" and "tan." There is no use comparing it to other major American metropolis I've ever been to. I won't elaborate as to why, but if you refer to pages 77-83 of "Killing Yourself To Live" by veteran author/New Yorker Chuck Klosterman, you'll see what I mean. 

But one positive aspect is that nobody really cares about punctuality, so a lot of people don't even get to work until 10 or 11, sometimes even noon. Dress code is laid-back. On my first day I showed up in black pants and a collared shirt, only to find that my boss - a chubby man named Brian - was in shorts, flip-flops and a slightly too-small tank top. I'm not in Chicago any more. 

Then I decided that I want a real job, so my roommate Ryan and I both applied for serving jobs at Johnny Rocket's (don't ask why. Money is money.) Ryan had his interview today and said that the manager criticized his outfit - he was wearing khaki shorts and a button-down - and told him to be more professional. But apparently he liked Ryan's "vibe and personability" so he has granted him a second interview on Wednesday.

Only in Los Angeles would you find a Johnny Rocket's that conducts multiple hiring rounds. 

Now at least I know that I should dress nicely for my interview. It's interesting to note that while I can get away with jeans at a professional office, apparently it is still mandatory that one busts out the business casual when applying to serve at a theme restaurant that serve things like this and requires its employees to wear shameful white paper hats. 

On a less humiliating note, we used the last of our still film to conduct a photo shoot of sorts. Here are the digital versions of what we printed. Nothing has been colored or photo shopped. Original photography by Nick.

Our roof has a pool.

My roommate Ryan

Vegas and Beyond

Our trip to Vegas and eventually LA...it was around this point that my camera died.

Filming in California

Cameron bought a $15 margarita in the shape of the Eiffel tower...

...nobody else did.

Paris. I was the only one who liked the Parisian decor inside...go figure. 

The boys at Caesar's Palace

Nick films a huge rainbow

Huge rainbow in Nevada

Pictures Part II

Second round of pictures, mainly from Utah.

 

Vegas to come.

 All our names

Nick and I in Utah

Utah

Mountain man.

Why would anyone buy this?

Pictures from the Road

 Here are pictures from the road, as promised. There will be more coming later. 

We visited a gift shop in Colorado.

From right to left: Dan, Nick, Cameron, me.

Colorado River...maybe. Some kind of river.

Road in Colorado

Colorado

Cameron filming

Tunnel

Dan's balloon artistry apron.

Erica, our lovely and hospitable Nebraskan friend.

 

Sleepyhead Dan

Iowan dusk

Flatbed truck in Iowa

The Final Countdown

Departure tomorrow morning! Before I write all about the trip though, I should give some details about who we are and where we're going. 

I'm driving with my friends Dan, Cameron, and Nick. All of us are rising NU seniors and film students. We're all excited to be spending our first summer ever in LA. Nick and I are roommates, and we will be living together along with 3 others in an apartment in Westwood. Dan and Cameron are living a few blocks away from us with a few of our other friends. It'll be nice to have the Northwestern film intern community all in the same area. 

As far as the trip goes, we'll be taking a northern route that goes through Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado for the first part of the trip. Then we'll swing south down to the old Route 66, which will take us through New Mexico, Arizona and finally to California. 

But four people in a car four 4 days gets cramped. I tried to pack light and am hoping the boys did the same - after all, they're boys. If they pack more than me I'll be disappointed! So what will be taking up the rest of the space? The answer is film equipment. After all, what's the point of driving across the country with 3 film nerds if you can't document it? We have a super 8 mm camera that we stole borrowed from the NU film department, a ton of clamps and gels (all of which pretty much serve no purpose since we don't have any lights), and three rolls of Kodak 64T Ektachrome stock. Why only three rolls? Well, we wanted to get more, but then we discovered that we're all broke. So 10 minutes of film is all we can afford.

(Looks like we're going to have to be very, very particular about what we shoot.) 

That's about it for now. Off to run some errands, then home to sleep before the big departure tomorrow. I'll be without internet for a few days, but hopefully will have many stories and pictures when I get back to civilization next week.