A Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving

This past Sunday the perpetual tri-mangle hosted a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving at our home in Van Nuys. There was food, there was wine, there was general revelry and intellectual conversation, all of which was, of course, over shadowed by the divine Cowboys' victorious battle against the hated Redskins. “Tony Romo es Dios!!”




Anyway, it was a wonderful day. If you weren’t there, you should have been. If you were there, then your presence, and moreover, your contribution to the dinner, were greatly appreciated.

I don’t see any of you nearly enough, believe me, that is not by choice.

Cheers,
tlw

It's about time.

Considering the freshman nature of my position within the entertainment industry, I’m not going to publicly discuss my own personal stance on the current writers’ strike. I will, however, say that my paramount frustration is the fact that the people involved, on both sides, seem more interested in harming the other side than they are in working towards a solution. After two weeks, and significant angst, there is finally a little light. Following Thanksgiving, on November 26th, the WGA and the AMPTP will return to the negotiating table. Here’s to hoping that after 3 months of negotiating, and what will be 3 weeks of striking, we can finally start moving to resolution.

Cheers,
tlw

Deadline Hollywood Daily has a pretty good account of everything that's going on.

Let the Metamorphosis Begin

The hibernation, though it has been long and perhaps arduous for some, has finally come to its inevitable end. And as day follows hard upon the dawn, it is time for rebirth.

Stay tuned, more to come.

Cheers,
tlw

Well folks, I'll admit it; this past month the flow of creative juices has been reduced to a slow trickle. However, with the dawning of a new, and final, school year things are quickly changing. I’m currently working on moving into my apartment for the year, and arranging my living space, which is always a challenge to create a unique arrangement of the same furniture that every single other person has. Once I get things set up, I’ll try to snap a few pictures and throw them up for ya’ll, but I’ll be honest, this blog is going to be fairly low on my list of priorities for the upcoming months.

Many of you who would have any motivation whatsoever for checking this blog are probably already aware that, along with some of my good friends, I am endeavoring to produce an independent film this year. We are drawing on people’s expertise from Pepperdine, USC, and the professional realm, and are undertaking a project of immense size on no budget other than our week-by-week paychecks. We’re starting a blog for the film at KillingApril.blogspot.com and it should have some interesting things in the coming months. I encourage you to check it every once in a while starting in September, though we might even get something worth checking out up there sooner than that.

My schedule is pretty hectic ramping up to the beginning of the school year. I’m headed to New York City for my first time to visit Ky at West Point and spend a few days with Gwendolyn in Manhattan, then I have a two day layover in Dallas on my way back to LA. Once I’m back out here in LA, I’ve got a couple days before school starts when we’ll have access to cameras that I’ll be working on some screen tests trying to nail down how we’re going to approach shooting this film.

I hope all of you are well, and I apologize if I’ve been out of touch recently.

Godspeed.

Cars

In my morning read-through of Blogs, news sources, and satyr, I came across this.

That’s right! The good ole Wall Street Journal has put it’s venerated pencil to paper to add a Pixar-animated, southern, rusted out pickup, voiced by Larry the Cable Guy, to the lexicon of political leaders, CEOs, and other various and sundry influential individuals to be represented by it’s instantly recognizable etch-a-sketch style renderings. I guess it’s a slow news day when the weekend earnings of Disney-Pixar’s Cars makes the 4th line in “What’s News” for the Journal’s weekend edition.

I’ve not seen the movie as of yet, but I very much want to. While Disney has not been up to snuff lately, Pixar has unquestionably set the bar for computer animation. From their debut with Toy Story the company has failed to produce a bad film. As WSJ points out “The six prior Disney-Pixar films all opened at No. 1.” That, ladies and gentlemen, is impressive. It is my sincerest hope (and one that I imagine is pure wishful thinking) that the sellout to Disney will have a positive effect on Disney, rather than a negative effect on the quality coming out of what is now Disney’s Pixar group.

R.I.P. Veronika 1989-2006

REUTERS, Los Angeles.
Tragedy struck on THE 101 in Thousand Oaks, CA during the lunch hour this Wednesday. The ’89 Honda Prelude SI, known to those dearest to her simply as “Veronika,” met her demise as a rod snapped in her engine causing a fatal cardiac arrest. Though the actual reason the rod snapped remains a mystery, many attribute the failure to the presence of Ms. Gwendolyn Elisabeth Siska, who was also on board during the fatal blow to a Honda Civic Hatchback in Arizona earlier this year. The connection between the two incidents is not understood at this time, but is being looked into by authorities. At her memorial service, former owner Taylor Williams had the following to say about the automobile:

“As we mourn Veronika’s passing today, it is fitting that we should look back on the good times. Sure she was a little bit trashy, with her radio that would cut in and out, and only work when someone pushed on certain corners, her hula girl’s legs on the dash after the sun had melted the glue attaching the rest of her, and her window that would only roll up with a little manual assistance. But it was these characteristics that made her who she was, and it was for that that we loved her. As I think back over my time with Veronika, I tell you, I’m going to miss her. I’m especially going to miss the purr of her exhaust, though certainly Barbara Streisand will not share my sentiment. Veronika, we had a good run, I’m going to miss you. Rest In Peace.”

Summer in SoCal

Nothin' on earth that'll get me hummin'
Like a heat wave comin' and I'll come runnin'
With her makin' that tan in the broad daylight
And every night is a Saturday night
And everything's right with the summer comin'
I'm the first one standin' in line
For my day in the sun I've been workin'
'Til the sun don't shine.

“Summer’s Comim’” -Clint Black

Well, I certainly started the summer off in high fashion with the Pepperdine Bible Lectures, now nearly a month ago. I mean, be honest with yourself now, who wouldn’t want to start their summer off working a 10 day, 73 hour week? Even at minimum wage, it makes for a nice paycheck though. Surprisingly enough, once the lectures themselves got started, I really did enjoy myself. My job was to run power-point in the fieldhouse.
I’m not sure how many people we packed in there, but it was quite a few. By the way, the pictures I took got erased. This photo is courtesy of Ms. Gwendolyn Siska. I was in the back of that gym from 7.30am till about 10pm (granted, with 3 hour lunch break in the middle) during the days of actual lectures, and if I messed up, there were thousands of people in there who would have seen it. Fortunately, everything went pretty smooth. It was funny to me to look at the different way different preachers prepared their presentations. Some people had slides and didn’t even know what was coming next. Some people had pretty good outlines and some people, had their sermons typed out and presented them almost verbatim. No joke… it was quite impressive.

Anyway, after lectures I moved into my living arrangement for the remainder of the summer. Good ole Rockwell Towers 120.

For the rest of this summer, I and Ryan (Dap) Dapremont are crammed in a not only the living structure with the smallest rooms on campus… but one of the smallest rooms in that living structure. But, we couldn’t just take it laying down. We took that small room and turned it into two rooms; a bedroom and a living room.


We figured that we should probably name our lounge, as one would name any other historic dorm room. In honor of the fact that we live in first floor dungeon of Towers and were both in London together, there was really only one option. The Underground.


As much as I love that recliner and couch, and of course the television, my favorite accessory in that room is this. My Apple Airport Express! Not only does this provide me with wireless internet, and wireless printing, but it also has a function called AirTunes. What this means is that Dap and I are able to play music from our laptops through the 600-watt surround sound system wirelessly. How cool is that?!


Anyway, moving on. It’s a good time for me in the land of the sport. I’m not a huge basketball fan, but I am a huge Dallas Sports fan, and right now the Dallas Mavericks are making franchise history. Game four tonight. For more coverage, check out 1310 The Ticket’s Bob Sturm’s blog. It’s what I primarily use to stay on top of the Dallas Sport’s scene.

Pepperdine University Athletics

In other sports news, the Pepperdine Baseball Waves have won the West Coast Conference for the 17th time, and enter the NCAA Championships as the number one seed and will face No. 4 Missouri. Furthermore, for the first time our Eddy D. Field will play host to the first round of the tournament. Hope UCLA and UC Irvine don’t mess it up too much.


Oh, and we’re also National Champions in another sport this year. Last summer it was Volleyball that won us that title, this year, it’s Tennis. That’s something that’s got a lot of my friends excited, but the only sport that really has the potential get me pumped up at this school is baseball, so here’s hoping that I get to see a few good games in the coming days!

Well, I’ve been working on this post for about a week now, and I know its fairly lacking in any semblance of substance, but hopefully it’s a peak into the happenings here on the Left Coast for my past few weeks. Maybe I’ll get something a little more thought provoking up in the near future, but I sort of doubt it. Keep checking back, you never know what you’re gonna get!