I was teaching an art class in Sherman Oaks when I met an 87-year old man named Bob. We got to talking and he told me about his life. “I sold burglar alarms,” he said. Since he lived in a $10,000 per month senior community, I realized he must have…

Harold and Maude is no ordinary movie. It’s a touching story about a romance between a 20-year old boy and an 80-year old woman. Though ostensibly about death the film is about being true to yourself and living life to the fullest. Upon its release in 1971, the film was…

The thumps come at 4:30 each morning. Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. I count the bumps, 12 of them, one for each step as my neighbor Bridget wheels her oversized handcart from her second floor apartment to the courtyard below. From there, she rolls the cart to the rear alley garage prepping…

When it comes to Hollywood’s portrayal of snakes, there are two unwritten rules. All snakes are evil and the only good snake is a dead snake. The 2013 film Mud exemplifies the typical cinematic attitude toward snakes. A boy tells Matthew McConaughey that he’s afraid of snakes. McConaughey replies, “That’s…

In 1949, the writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green walked into the MGM offices of Arthur Freed. Freed, a lyricist and renowned film producer, specialized in movie musicals. He told Comden and Green, “Kids, your next movie is going to be Singin’ in the Rain and it’s going…

In 1987 I was going through a painful breakup. Combined with my wicked weed addiction and a propensity for depression, I was having a tough summer. My friend Julien, a television producer, threw me a lifeline. He was working on a new show called Dolly starring Dolly Parton. He offered…

In the winter of 1981, I responded to a back page ad in Flipside, an independent zine covering the Los Angeles punk scene. The ad read: “Videographer needed to document local concert.” I’d spent several thousand dollars on a Panasonic video camera and was looking for ways to recoup the…

Derek Fisher was an underrated Lakers star during their 2000–2009 championship era. While Kobe and Shaquille monopolized the limelight, Fisher did the little things needed for victory. He dove for loose balls, took charges, set hard picks and guarded the opponent’s star player. He was humble, tenacious and tough. He…

In the late 1980s I was a Hollywood script reader. I worked for studios, independent producers and screenwriters willing to pay for professional “coverage.” Coverage included a one-sentence log line, a detailed story synopsis, commercial and critical analysis and an overall grade from A to F. I typically read a…