Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim have said in interviews that their original plan was not to include Nathan in the movie, which is pretty hard to imagine given what the final film turned out to be. The layers of first person narrative were, in my opinion, one of the keys to making this unlikely film work.

So I got to thinking of some of my other favorite documentaries where the director included themselves in the narrative. In no particular order, here they are:

Time Indefinite (1993)

Coincidentally (or maybe not, given the fact that the director was Lance Oppenheim's senior thesis film adviser) the last line of this trailer is almost the same as the last line of "You Can See Everything."

I first watched Ross McElwee's films in college and they were instrumental in making me want to make documentaries. Shout out to my Anthropology and Film professorÁkos Östör for showing us some incredible documentaries during that class, including his own beautifully shot ethnographic films about India.

The Beaches of Agnés (2008)

Almost any Agnés Varda film could be on this list. You truly can't go wrong. She was the GOAT. I also love her California collection of shorts that I have on DVD.

My Architect (2003)

I haven't seen this since it came out, but remember loving it at the time. I don't know if it was an acknowledged golden age of documentaries, but in the early 2000's (which were also the early days of mini-DV cameras) there were so many great docs that I went to see in the theater, mostly at Film Forum in NYC. I remember this one, Spellbound, Mad Hot Ballroom, The Cruise, and a bunch of others. What can I say, I love going to the movie theater, always have.

Kings Park: Stories from an American Mental Institution (2011)

This project really put me on a path to want to make documentaries. The director Lucy Winer (who just so happens to be my cousin) was institutionalized in Kings Park when she was 17. This film tells Lucy's story, the story of the institution, the stories of her fellow patients, and the much broader story of how society deals (or refuses to deal) with mental illness. It's an amazing film and I am so grateful to have worked on it in the early stages, both in filming and in post-production. Lucy taught me so much about how to create a documentary, and how to keep going even if it takes a decade to complete and the forces seem stacked against you. The editor Spiro Lampros taught me how to edit non-fiction. And the director of photography Claudia Raschke taught me how to make flat digital video feel more vibrant and cinematic.

Roger & Me (1989)

I saw this movie in high school, maybe even athigh school for a class (I went to a Quaker school). I just realized from the trailer that this movie was released by Warner Brothers, a fact that is hard to believe from the vantage point of 2026 and bums me out so I'll try not to think too much about it. When I think about this movie I think about how important the use of humor is when speaking truth to power. I think about the rabbits advertised with the handmade"Pets or Meat" sign. And I think about how Michael Moore had his own TV show called TV Nation, which had this segment featuring the great Yaphet Kotto trying, and failing, to hail a cab while a white convicted murderer gets a cab each time. Say what you will about the Waymo robots but at least they're not overtly racist.

Minding the Gap (2018)

This one is streaming, but I feel like it has the soul of some of the theatrical docs that I loved. It's deeply personal, beautifully shot, and a wonderful portrait of this subculture of the skateboarding buddies who helped save the director Bing Liu when he was younger.

Gimme Shelter (1970)

The Maysels Brothers are amongst my favorite documentary filmmakers, obvi. This one felt very influential on You Can See Everything in that it introduced the idea of the filmmaker playing footage from the documentary for their subject and seeing them react to it. On paper, there are lots of ways for this to go very wrong. But if your subject is Mick Jagger, or Elizabeth Holmes, it could also go very right.

The History of Concrete (2026)

I saw this movie twice in theaters. I love John Wilson and this felt like a deeper (but still hilarious) version of the format he perfected with his How To with John Wilson series. The true fans know that before it was on HBO, he did short versions of How To on his Vimeo channel. As much as I liked "You Can See Everything", this one wins my heart. Not to pit deadpan, awkward, socially anxious HBO Max content creators against each other. I'm glad they're friends so i don't have to choose a side.

Sorry, just a little bit of background on my foot issue mostly so I can show you a funny picture. I went to a podiatrist earlier this year for some foot pain and he diagnosed me with functional hallux limitus, which I'm not totally convinced is my issue but it doesn't really matter. What matters is that each waiting room in his practice had a signed headshot from Martin Kove, the bad guy sensei in the Karate Kid.

I figured if my doctor was trusted to treat the feat of an original Karate Kid cast member, I was in very good hands. I ended up getting some orthotics that honestly haven't been that helpful for whatever my issue is. What has helped is having the right shoes, which for me requires a "rocker sole" and a bunch of plush cushioning in the midsole.

After trying out some hiking shoe options that were far too rigid, I ended up with a pair of New Balances that had a wide toe box, pillowy cushioning, and the rocker sole to ease my heel to toe transitioning. The only issue with them is they didn't have ankle support or waterproofing, two things I would need for my July hiking trip to Scotland to hike 50+ miles of the West Highland Way. So after trying out a pair of Hokas that didn't really work for me, Google Gemini led me to the aforementioned New Balance Hierro hikers and- spoiler alert: they were everything I wanted and more. It delivered on the product description: super cushioning from the "Fresh Foam X" midsole, the vibram outsole had "superior grip", and the "toe protect" technology helped protect against rocks and roots. I should mention here that I am not sponsored or compensated by New Balance in any way. Although if they're looking for old man shoe influencers, I'm happy to throw my hat (and shoe) in the ring.

All in all, I probably ended up walking about 90 miles total during my 8 days in Scotland. Certainly the most I've ever walked in a week. It wasn't all in the NB Hierros, I also packed these Hoka Ora Primo recovery slippers which this reviewer calls "Weird, Ugly, Yet Deeply Loveable" and I agree. I had a bit of a problem during the pandemic where I started buying too many sneakers...

many of which now aggrivate whatever my old man foot issue may be, but I did wind up with some shoes with a super cushioned midsole and enough of a "rocker" sole to keep my big toe stable. The all star keepers in my collection, if you're interested, hate the look of most bouncy running shoes, and share any of my foot problems are:

North Face Altamesa 500

New Balance 9060 (not as cushioned, but still comfy)

Hoka x XLIM Mafate Speed 2

And now, *finally,*I can show you some of the incredible places I walked during my trip to Scotland. My trip began with a two day solo visit to Edinburgh, which I found to be as magical as everyone says. The first day was a proper Scottish day, cooler temperatures with fog (or as I learned on BBC Scotland is a specific type that they call Haar)

Then walked around and explored the city for the rest of the day.

And I ended my first day in Scotland with the most Scottish evening imaginable, my colleague got me tickets to see Garbage at the Edinburgh Castle (her dad is in the band!).

The show began with a bagpipe and drum ensemble processional through the crowd...

...and ended with frontwoman Shirley Manson summoning a light rain with the encore "I'm Only Happy When It Rains" as the torches flickered in the castle just behind the stage.

And after my first day, no more Haar, no more fog, no precipitation of any kind. The rest of my trip was sunny and warm. Strange for Scotland, but good conditions for a long hike. Or for this day, an organized Edinburgh bike tour led by an Italian man named Ricardo and his dog Lucia.

And not to worry, there are some parts of the city that still look like they're straight of Trainspotting:

But yeah, most of Edinburgh is adorable. And I found the Scottish custom of putting traffic cones on statues to be very charming, and good for photos.

After a quick train ride, and a stop at the outdoors store for a Nalgene and some other items I needed for the hike, it was time for more walking.

Then it was time to meet up with my friends before heading off to our busride from Glasgow to Inverarnan to start the hike. I haven't asked my fellow group of hikers if they want to be on the blog, so maybe I'll save the group photos for another post. The bus ride ended up getting re-routed to an adorable seaside town called Oban when one of the roads was closed, so we got a bonus destination before our hike.

And the next day we set off on five days of Inn-To-Inn hiking on the West Highland Way, with our hiking boots and our day packs. There's a luggage transfer service that people use to make it easy to just have your essentials on you during the day rather than a massive backpack. My friend Abby did an amazing job organizing the entire trip and itinerary, making it super easy for me to just book our lodging and join the group.

Some cool stone assemblages along the way. Each one felt like a large scale art piece to me.

And some were more deliberately built cairns, like this one on Rannoch Moor. It's a memorial to Peter Fleming, brother of Ian Fleming.

Not to be morbid, but if someone wants to build a memorial Cairn for me in Carversville after I'm gone, I wouldn't be opposed. A lot of the stone structures in Scotland actually reminded me of the stone walls in Carversville. And this may just be an AI chatbot telling me what I want to hear, but I just looked it up and found this connection:

Anyway, back to the hike. I got up early one morning in Kings House and took this photo as the sun was slowly rising (we had many hours of daylight since it didn't get dark until about 11pm)

I loved the rhythm and cadence of the long walks each day. I try to start my days at home with a hike in Griffith Park with Miles because there's something that feels so elemental and calming about just walking. This was my first experience doing it from Inn-to-Inn, and with long distances each day. And I'm hooked. I'm already on the lookout for future hiking trips, even though nothing can match this one, it was perfect.

And finally, after 50 miles of hiking along the West Highland Way...here's me in my New Balance Hierro Hikers admiring the grandeur of the Highlands. (photo by Abby!)

The company was a startup called Spotrunner, and my job was in the "tailoring" department. Essentially I would customize a template ad for a specific customer. So a local dry cleaners in New Mexico could order a generic ad for a dry cleaners and I would customize it slightly, or "tailor it", for that specific business. At least that's how I remember it, it was a long time ago and I don't think I was there for very long. But it made an impression on me, mostly because I was glad to be working after a long stint of being unemployed and trying to get my foot in the door in a new city. I just looked up Spotrunner on Youtube and found this behind the scenes video from around the time I was there:

One of my other memories from that job is that I was quite happy to leave it once I landed a gig as an assistant editor on "Creature Comforts America", mentioned before in this blog as one of my favorite jobs I've ever had. Just a touch more creative than customizing local ads for dry cleaners.

The other memory from Spotrunner is that I worked with another Wesleyan grad there named Jen Lame, and we would chat sometimes at lunch about our shared experience as film majors even though she was younger and we didn't overlap on campus. I lost touch with Jen after that job, but a few years later started to see her name pop up in the credits of films and I was happy to see a fellow Spotrunner making it in the industry. And "making it" might be just a teensy bit of an understatement. Jen edited a movie that just came outcalled "The Odyssey", try to go out and support it in theaters if you can. Second week box office is so important for small indies! I'll be seeing it later this evening at The Grove, just a couple blocks up the street from my old Spotrunner office.

One of the many things this year has totally fucked up is my sense of time. Without the usual events and signposts to mark its pasasge, every day feels almost indistinguishable from the last. The start of the pandemic left me and so many others feeling unmoored. But six months in I was starting to feel a little too moored.

With no end in sight , and with the window closing on chances to gather "comfortably" outdoors, I booked a ticket to fly back east from L.A. to see my family. They live in Philly, but I grew up in a tiny town called Carversville, Pennsylvania and we booked separate airbnb's near there with the idea that it would be more relaxing.

From the start of the pandemic, one of the few things that calmed me was thinking back to childhood memories of Carversville and the surrounding farms, fields, and woods. Every time something in the news spiked my anxiety (so, every week pretty much) I would look at photos of Carversville on Instagram and it calmed me down. I started to look for rental houses there with the idea that it would be nice to work from a beautiful small town as long as my job wasn't physically tied to L.A.

It seemed like I wasn't the only one with that idea as I saw loads of rich New Yorkers popping up there, even the Hadid sisters had relocated to a farm near by and allegedly Bradley Cooper moved there too!

But what I was really fantasizing about was a time machine, or a space shuttle, something to break away from Covid anxiety, rage, and despair and replace it with the calm, quiet certainty of my childhood. I doubt that I actually felt that lack of anxiety as a kid but most of my memories from that time are good, and being an adult is hard. Especially now.

So I suited up for my space shuttle time machine, also known as Alaska flight 512 to Newark, and made it to the east coast.

I've lived in Los Angeles for 15 years but at this point I accept that it will never fully feel like home to me. I'm one of those people who actually likes to fly, and take geotagged photos out the window then see where they are on the map once I land.

Flying with the mask and shield was a little annoying, and it was weird to be in an indoors-ish public place for the first time in six months, but it went fine.

I landed on planet New Jersey, secured my rental car from U.S.S. Enterprise, and drove through Dunkin' Donuts on the way to my airbnb near New Hope, on the Delaware River.

It was a dark one bedroom, basement unit in the middle of the woods. And whatever adaptations I had as a kid for living in the country have vanished after nearly three decades of living in cities. New hope? More like old dread! If it were appropriate to leave a detailed review of your existential crisis as an airbnb review, that's what I would have posted.

The difference between Instagram-stalking my hometown and actually being there was stark. I felt strong emotional attachments to intersections that I used to drive past, and brought back by smells and places that I hadn't experienced in many years. It fluctuated between calming and overwhelming. And at night, there alone with my thoughts in the middle of the woods, the anxiety and dread really kicked in.

At the onset of the pandemic it took about 10 days for these adrenaline spikes to subside, ofen with the help of Xanax (affectionately known in my family as Dr. X). It had been months, so I forgot how uncomfortable and viscerally the anxiety had hit me.

I'm not sure exactly why it kicked in again, but I think it was a combo of feeling far away from my wife in case a disaster struck while I was gone (not that unreasonable considering the year we've had) and also the fear of passing the virus along to my parents. I took all necessary precautions but I couldn't settle the catastrophizing voice in my head.

Even pre-Covid it has been a little bittersweet visiting with my parents. We are very close, but they are aging and it puts some pressure on each visit that makes me less present than I'd like to be. I don't know if it would feel different if I lived within driving distance of them, maybe? Regardless, I like spending time with them but on this trip would cry in the rental car after seeing them. My mom said I am pre-mourning them, another quality I'd like to change about myself. There will be plenty of time for actual grief once they're gone, why do I have to detract from these visits while they're still around?

There were really great moments though, I don't want that to get lost. Watching the river from the deck of my parents' airbnb, going to Dilly's, the ice cream stand I used to go to after my little league games, visiting the orchard where I had a job picking blueberries one summer alongside my bff Shelby.

And there was one part of the visit where I found myself totally grounded and present. We visited a non-profit farm called the Carversville Farm Foundation. Something about being on this land that felt familiar, combined with the mission of the place to feed those in need felt very calming. I had been looking at photos of it for months, but the actual place was beautiful and the operation was incredibly impressive. Maybe I was meant to be a farmer. I mean, I know I wasn't (the whole blueberry picking thing) but being there felt great.

Now back to 2026 me. I thought I had journaled about how my anxiety immediately lessened once I moved from the New Hope airbnb into an airbnb apartment in South Philly, near where my sister and my niblings lived at the time, but maybe I removed those pages?

Again, I don't even remember writing any of this at all so who knows. But I do remember being struck by how much more comfortable I felt being in Philadelphia rather than remote Bucks County. I guess it's true, you really can't go home again!

But I'm happy to report that we did have a much less fraught family visit to the Carversville Farm Foundation last month, and were joined by my cousin Finn who grew up in L.A. It felt nice to show him a little bit of my hometown, the general store where I worked (i'm aware it sounds like i grew up in the 1890's), and we had an incredible tour of the farm which has only grown more impressive in the six years since I first visited.

Here are some of my favorite pics from that recent visit:

I've been fully enjoying all of the festivities surrounding this '26 World Cup right here in North America. I live near Koreatown which has everything you could ever need, including a high number of sports bars per capita (at least compared w the rest of LA). So I grabbed my camera(s) and joined the throngs of fans packing bars and outdoor watch parties. Mexico v South Korea was wild, I've never seen that much energy on Western Blvd.

I decided to bike down to Sofi stadium yesterday before the Canada v South Africa match, but that crowd seemed very subdued after the vibes in K-Town that I've seen over the past couple weeks. And one of my favorite things was seeing couples all decked out in their soccer kits, especially when they were supporting different teams. Here are some of my favorite shots so far, and I'll add more if I take additional pics during the knockout rounds:

• Vibe Magazine (1993-2014)

4. Hot Dog (nineteen seventy-something to ninteen eighty-something? we got these as part of the Scholastic Books flyer that teachers would hand out in elementary school. You'd check the boxes of the books and magazines you wanted to order and it was thrilling when they'd arrive at school a couple weeks later)

3. Entertainment Weekly (1990-2019)

• Grand Royal (1993-1997)

1. Premiere Magazine (1987-2010, U.S. edition)

I had a Premiere subscription throughout junior high and high school and would look forward to its arrival in the mailbox each month. I know most of my blog posts tend to take on a "back in my day we had to wait for things" pov, but it truly felt really different and I'm officially old now so it's my right as an elder to talk about what we've lost as a culture.

I maintain that flipping through physical pages of a magazine is inherently more satisfying that flipping through Apple News articles on my ipad where everything feels flattened and I see the same AI slop jewelry ads over and over again. I was thinking of Premiere last week when Lynn and I went to see a screening of Terminator 2 at The Egyptian in Hollywood. I remember being excited to see it that summer after reading about the making of in Premiere. The other making of feature that I still remember decades later was their "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" feature on how Bob Hoskins (RIP to him as well) had to act alongside a water pipe that became a spitting weasel in post-production. I've always loved "making of" features, both in print and as video bonus features. Even as a kid I preferred the making of Thriller more than the video itself.

And the reason Grand Royal magazine has been on my mind the past couple weeks, is that I recently went to a Mike D solo show (!) in South Pasadena.

After the show I came across a post on a Beastie Boys subreddit about Grand Royal magazine that offered four bootlegged downloads, which didn't feel like an ethical violation in that the physical magazine has been dead for 30 years and is going for beaucoup bucks on ebay. Reading those old issues was such a time machine back to the late 90's, complete with ads for obscure skate shops in Los Feliz, and indie record labels that are now long gone. Not surprisingly, the overlap in the venn diagram of my interests plus those of the Beastie Boys is pretty significant. The issues have interviews and contributions from Spike Jonze, Weird Al, Kathleen Hannah (taking Mike D to task in issue 2 for the casual misogyny he included in issue 1), Lee "Scratch" Perry, The Pharcyde, Allison Anders, the mullets of the 93 Phillies, the NBA All Star game...and the list goes on.

My approach to nostalgia these days is basically, find joy in any way you can, and these back issues brought me a lot of joy. Highly recommend, even if it does feel like an anachronism flipping through them on an ipad.

In general, I love that young people are getting back into some of this physical media now. My hunch is that it's a direct response to the flattening and devaluing of pop culture at the whims of the algorithm, or maybe they're just big ol' dorks. Either way, I'm into it. They're back at the movie theaters, making zines, listening to cassette tapes (which feels like jumping the analog shark to me, the sound quality is pretty awful but i do appreciate the commitment to an album format), some of them are even jonesing for analog TV!

I would be remiss if I concluded this ode to defunct magazines without acknowledging the closing of my local Larchmont Newsstand last year. A sad day for the neighborhood, but their inadvertent advice from the handmade sign still rings true for those practicing self care these days- "Do Not Open The Newspaper Please"

My animation career arc is on my mind because Mating Season arrives on Netflix this Friday, May 22nd. I really like this show and have enjoyed working on it over the past...year and a half maybe? I truly don't remember when I started.

In addition to editing audio for half of the episodes, I also created the main title sequences (you'll have to tune in to see it) and episode 5 marks my debut as a voice actor. I play a porcupine with self esteem issues (typecasting!)

My second job ever in Los Angeles, and my first job in animation, was also an animated show focused on anthropomorphized animals called Creature Comforts America. To this day it's one of my favorite jobs I ever had and I loved the process of making it. That show started out with audio interviews with real people who had their very human voices and foibles transposed into animal characters. One of the very few documentary/animation hybrids, and certainly the only one ever on network television. It was based on a brilliant animated short called Creature Comforts by Aardman Animation founder Nick Park. Highly recommend if you haven't seen it. It was a very small team of us Americans on Creature Comforts as we would assemble the audio and storyboards then ship them off to Bristol, England where the incredible Aardman animators would bring the characters to life. One member of this very small team was an up and coming writer named June Diane Raphael who now happens to be the voice of Fawn on Mating Season. It feels very full circle. I'm remembering now that I also wrote a behind the scenes blog about making the show, along with Megan Marie Lynn who went on to become a big time TV writer and producer.

My voice also appeared in that show, as an off camera interviewer questioning a slug voiced by my little cousin Maya. Little cousin Maya is now an adult with a little one of her own, and doesn't have her adorable speech impediment anymore. I'm glad it was documented for posterity though, and in slug form.

If you'll induge me, I found some other gems in my CD-R archive of Creature Comforts materials including...these character stills. Such great, whimsical, tactile character designs and beautiful backgrounds.

And one of my favorite pieces to come out of the show was this behind the scenes look at the real human voices around the country who were then transformed into stop-motion animated animals:

Clearly I could talk about my love for Creature Comforts all day, but as I mentioned, that was only my first foray into working in animation. I followed that up with a gig as an editor on The Simpsons Movie, which is still wild to me. It was a very demanding job as the production schedule required 80 to 90 hour weeks at times, but I was in my early 30's back then so I could handle it. That movie was the tail end of the era of analog drawing at Film Roman (the animation company that produces the show) so I got to see artists at their desks drawing the iconic Simpsons characters with pencil on paper. Then a Production Assistant would fly to Seoul each week to hand off the paper drawings at the airport before flying right back home to LA. Clearly not the most efficient system compared to sending purely digital files, but I'm glad I got to see it happen. And I still have a poster and t-shirt from the movie at home signed and illustrated by many of the crew.

After working as one of many editors on The Simpsons Movie, I stayed at Film Roman to work on two different special projects for The Simpsons- The Simpsons Game and The Simpsons Ride. So I never actually worked on the show itself. The cut scenes in the video game were a lot of fun, and I recently came across a bunch of those exports on an old CD-R.

I also edited all of the pre-ride material for The Simpsons Ride (which aged better than the ride itself imho). It's fun to see it whenever we go to Universal Studios, although I don't think I've actually been on the ride since right after its debut.

After my work on Simpsons special projects in the mid-2000's I took a hard pivot to making activist political documentaries, and then mega viral videos at Buzzfeed. But after that, I returned to working in animation on Netflix's Big Mouth- to date the longest running scripted series in streaming history.

A lot of the Big Mouth crew is back together for Mating Season, and I'm feeling very grateful to have had a decadeof working alongside them on some very raunchy but also surprisingly heartfelt cartoons for adults. I look forward to the world being able to watch it next weekend. And I really hope the world likes it because even with the good fortune of decades of animation work under my belt, I don't take it for granted and I hope to keep making more. With all due respect, Beethoven can eat my shorts.

--the beginning of our identity as dog parents.

When Julius moved with us to Larchmont Village I could tell he really missed the plentiful chicken bones he used to grab from the sidewalks of Astoria. He also loved playing with dogs at Socrates Sculpture park, as we captured in his Olympics profile video we made back then:

Seeing the detailed renderings of Astoria as animated backgrounds in Kevin had me remembering some of my favorite things about the neighborhood. I also recently came across some old CD-R's (remember them) filled with early 2000's vintage digital photos. I think we used a little Canon Elph during that era.

This is what our apartment looked like, at 31-85 Crescent Street (an architepically confusing Queens street address)

And Anna on our roof at sunset, with both the Hellsgate and RFK Triboro bridges visible in the background. This is peak-Astoria folks!

My life in the early 2000's has a lot fewer digital photo documentation, but my Astoria memories are still strong, some of my favorite spots in the neighborhood were:

Pando Bakery (now defunct, but it made our apartment smell like strawberry shortcake in the morning)

Aliada, (a neighborhood Greek and Cypriot restaurant where I had my first taste of halloumi on a fresh baked pita, I can still summon the feeling and make my mouth water)

The Noguchi Museum

The Museum of the Moving Image

Uncle Louie G's Italian Ice (great for a hot summer day, just checked their website and they have gummy cones?!? which sounds disgusting but i also need to try one)

The Beer Garden where we had our going away party before moving to LA. (there were no citibikes back then)

Sac's Place (our closest pizza place which has since moved to Kaufman Astoria Studios, where I worked on several TV shows. I've been very fortunate in both NYC and LA to live close to my TV work)

A secret block that had no street cleaning, we would park there for several weeks at a time.

It might have been 30th road? I can't remember, it was a long time ago, but looked something like this.

All of this is to say, my Astoria era feels like another lifetime but I'm glad I can access some of those memories watching what I'm fairly sure is the first Astoria-centric cartoon ever on TV. Thank you, Joe!

I hope you'll all watch on May 22nd when the show comes out, until then, here's the trailer. And please know that this falls squarely in the ADULTdepartment of Netflix Animation. Don't be fooled by these cuddly, adorable looking characters- they're filthy:

It's funny to think now that Apple was the underdog in the computer market back in the mid-80's. That's when the whole family shared a computer, and it was in my parents room, and it looked like this:

I think the three most common uses for this computer were:

1. Broderbund Print Shop to make large banners on reams of dot matrix computer paper:

#2 Choplifter

#3 Practicing my Logo programming for my after school computer class

Each of these tasks took a lot of effort, and I think that added to the excitement I felt when I would get new software on a floppy disk, or print a new banner for a family function or birthday card.

The next Apple I had was my very own, and it lived in my room. It was the Macintosh Classic and I loved it and cared for it like a pet. I designed so many pop art masterpieces with MacPaint.

One of my favorite things about this machine was you could get little sound clips that would play when it started up (not sure how I sourced these since it was well before the internet existed). The two I had in heavy rotation were George H.W. Bush saying "I'm president of the United States, and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli." And Bart Simpson saying "Don't have a cow, man!"

I can't remember if the Classic was the Mac I took with me to college, I think it was. Computers were built to last and they were more expensive than they are now, so you really had to commit.

Speaking of commitment, I believe Lynn and I got each other ipods for our wedding in 2003. Or probably we shared one because it was expensive? Idk, it was awhile ago. But that was another very exciting product release from Cupertino.

As you can tell, I was definitely an Apple fanboy (although no one called each other "fanboy" back then). Post-college I even made my first documentary about Mac computer geeks, along with my friend Nate. And of course we edited it on Apple's recent software release, Final Cut Pro. A program that certainly had a huge effect on my entire career. Nate and I went on a Geek Cruise, designed for our fellow Apple-obsessives, and the lead attraction was none other than Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak! I remember him being a sweet goofball and thinking how different the company would have been if he had helmed it instead of the other Steve. I think it was Wozniak's vision for Apple that I fell in love with. It was playful, focused on discovery, and rooted in the counterculture. Steve Jobs' vision was...not that.

Today's Apple products are still great. Like everyone else I probably couldn't survive without my iphone and my macbook. But I do miss when they were the weird underdog. I'll take Tekserve over an Apple Store any day of the week.

My local Apple Store at the Grove is an apt microcosm of this. It's so huge that to look up at the 60 foot ceiling covered in reflective material is disorienting, and kinda makes me feel sick. I know I sound like Andy Rooney, with the unruly eyebrows to match, but I don't like this world-dominant Apple very much. Although I do love seeing the short film experiments that my nephew makes on his iPad. And being able to easily facetime my family across the country. Things I never would have imagined while playing Choplifter on the green monitor of my Apple IIe. I guess you can't make it to 50 without some compromises along the way.

All that said, happy 50th Apple. And happy 50th to me. I wish I had a Print Shop banner to hang for the occasion.

I've always appreciated a graphic tee with a history, and Ryan Gosling's character in Project Hail Mary had a really good collection of them.

I was thinking during the movie, I bet the t-shirt king Perry Shall would get a kick out of this character's t-shirt collection. Then just now in looking up the t-shirts from the film, I saw on Perry's instagram that Gosling wore one of the tees he designed! A couple years back I reached out to Perry to design two concert tees for our Big Mouth Live at the Greek show and he put together this incredible design.

I met Perry a decade ago in Philly when I made this video profile of him for Super Deluxe (rip) and we became friendly. I remain so impressed with his skills as both a graphic designer, a musician, and as a t-shirt collector. This video with him is one of my favorite shorts that I've done.

In the movie, Gosling's shirt collection was a mix between science dork jokes and retro cool. Also, more than one cat related shirt.

WARNING: PROJECT HAIL MARY SPOILERS AHEAD

I only have three quibbles with the way the directors used the character's wardrobe in the film.

One is just casting. Someone as conventionally attractive as Ryan Gosling should not be allowed to wear the dorkiest science joke t-shirts in existence. Dork culture is not a costume! But it's Hollywood, of course they're going to cast a movie star to be a brilliant but misunderstood molecular biologist. I'll allow it.

Twois my pet peeve that only losers in movies ride bikes. I thought for a second when he put on his bike helmet that us cyclists might be able to hold up Gosling as a counterweight against the trope, but then he said "I bike to work because I'm a middle school teacher and I can't afford a car. This helmet is the only thing between me and a very expensive hospital bill." On behalf of the biking community, ouch. At least he wore a helmet though.

And finally, three. As I've established in this trenchant PHM, t-shirt related essay, the film version of Ryland Grace loves cats. He wears multiple cat-related shirts. Yet when Stratt tells him why he's being chosen she says "You have no family. You have no spouse, no children. Your parents are dead. You don't even have a dog." Tough, but fair. But this guy definitely had a cat! And a helluva t-shirt collection.

One of the Hollywood Heritage members introduced the model by giving historical context about the neighborhood at the time the model was built. It's hard to imagine now, but in the 30's and 40's, Hollywood Boulevard was a thriving main street shopping district for a growing city.

The presentation we saw was from an architecture perspective, and she suggested there are many buildings on Hollywood Blvd with gorgeous facades that have been covered up by bad remodels over the years. She said if you look up, you'll see great architecture all the way from Vine street to La Brea. Unfortunately the view at street level is more likely to fill you with despair. No one who lives in LA wants to go see Hollywood Boulevard. I'm no urban planner, but as romantic as this Hollywood architectural history is from a century ago, I think they should build affordable residential units up and down the boulevard. The housing situation in this city is, uh, not great. I'm personally in favor of constructing more units everywhere to address the crisis. See the California YIMBY movement.

As the supply of housing contracts, so does the industry of which I am a part. I like to keep this blog more of a personal outlet than a forum for my takes on current events. Lord knows there are plenty of those out there. But the recent Paramount/Warner Bros consolidation has been a shock to the system, and feels relevant to me personally. I live two blocks south of the Bronson Gate of the Paramount lot, which in the past felt like a charming connection to the history of Hollywood (both the industry and the neighborhood). Now it feels like yet another extension of the corrupt authortarianism creeping across all facets of public life. Not only will this merger lead to thousands of entertainment jobs lost, it will lead to fewer movies that I want to see, and to a right wing takeover of CNN. You know it's bad if the defense secretary is looking forward to it. Sorry, this is turning into a real bummer, not the voice I want for this blog. Here's a funny picture of people taking engagement photos by the Observatory the other day to make up for it:

There are some positives I can see for the city on the horizon though. Nithya Raman has put her YIMBY approach to housing at the center of her campaign for mayor. We have two new subway stations opening in a few weeks. And two more scheduled to open next year. Ride the D! There are also a bunch of infrastructure improvements on tap for the '28 Olympics, including lots of electric buses. Sure, the city could've just kept the Red Cars in place, look how dreamy...

But an increasingly electric vehicle future, especially one with more buses and trains available, might make some progress towards a less car-dependent city. I'm encouraged that lots of younger people I've worked with over the last several years moved to L.A. without a car. That wasn't really a thing when I first moved here 20 years ago.

In actual good news happening now, the increased adoption of zero emissions vehicles has led to a noticeable improvement in the air we breathe. This study from USC Keck Medicine shows that 200 electric vehicles added to a neighborhood can reduce nitrogen dioxide levels by 1.1%, a measurable improvement in air quality. Cool!

Now back to the idea of Hollywood in miniature. I've been taking Miles on hikes to the Observatory before work during the week and we had some of the clearest days I've ever seen recently. Hollywood still looks pretty magical from far away.

Lynn and I don't make a big deal of Valentine's Day, love is a year/lifelong project afterall, but we did go see "Wuthering Heights", apparently Warner Brothers insists that you use the quotes on the title. I would describe Emerald Fennel's style as "kinkier Tim Burton." But if you're looking for an alternate relationship drama from a woman director about two people who have been obsessively intertwined since childhood, allow me to suggest Love & Basketball. It's a great L.A. movie, great basketball movie, great cast, and great feature directorial debut from Gina Prince-Bythewood (fantastic hyphenated name btw).

One of the many things I love about the movie is that, despite being released back in 2000, it takes women's basketball seriously. The WNBA was only a couple years old at the time of filming, but Sanaa Lathan's character is dead serious about making it to the league. Her career journey is equally as important as Omar Epps' character. I'm not going to describe the whole plot here, just want to highly recommend if you've never seen it.

The first thing I wanted to do after Lynn and I watched Love & Basketball a couple years ago was go to a USC women's basketball game, and we got to see Juju Watkins play. She's incredible. We also saw her at the Grove last year and I was so starstruck, I hope she's back on the court soon after her ACL injury.

It was NBA All Star weekend here in L.A. and I looked into getting tickets for some of the lesser events, but they were ridiculously expensive. Not surprised they wound up with a half empty arena. I'm glad that the game itself (or games this year) was competitive, but I spent the early afternoon at a different all star weekend event. New Balance was hosting a round robin 3 v 3 tournament in Lafayette Park, so I rode my bike over and watched a couple of the games.

It was a really fun and free event, featuring several players from the Venice Women's League. The style of play was as tough as their nicknames- MVP Bree, The Legend, Lady White Mamba, Ruth the Truth, Sweet Pea, Fuego, Big E, and I'm forgetting a few. Unlike the MNBA All Star game across town, this one felt accessible and true to the purity of the game. And I got to stand right by the court to take photos.

It was a fun showcase of so much basketball talent in L.A. alone. I hope I get to see them play again, maybe at Venice Beach.

And to bring it back to me and my own Los Angeles basketball experience, I'll leave you with this photo of me at around 12 years old in my official duties as guest ball boy (thanks Uncle Robert!) at a Clippers game at the Sports Arena- a long way from Intuit Dome in both time and distance.

I did spend a day each week at my grandparents apartment in The Parkway House in Philadelphia though, which was enough to give me a pretty strong Philly accent as a tyke. I can still channel it, usually in character as an irate Eagles fan calling into WIP sports radio. Someone on the internet dubbed the accent "hoagiemouth", a term my friend Jon first told me about. I love the idea that on HBO's "Task" and "Mare of Easttown" there are dialect coaches putting intensive training in with accomplished British actors on how to master this ridikilis frickin accent. A reverse "My Fair Lady", A "Mayfair Lady" if you will?

Even though I've never actually lived in Philadelphia, it's been a big part of my identity since I was a kid. Mostly through my lifelong love of the Sixers, I still remember going to see one of Dr. J's last games at the Spectrum, and often falling asleep listening to the radio broadcasts on my boom box.

One of the first things I learned in my job at Buzzfeed was that posts about regional identity were "highly shareable", so I put together this slideshow video that is essentially a free ad for Wawa:

Speaking of Buzzfeed Video, that was where where I met the most iconic Philly expat in L.A.- Quinta Brunson, years before Abbot Elementary made her the (rightful) queen of television. She cast me as the boss in one of her videos because I was a good decade older than everyone else who worked there. When Creed came out I made her go watch it with me at the Arclight. A very ~Philly expat in L.A.~ moment:

Like Quinta, most of the Philly expats I know out here were lured westward by the entertainment business. And I suspect that for some of us, there's a little bit of guilt attached to that move. Like who am I to be living in a place that's warm in February, even if it is frequently on fire. I think the pop culture text that speaks to this most clearly is The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and how out of place Will feels, not only in terms of class but also geographically.

Speaking purely in stereotypes, L.A. is soft, fake, and woo woo- the kind of place where robot cars drive us to movie premieres and landlords want to know your astrological sign before renting you an apartment. Philly is tough, real, and infamous for once kicking the shit out of a robot visitor.

I've lived in L.A. for twenty years and wholeheartedly embrace my veggie burgers, iced matchas, smoothies, pilates, hikes with my dog who is wearing people clothes, etc. etc. But I also love the cultural options brought here by other Philly expats. There's Delco Rose hoagies in Highland Park (with great vegetarian options), and Shappy Pretzels which launched during the pandemic and has taken L.A. by storm. The gathering of Philly expats lined up to get Shappy's pretzels from his pop-up in the Valley in 2020 was something to behold.

Of course, nothing can match the real deal. Hoagies, soft pretzels, and water ice are best when surrounded by the cultural context in which they were conceived. My Ratatouille Food Critic soft pretzel comes with an aftertaste of car exhaust from the I-95 exit ramp, the spot of the pretzel vendor we'd stop at when I was little.

BTW, Joel Embiid, an immigrant from Cameroon, is pure Philly. He's been counted out, fought through pain, roots like crazy for the other sports teams in the city, and once shoved a sports columnist who used the tragedy of his brother's death to question his professionalism. Philadelphians across the spectrum agreed, the columnist should have known better. Possibly my most philly take (even though I'm generally a pacificist) is that Chris Rock also should have known better. If you think you can stand right in front of someone and make fun of their wife's autoimmune diseaseand not get slapped in the face, well then you've never been to Philly. I'm not saying it's right, just that I understand the impulse.

Okay, enough justifying physical assault. This past week was my favorite annual PhiLA tradition (does this PhiLA portmanteau work? I'm trying to come up with an alt for "Philly expats in LA"). This week the Sixers came to town to play the Clippers and the Lakers, and I went to both games with my friend Joe. We first bonded over our Sixers obsession while working on Big Mouth, but I was already a fan of Joe's from his work on my favorite portrayal of Philadelphians/Hoagie Mouth in pop culture, the Pawnsylvania sketch on Kroll Show:

Most normal Sixers fans would probably attend one of the games out here, but I love that Joe always suggests we go to both.

I can't speak for Joe, but I think a big part of the experience is feeling connected to our families back in Philly. A reminder that despite living and working in the land of make believe, we haven't completely lost touch with our Philly grit. Shoutout to Gritty btw, the perfect mascot.

And while I use the term expat lightly, I do actually find it difficult sometimes living across the country from my nuclear family. I'm sure it's not as much of a disconnect as living abroad (as attractive as that sounds these days) but there are challenges nonetheless. During deep covid, one day after telling Lynn I'd probably never shake hands again for the rest of my life, I shook hands with (possibly hugged?) a total stranger on Larchmont because he was in Eagles gear and I was wearing my Sixers jacket.

Being able to share Sixers games with Joe, Shappy Pretzels with friends, and Delco Rose hoagies do actually make me feel more connected to my family, friends, and my younger self.

Another Philly expat working in the world of television comedy is the legend, Christine Nangle who is pushing her pro-Birds agenda to the entire world next week on Fox and Disney Plus. That's right, The Simpsons will be celebrating their 800th episode in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection!

And finally, as much as I claim my Philly identity...my nibling's portrait of me from years ago reveals the ugly truth. No matter how much I chafe against it, I'm a Californian now. It says it right there on my shirt, right below my gorgeous, feminine lips.

Part of what brought me to the festival this year was a tribute to my friend Randall. I've known Randall since 2012 when he was in an indie film with Lynn called The People I've Slept With and it's been exciting to see his career take off since then. As often happens if you're fortunate enough to work in the entertainment business long enough, we even got to work together on a project a few years ago called Human Resources, a spinoff of Big Mouth in which he played a logic rock named Pete.

It was a joy getting to hear Janet and Randall in conversation covering many of the highlights of his career along with clips, my only note being the lack of Human Resources inclusion, but that's what happens when you've been in too many projects to count! One of my other favorite Randall projects was given its due, Baby Mentalist , perhaps the greatest procedural not on television.

My personal theme for the weekend was old friends, and I got to spend the day with one of my oldest friends (in terms of length of friendship, not age) Anthony Veneziale. As a long time San Franciscan, and comedy heavyweight in his own right, Anthony has also performed at Sketchfest several times over the years. We got our start performing together in school musicals and it's also been a pleasure watching Anthony's career ascend over the years. Here's a photo of us in the elementary school Halloween parade in 1985, I'm not sure why I was dressed as Mr. T since my family didn't even have a television at the time, I guess A-Team was that popular:

And here we are 40 years later at a tea shop in Chinatown, after being educated on various tea varietals by a white man with a goatee wearing a mandarin-collared shirt. Keep in mind, this is coming from someone who wore a Mr. T mask for Halloween in the 80's, but hoping there's a statute of limitations on crimes of cultural appropriation.

Is there a German word for the unique, soul-nourishing feeling of spending time with someone as an adult who you've known throughout your life? Whatever that word is, I really felt that last weekend and am grateful for it.

The other highlight for me was just getting to be a tourist in one of my favorite walking cities in the world. I started the day off with a walk to Coit Tower, which I've seen from afar but had never been to, and ended up with over 20,000 steps that day. I also ended up having two dinners (!), and I rarely go out for even one dinner! The first was with Anthony at House of Nanking where of course he was on a first name basis with the owners, that's very much the Anthony I know. And the second was at House of Prime Rib (so many houses!) with Randall, and a music idol of mine, Dan the Automator. I couldn't have engineered a more ideal day in San Francisco if I tried, although I was sorry to miss my Aunt Jo who was busy on Saturday but to me is the human embodiment of everything I love about that city. No hyperlinks for Aunt Jo, she's off the grid and proud of it!

Here are some photo highlights from my day of wandering:

As I eluded to earlier, there's a long tradition of a (mostly one sided) San Francisco / Los Angeles rivalry in that Angelenos don't seem to really care much about it. I've learned to love LA over the years I've lived here, but for me it takes no effort at all to love San Francisco. So in my heart the Bay Area wins that battle handily. And a weekend spent there exploring solo, then with close friends from different eras of my life is hard to beat. Thanks for the Lebenswegbegleitergeborgenheit, SF and I'll see you next year at Sketchfest!

So, I'm actually not sure if I'm using Claude Code or just regular Claude, because I truly barely know what I'm doing, but whatever it is it seems to be working so far. I know there are very legitimate objections to using AI, and this is probably a rationalization on my part, but vibecoding websites feels like one of the less problematic uses of this technology. I'm not taking a job away from anyone, these are sites that no one else would have any interest in building and are not profit-generating. Also, I don't think generating html code is anywhere near as resource intensive as generating video. And now that AI is completely integrated into everything that Google does, it's hard for me to see a clear separation between using AI and using the internet. I know it's bleak, but anytime you do anything online there's a resource cost. Which is bad! But from my limited understanding of the AI companies, Claude is the least bad in that they haven't completely jettisoned their ethics department and their CEO at least pays lip service to ethics and safety concerns. Like I said before, I'm mostly finding ways to justify these new vibecoding experiments because I have fun playing around with them. My first ever experiments with computer programming were in elementary school using the Logo programming language on an Apple II. It looked like this and I felt like an actual wizard being able to move the "turtle" around the screen:

I remember my friend Michael Rattner and I also built our version of a computer dating program in BASIC that would randomly match kids in our fourth grade class with other classmates of the opposite sex. In our wildest 1987 imaginations we never would have dreamt of same sex pairings. I'm sure Michael did most of the coding work considering the fact that he became an actual engineer as an adult making life-saving nanotechnology whereas I edit dirty cartoons for a living. To think, we could have founded Tinder! The computer language we used looked something like this:

Well, I've got some serious vibecoding to get back to. See you at the Venice Film Festival!

Her screenprinting work reminds me of my grandmother's aesthetic who had these really cool prints lining the top of the wall in her bedroom. I'm not sure who the artist was but they made a big impression on me as a little kid.

Last weekend Lynn and I went to see the wonderful exhibit of Corita's photography work at the Marciano Art Foundation. If you're in LA, the exhibit ends on January 24th and I highly recommend a visit. In the large room on the first floor, they set up a screen that cycles through over a thousand different projected images from her slide film collection.

Corita's photos are bright, colorful, funny, and give you a sense of her daily life in the 1960's at Immaculate Heart college near Griffith Park. There were lots of outdoor festivals and tonsof photos of cookies. And the slide projections at the museum were just beautiful to look at.

Corita clearly had a vibrant, lively community around her and getting to see so many of her slide photos projected in that space feels like a time machine back to a very different era of Los Angeles. I know comparison is the thief of joy and all, but Corita's 1960's LA looks better than our contemporary one. Her photography is unpretentious, humanist, and I found it very inspring.

For those who don't know, I decided that in lieu of a fiftieth bday party this year I wanted to mount my own little gallery show. Did you know you can just rent a gallery like an airbnb? My friend Dimitri told me about this app called Peerspace which was very easy to use and I booked the first gallery space that popped up on the site. I then went through my own large archive of about 18,000 photos (aka my iphoto library) and picked some of my favorites to get printed and, like Corita said will hopefully add "perhaps a bit of color to everydayness."

I know I'm not anywhere near the artist or photographer that Corita was, but her work and her mission really speak to me. Lynn suggested I make my gallery prints available for purchase after the show as a fundraiser. I don't know if anyone will be interested enough in them to want to hang them in their home- but if so, proceeds will go to the Corita Art Center which carries on her mission of democratizing art and working towards social justice in our community. Heck, you could also donate to notto take home one of my photos if you want.

Thank you, Corita ❤️

It's a busy day back at work today, but I just wanted to post this photo of the 2026 bagels at boichik, and announce that I will notbe giving up carbs as a new year's resolution.

I generally prefer a more classic bagel and am not a big fan of the super crusty outsides of a Courage or Mustard's here in LA that can tear up the roof of your mouth. My favorite LA bagel is Maury's which I wasn't able to find a photo of...but with that in mind, here are some other favorite pictures of bagels that I did find in my photo library throughout the years.

I've been going to Roots concerts for 30 years, a fact that should make me feel old but actually brings me solace. There's something both comforting and inspiring to me about the greatest drummer/documentary director of all time continuing to lead a band for three decades. I've probably seen them at least 30 times over the years and can mark different periods of my life by Roots shows. They are my Grateful Dead.By the way, I recommend this soundtrack to accompany this post for a multimedia experience.

My first Roots concert was at their home stage, the TLA on South Street, right around the time when Do You Want More came out in 1995. I think I went with my friend Anthony Veneziale AKA Two-Touch? I'm not sure, it was a little while ago.

TLA (Theater of the Living Arts) also happens to be the site where my parents received their first Covid vaccines, so it has an extra special place in my heart:

Other locations where I've seen The Roots over the years include, but are not limited to:

The Bataclan, Paris

MoCon Hall at Wesleyan (click through for a very Wesleyan headline)

Mt. Holyoke College

Bowery Ballroom, NYC

Irving Plaza, NYC

The Wiltern, LA

The triggedy-troc-troc-troc Trocadero, Philly

Tramps, NYC

Wetlands, NYC

The Greek Theater, LA

Los Angeles Food & Wine Festival

The Hollywood Bowl

Several of those venues are no longer with us, several founding members of The Roots are no longer with us, but the band continues on.

There was also the summer of 1997 when I was staying in Richmond, Virginia while working on a TNT movie called The Day Lincoln Was Shot.

So anyway, I was living at a hotel/motel/holiday inn in Richmond, VA for a few weeks and one morning I came down to the lobby and was so excited to see the whole band checking into the same hotel. They were in town to play the Smoking Grooves festival and I'm sure I was devastated to have to miss it for work. I ran to get my CD sleeve (remember this was 1997) and Questlove graciously signed it and I think we chatted for a minute or two. I was in my early twenties and was beyond starstruck. I still have that signed CD sleeve which I maintain is a better memento than a selfie. Physical media is better! Dont at me.

For true Roots nerds, there's nothing better for learning about the history of the band than Season 4 of the "What Had Happened Was" podcast. Questlove shares so many great stories about the early years of the group, which were essentially pre-internet so fans really didn't know about the behind the scenes minutiae. It also put me right back into that time period.

But now as I approach my 50th birthday and the feelings that come along with it, I think about Questlove turning 50 in 2021.

Someone who I still associate with my youth is now fully in his 50's and fully someone who I fully look up to on so many levels. As a writer, as a musician obvi, as a DJ, as a Philadelphia cultural ambassador, and of course as an Oscar-winning documentary director. He makes the idea of turning 50 seem like something to look forward to rather than dread. As does my friend, and hip-hop concert buddy Randall Park who had a great fifitieth birthday party last year and got to rap with The Roots on The Tonight Show earlier this year. What a thrill:

I was ruminating on the passage of time last night, as one tends to do on New Year's Eve. Unfortunately Lynn was feeling sick and couldn't go with me to the concert, so I started out the evening feeling a little sorry for myself that I was the only one at Disney Hall celebrating the new year alone. Feeling a little sorry for myself, like The Roots, is something that's been with me for most of my adult life.

But then the band started playing and I wasn't thinking about myself, or about years passing by, or about anything at all. I was clapping my hands, stomping my feet, and up dancing alongside the stranger next to me. The Roots did that. And they keep on doing that. And they make me feel grateful to be alive, and still moving to the beat.

We shall, proceed ❤️

my favorite book:

This is exciting folks, it's a three-way tie! I generally get my book recs from The New Yorker's best books list that constantly updates, Lynn, friends at work, and my local bookstore Chevalier's. I generally read genre fiction on my kindle and ipad, while more literary stuff I usually buy in hardcover. I love recommending books to friends and these are the three that I'd recommend most this year.

This one really made me laugh (and think!) and I tore through it pretty quickly. It feels very much of the moment, and the characters felt totally real to me. I know some books are described as hilarious when they're really just witty, or wry, but this one did make me laugh out loud a couple times. But mostly I just loved Erin Somers' voice and look forward to reading more of her work.

This one also felt very current as the inciting incident involves a car accident that may or may not be the fault of an autonomous driving system. I thought he did a great job of interrogating the ethical decisions wrapped up in the ways we use AI and machine learning in 2025. The conversations the youngest character has with her chatbot were especially effective and memorable.

I actually still have about 100 pages left to read in this epic, but I can confidently say it's still one of my faves of the year. The author Kiran Desai has been working on it for a decade, and it shows. Her writing is funny, expansive, and cinematic. I can fully picture the places and people that Desai describes. Her vivid descriptions of the Goa region of India reminded me of the Mia Hansen-Love film Maya that I also really enjoyed. I want to Goa to there. And if you're looking for a soundtrack to accompany the India sections of the book, I've been enjoying listening to the Anoushaka Shankar essentials playlist.

my favorite movie:

Okay, this is unprecedented-- it's another three way tie!!! What are the chances???

I know 2025 wasn't a great year for the movie business, but in terms of my own personal moviegoing, it was a great year indeed. I don't think I could even name my favorite this year, so I'm going to pick the 3 movies I saw twice in the theater. It's rare for me to want to see something more than once, but there were a few things that Lynn wasn't able to go to and I wanted to see again. And they are these:

I blogged earlier about how much I love Joachim Trier. I enjoyed seeing this twice to pick up on some of the visual details I missed the first time around.

I loved it, it's such a moviemovie. I think my friend John said that Leo's character is the ultimate middle aged Gen X archetype, and I agree. To anyone who feels too old (or too stoned) for the revolution- One Battle sees us.

I went to see 28 Years Later expecting a diverting zombie movie, and was excited to see what Danny Boyle and his director of photography could do with an army of iphones. I remember being blown away by his use of a miniDV camera to shoot 28 Days Later back in 2002. Both approaches feel so immediate and inspiring to filmmakers who want to use whatever equipment they have on hand and go film something. What I wasn't expecting, was the emotional impact of the movie. I thought the performances, especially Jodie Comer and Alfie Williams were so great that I had to bring Lynn to my second sitting (and warn her about the super gross parts, of which there were many). Still, never thought I would tear up at a 28 Days Later movie.

I'm also realizing now that all three of my faves listed here could be seen as interrogations of what it means to be a father. I feel like that's been a big theme of the year, I think a lot of big directors were doing a lot of big introspection post-pandemic.

my favorite tv:

No tie here, it's Task. I really loved Task, and not just because it took place outside Philly. But there is something very funny to me about dialect coaches training these highly accomplished actors from the United Kingdom in how to speak "hoagiemouth."

my favorite podcast episode of my favorite podcast:

I'm not going to say anything about this, just listen. It's really special. I love Heavyweightand so glad it's back.

my favorite sports moment:

Watching VJ Edgecomb drain this clutch game winning three last night. Especially because I got to watch with the family. Very Joyous

And now it's time to wrap up my cultural faves of the year and get ready to go see my all time concert fave, The Roots. They're playing two New Year's Eve shows tonight at Walt Disney Concert Halland we are going to the early one, obviously.

See you in the new year! 🥂

I went back through my 2025 pics and found the most memorable days and here they are. All in all, I'm glad to say I had a pretty great year...

25. February 14th

Eagles Super Bowl Parade Day

24. June 7th

Locked down in our house for hours while police responded to a home invasion at a neighbor's house.

Not to blame the victim, but our neighbors keep approximately half a million dollars worth of luxury cars in their driveway. Their house has been robbed 3 times. It's also a really ugly house, imo which is not relevant but just wanted to get that on the record. Watching the manhunt up close was oddly entertaining though.

23. June 28th

We bought a Nintendo Switch 2

As pointed out by my nephew who can keep tabs on our Nintendo playing as we are Nintendo friends- Lynn and I played 155 hours of Zelda this year. And I don't regret one minute of it. Since the NES days, Zelda has always been therepeutic for me during difficult times.

22. November 1st

Dodgers win the world series, Abe goes to the movies

21. October 18th

No Kings, part 2

20. June 14th

No Kings, part 1

19. July 14th

A one day trip to Vegas for NBA Summer League

As I've established in previous blog posts, IFLB (i fucking love basketball 🏀)

Only true sickos brave July in Las Vegas to see NBA hopefuls and incoming rookies compete for a roster spot. This is my second year in a row attending, and Lynn came along this time for the hotel stay, she did not watch basketball.

18. October 22nd

Calder Gardens

17. August 23rd

Abbie's bday party 🎉

Abbie and her partner Matt moved here this year and have been testing out various neighborhoods around LA. Over the summer they were in a lovely house on Beverly Glen. Their latest place is on Venice right near the beach, which I'm glad they enjoy but is too far awayand I really enjoy hanging out with them.

16. March 28th

Titmouse 5 Second Day at Vidiots

Titmouse Animation, my employer (even though I work at Netflix, it's complicated), puts together a great short film festival each year where animators create whatever they want and then all of the micro-shorts are shown together on the big screen.

15. September 15th

Saving Face at Vidiots

I've been to many Saving Face screenings over the past 20 years but this was my favorite one. In honor of the film's addition to the Criterion Collection (!!!), Vidiots hosted a Q&A screening with Lynn, Michelle, and Alice and it was a really special event. They stayed for over an hour after the Q&A ended to talk to fans, the movie means so much to so many people.

**14.**May 31st

Hoagies come to Los Angeles

Delco Rose quickly became my top destination for weekend bikerides.

13. September 7th

Miles Chenwald's literary debut. A very proud dog dad moment

Miles did a photoshoot in fall 2024 and the book finally came out in September. I took him to a book event at The Row in DTLA to meet and greet some of his fans. Unfortunately the book event at our local bookstore, Chevalier's, was canceled after it got caught up in an unrelated bookstore controversy related to the war in Gaza. I shit you not. Also, i did not realize it was mentioned in the paper of record until I searched just now.

Miles tries not to get caught up in international affairs and will not be issuing a statement at this time. But he was very happy with the goodie bag at the launch event we attended.

12. November 26th

Thanksgiving Eve at Heidi & Robert's

Unfortunately Lynn threw her back out so Thanksgiving was kind of a wash for us this year. But I was glad to get some quality family time in the night before, and celebrate Cousin Zeke's bday. He's a photographer now and I got to see his camera setup, pretty sweet.

11. November 5th

Goodbye party for Jose

Our neighbor Devon organized a neighborhood pot luck dinner to say goodbye to Jose (left in the photo below) who worked for several years as a gardener for many houses in our neighborhood.

For reasons you can probably guess, Jose decided to move to Mexico last month. It was bitersweet saying goodbye, but it was nice that so many neighbors showed up to give him a proper sendoff. He's a photographer as well and took some cool 360 degree video of the dinner. He plans to spend some time fishing in Baja before he decides where he'll land, but he will certainly be missed around the neighborhood.

10. May 20th

Big Mouth Farewell tour

9. May 1st

Guest teaching at Mr. Forstein's video production class

8. July 25th

Harriet's Summer Acting Camp performance

I think Google Gemini messed with our faces in addition to adding the emoji to Harriet, but I really did have a moustache in July. Also my hair IRL is not thinning like you see here, it's as thick and luxuriant as it was when i was in high school.

Harriet (our goddaughter) was a great Wendy in her scene from Peter Pan. And even though the entire show's runtime was pushing 3 hours to accomodate all of the campers, it was a joy to see her on stage. It was also a joy to see a scene from The Social Network performed entirely by children. Highly recommend if you ever get the chance.

7. August 8th

Filming a soccer match in Copenhagen

I did a day of filming for a project about a group of Americans who pooled their resources and bought a storied Danish football team. I hadn't been in the field filming documentary footage for several years and forgot how much I enjoy it. Hopefully there will be more to come in 2026.

6. August 9th

Vacationed at the Danish Seaside

After filming, I traveled an hour north of Copenhagen to a gorgeous town called Gilleleje. It all looked like a fairytale. I biked along coastal roads and through forest bike trails to a 17th century castle.

5. October 24th

Visited Cousin Finn at Wesleyan

I had a great time with my cousins, and I'm still thinking about that pizza at least twice a day.

4. January 20th

Brother Orange gets its first (and only) published review

I started working on this doc in 2015 and there were many times over the last decade I thought it would never see the light of day. But 2025 turned out to be the year. And while it wasn't a big release by any means, it made it to all the places I hoped it would. I'm really glad people can finally see it.

3. January 7th

How It Started vs How It Ended

I don't have anything to say about the fires that hasn't already been said. But I'm glad I got to be with my mommy and daddy (and Abbie!) on a lovely start to a truly horrific day.

2. May 24th

Faroe Islands trip with Matt

The photos below weren't all from the same day, but this was one of my favorite travel experiences ever and will definitely loom large in my memory. I'm so glad to have experienced it, and Matt did a great job chronlicling it for buzzfeed.

Btw, everything I learned about blogging I learned from Matt, and Lynn. They've been doing it for over a decade each, I've been doing it for 3 months. But it's been a really pleasurable outlet for me so far, especially after quitting all my social media cold turkey earlier this year.

1. April 29th

Brother Orange Screening at Regal Essex Crossing

Getting to see it on the big screen with so many friends and relatives in attendance was my highlight of the year. I'll also include a couple photos that friends sent of seeing it on airlines, which was also really exciting, but it wasn't available on any of my flights.

I was really happy with how it looked and sounded, and it was extra fun to have it showing in a multiplex. I'm grateful to Peggy Wang and Sam Linder for all their work in setting it up. And the lead projectionist at the Regal Essex is my new best friend, he took great care of me in my pre-screening anxiety.

There you have it, 25 memorable days for '25. And if you've made it through this entire post then chances are your name is Wendy Forman. Thanks for reading, Mom! Happy Hannukah!

Love, Abe ❤️

Rilo Kiley at the Greek (Oct 18)

Noah Cyrus at The Ford Amphitheater (July 11)

Saya Gray at The Roxy (May 6)

Cymande at the Bellwether (Feb 28)

This was a show I never thought I'd see in my life. My friend Jon Forstein introduced me to them in high school, and they had already disbanded decades before. Words can't do justice to this band, and how much they mean to their fans. The fact that they reunited so many decades later and I got to be right up front watching and listening, I don't think I've ever been so grateful to be at a show. If you're so inclined, watch the documentary Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande. Their journey is totally unique, I guarantee no other bassist from a 70's band became the attorney general of Anguilla after their band broke up.

Jay Som at The Roxy (Nov 25)

And last but not least, my goddaugther Harriet fronted a band of adorable junior rock stars at a kid performance group called Kid Row. I think it was technically in 2024, but I've seen all her shows and she really shines on stage.

As a daily bikerider in car-centric Los Angeles, I've become quite used to being the odd person out. At least most drivers are pretty friendly to cyclists here though (hahaha, jk, can you imagine?) But once every three months or so, like magic, Ciclavia takes over a different part of the city and suddently there are tens of thousands of other bikeriders joining me on gloriously car-free streets. It's like a glimpse of a better urban way to operate, if only for a day. The event was inspired by an open streets event in Bogota Colombia that began over 50 years ago. Residents wanted to see what it would be like to close down a few miles of city streets and make them human-powered only (bikes, pedestrians, skateboards, rollerskaters, etc.) I'm eternally grateful to the Angelenos who followed their lead and brought the same concept to LA back in 2010.

I could fill several blog posts with gripes about the way cyclists are treated in this city on a normal day, but this is just a celebration of the festival atmosphere that Ciclavia brings. I'm always amazed that so many people take part, its a real if you build it they will come type situation.

I've participated in probably a dozen or so Ciclavias in total. And the one on Sunday was one of the most unique as it was in collaboration with Netflix to celebrate the final season of Stranger Things. Thanks to my Netflix corporate overlords for writing what I assume was a pretty hefty check to Ciclavia for this event. I also heard several bikeriders who had never been to a Ciclavia before saying they can't wait to attend more, which is great.

And I'm glad Stranger Things got a lot of people out and ready to bike in LA, especially the adults. I read recently about the trope that in American pop culture, riding a bike signifies that the character is a loser. I don't find this trope personally triggering, but it is interesting that Hollywood has dedicated itself to denigrating the idea that adults could actually enjoy riding a bike and not be the object of ridicule. I did my small part, filming a video with Pee-wee Herman for Funny or Die years ago in celebration of his outlaw, bicycle riding spirit. Rest in power Pee-wee:

Sorry, I've lost the thread a bit with my self-righteousness and self-aggrandizement. The purpose of this post is to celebrate Ciclavia so here are some of my favorite moments from the Stranger Things-focused event on Sunday as well as some other Ciclavias from years past:

And finally, here's some photos from previous Ciclavia events, and just general photos of enjoying bicycling in LA.

go bikes, go birds, and see you at the next Ciclavia

Three hours north of San Francisco is a town that I've visited twice now, but am still not convinced that it actually exists. Jutting out from redwood forests into the rugged Northern California coast is a town filled with quaint victorian houses and storefronts from the 1850's. As legend has it, the first white settlers discovered it after their shipwreck stranded them in this beautiful spot full of huge trees that were ripe for logging. Migration followed from Maine, Norway, Denmark and other areas with strong logging industries and they helped support the infrastructure for the gold rush. This combination of coastal beauty, dense redwood forests, and wooden structures from the 1800's combine to create something that feels to me like a fairytale. Especially when you arrive there on the same day of leaving the suburban sprawl of Los Angeles. To me, it's basically Brigadoon.

After the logging industry dried up, Mendocino fell on hard times economically (I imagine it still remained beautiful). Then in the 1950's the Mendocino Art center was built and attracted a different sort of crowd who wanted to preserve the town's natural beauty and historical significance of it's architecture.

In 1971 residents established Mendocino as a historic district which protected all of the facades of the town's buildings to keep them looking the way they did in the 1850's. As at least 90 percent of this blog's readers know, I grew up in Carversville, PA which is also designated as a historic district with similar rules about keeping the buildings in town looking the way they looked in the mid-1800's. I think that combined with the New England feel of the town is part of the reason I feel so comfortable there.

So after a solo trip a few years ago, I've been wanting to return with Lynn and after a couple delays, we finally made it this week. Here are just some of the things I love about it:

I also downloaded AllTrails pro for the first time since I knew the area would have no cellphone coverage and wanted to be able to download the trail map ahead of time. One thing it didn't tell me was that I had to ford a small stream, it felt very Carversville, PA. I took off my shoes and socks and walked through the cold water, like a real nature boy!

When it's not cloudy, the Mendocino Sunsets are pretty nice.

Lynn and I also like watching movies and TV that were filmed in the place we're visiting. Chat GPT wasn't too helpful on the Mendocino filming locations, but this book I saw at the increcible Gallery Bookshop was quite helpful on the topic.

We really enjoyed watching a Murder, She Wrote where Mendocino plays the Maine town of Cabot Cove.

The website even advertises the room where they acted out their affair! Speaking of affairs, I'm currently enjoying The Ten Year Affair, by Erin Somers. I bet they'll make it into a movie or show, but it won't be with Alan Alda and that's a shame.

Back to Mendocino, one more thing I love are these water towers that are all over town. You can even stay in one that was converted into a hotel.

Considering the fact that tourism is now the main industry in town, I don't have to sell anyone on visiting this unique village. But it makes me happy to know that with a short flight from Burbank, followed by windy but beautiful drive from Santa Rosa, I can go back and visit again someday and be charmed all over again. Unless I was right the first time and it's not actually real. If you see it, let me know.

Blog Post, He Wrote.

The other New Yorker piece that asked the question was Emily Nussbaum's epic bio of Keri Russell, "Keri Russell's Emotional Transparencey Has Anchored Three Decades of TV" which includes this passage:

I have no idea if it's the case, but I would guess there are plenty of former child actors who have mostly fond memories of the experience. I was never on TV as a kid, but I did get paid to perform in a traveling production of "The Music Man" when I was 15. And at that time in my life, I really loved acting. I recently found a personal essay I wrote at that time and I was absolutely bereftabout returning to the monotony of high school after a summer spent with theaterfolk. And I mostly enjoyed high school!

Anyway, after a week in which I happened to watch multiple movies starring Elle Fanning, I got to thinking about some of my favorite child actor performances. The one that jumps to mind first is Gaby Hoffman as Opal Ingles in Nora Ephron's directorial debut "This Is My Life"

She's so funny and real, her performance totally makes the movie. With all due respect to the goddess Nora Ephron, Gaby was better known for her string of other performances as a young actor: Field of Dreams, Sleepless In Seattle, Now and Then, Uncle Buck, etc. And speaking of Uncle Buck, I just found this amazing quote from an interview when she was 10 years old talking about her costar:

She also grew up to be a great adult actor, I particularly liked "C'mon C'mon" which featured another incredible child performance by Woody Norman, a kid I had no idea was British until reading about him after watching the movie! The French kid in Anatomy of a Fall was also great (maybe not as great as the dog though). I also really responded to child actors back when I was a kid myself, the one that really stands out in my memory was Christian Bale in Empire of the Sun. I even convinced my chorus director to let me sing the Welsh song his boy choir sings to open the film, but I was too lazy to learn the Welsh so I sang it in English.

I guess what I'm trying to say with all this is, like with magic mushrooms, child acting is all about set and setting. If you have a director who treats children well, and the kids themselves love acting, I think they should act. Maybe we can make the entertainment business a healthier experience for all, including children who love acting. Hey, a kid can dream.

I don't think I had seen a Norweigian movie until The Worst Person In The World, part of Joachim Trier's Oslo trilogy. Part of it must have been that I saw it in 2021, when international travel was still mostly at a standstill, but I got it into my head that I needed to go to Oslo. The way he uses locations in his films makes you (you meaning Americans, or at least me personally as an American) want to immediately go to Norway and see if it looks and feels as magical as it does on screen.

In July of 2023 I decided to go on my first big solo trip, and got to visit Bergen and Oslo. Not to take away from Joachim Trier's talent, he's one of my favorite directors now, but I have the feeling that anywhere you aim a camera in Norway you're going to capture something beautiful. Last night I went to see an early Q&A screening of his new film Sentimental Value, or Affeksjonsverdi in Norwegian.

The house at the center of the film made me want to hop on a plane and go right back to Oslo, might be a good idea to wait until summer though.

According to the Thread, it's owned by rocker Lars Lillo-Stenberg and I suspect he's about to get visited by a bunch of film nerds like me after seeing the film. Looking at the map, it's pretty close to the hotel I stayed at (my all time fave btw) and I'm bummed I didn't happen to walk by it while I was there.

I could do a whole other post about how great this hotel was, but my favorite thing about it was it introduced me to contrast therapy (alternating cold plunge with hot sauna). Thankfully it has become trendy lately and there are places I can do it here in LA, but they don't look like this!

Even without a fancy hotel stay, the Oslo fjord has floating saunas right on the water, across from the Opera House, so you can get your contrast high the natural way.

There were lots of things I loved about visiting Oslo in the summer, things I suspected might be the case from watching Worst Person In The World, but wasn't sure.

1. The center of the city is heavily restricted to automobiles, so it's much quieter than other cities

2. You can easily walk pretty much anywhere in the city, whether you're following links to locations from Worst Person In the World, or even if you are a normal person who doesn't do that

3. It stays light until almost midnight in the summer so you can easily walk back from a bar after meeting a family of musicians who performed there at an open mic and were super friendly and their daughter challenged you to an arm wrestling session and pinned your arm in about 2 seconds

4. Rubarb soda, I need to start importing this stuff. It would kill in LA for sure.

5. There's more than one Munch version of The Scream, but you can just walk right up to the iconic one in the national museum. There's no Mona Lisa-esque line or protective glass or anything. If any art thieves are reading this blog, pretend I never said that.

6. Speaking of museum thieves, the coat rack is unattended and just on the honor system. Not a raincoat thief in sight.

7. You might run into your friend (aquaintance?) Lisa Ling outside the Opera House

8. There are houses that look like this right in the middle of the city. I didn't know cities were allowed to have adorable houses in them before Oslo. Joachim Trier sure did tho.

9. I figured out using context clues at the bookstore that "Best Sellers" are Ti På Topp in Norwegian.

10. The bookstore was, of course, the location of Julie's workplace in Worst Person In The World, and they had the appropriate signate to commemorate it.

11. Their bakeri game was legit

13. The sculpture park is wild. One guy made 200 freaky sculptures.

14. Families don't seem to have the same hangups about nudity as many Americans. This girl's parents were laughing and taking pics as she held up this statue's bare ass.

15. The public parks look like this. Again, I've only been in the summer.

A big thank you to Joachim Trier for showing me how special Oslo is, and for making great, humanist cinema that speaks to people around the world.

If there are two things Angelnos love, it's the Dodgers and fireworks. And both were on full display Saturday night in the most epic World Series conclusion I've ever seen. I'm glad I didn't have a strong rooting interest, because that was some of the most tense baseball I can imagine. I was happy for the city that the Dodgers won, it's been a tough year here in a string of tough years. I was also happy to see on Halloween night that all these kids were into the team, and cared about baseball. Demographically it's been established over the last decade plus that baseball is increasingly a game for old, white men. Not so much in LA. The fanbase is 40 percent Latino, the games are broadcast in English, Spanish, and Korean. One of the defining non-baseball moments during the regular season, and the height of the ICE protests was when Nezza ignored the team's request and sang the national anthem in Spanish.

I found it incredibly inspiring, and a moment of hope in a dark time when even the beloved Dodgers lacked the courage to stand up for their fanbase. Judging from the reaction of the city after the back-to-back world series win, I think most people are still ride or die Dodger fans for life. Basically everyone I saw at the Burbank airport on my recent trip was decked out like this guy:

And obviously it's not just the Latino fanbase that the team has cultivated, the Japanese community has embraced the team. There were three very stylish Japanese fans sitting next to me in the upper deck when I went to a Phillies Dodgers game in the NLDS, which already seems like months ago:

The stands reflected the multicultural nature of the city, and even though I'll always be a Phillies fan, this is a very easy Dodgers team to like. When Lynn and I traveled to Japan a couple years ago, I got an Ohtani t-shirt to wear and bonded with a few older Japanese men on the street who spoke no English. Our entire conversation was "older man: Ohtani?? me: Ohtani!" And we both smiled. I think they also liked that I was wearing a Yakult Swallows hat, they're the Tokyo team that lives in the shadow of the more celebrated Yomiuri Giants. They're also Haruki Murakami's favorite team, so I was already inclined to support them before we happened upon their team shop.

So even though the World Series win was hard on our dog Miles (because of the aforementioned fireworks), I'm glad they were able to bring some unity and civic pride to this disjointed city I reluctantly call home.

If you're looking for the epicenter of trick-or-treating in Los Angeles, look no further than Hancock Park, a few blocks south from where I live. Last night was my first time diving right in and helping my friends Andrew and Colleen with the herculean (but fun!) task of handing out candy to hundreds, maybe even over a thousand? It was a constant stream of adorable kids of all ages and I brought along the pocket camera I got for my east coast trip last week, which I'm having a very hard time returning to Amazon. Real talk, I think I'm keeping this camera.

Seeing hundreds of adorable kids in costumes, handing out a full drugstore aisle's worth of candy, and a World Series game 6 win for all the excited Dodger fans made for a pretty perfect and memorable Halloween night.

Back in 2012 I worked as a producer for an online news and discussion site called HuffPost Live, which was broadcast from AOL headquarters in Beverly Hills. I got to cosplay as a live television producer, but without the high stakes of broadcast TV. I did get to pitch and produce a lot of entertainment related segments, which I really enjoyed. I even got to bring on Richard Linklater and Julie Delpy to talk about Before Midnight, truly a dream!

Another segment I pitched was a thing I called "Box Office Time Machine" where we would compare the weekend's top earners to the top of the box office on the same weekend 20 years before. I think we even had Mr. Moviefone on to host it since he was right there in the building. I don't think viewers particularly liked it, and there's no record on the internet that it ever existed...but I'm pretty sure I was able to get it on Huffpost and didn't imagine the whole thing.

So I wanted to check and see what Halloween weekend looked like at the box office

I don't keep track of new releases the way I did when I was younger, but I've literally never heard of Chainsaw Man- The Movie: Reze Arc and it's number 1 at the box office. The only one I've seen on this list is Tron: Ares, which I enjoyed, and I think I'm probably one of a very exclusive club to have seen each Tron in the theater. My cineaste cousin Finn sent me this meme about Tron that very much spoke to me:

Now let's take a look at Halloween weekend 2005:

I think the only one on this list that I've seen is Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which was great. And now looking back, I realize that I would begin working on an Aardman animation show Creature Comforts America the following year. I loved that job. It only lasted one season on CBS, and I cried driving home in my convertible on my last day because I was so sad it was over. The most recent Wallace and Gromit was also great, and released by my current employer Netflix.

I asked a netflix animation exec if they could acquire Creature Comforts since they're in business with Aardman already, but that was about a year ago so I'm guessing there's no announcement imminent.

Happy Halloween, watch Wallace & Gromit, and I'll see YOU at the MOVIES!

And my favorite writer from all of my decades of reading the magazine is Susan Orlean. She has a line in her new memoir Joy Ride that I think explains why I connect with her storytelling style:

"Writers fall into two categories: There are those who have something they want to say to the world, and there are those who believe the world has something to tell them. I’m wholly of the second sort."

I found Joy Ride to be truly inspiring in terms of how Susan approaches and harnesses the creative spark. I've always felt in sync with the way she views the world, as well as her curiousity about the lives of other people (and animals!) Many passages in Joy Ride felt just as applicable to my feelings about making documentaries, especially this one:

"The single essential element in good writing is confidence. You need swagger to be a writer at all, to be convinced that readers should listen to you. You must believe passionately that you have something to say. Someone else might have the same observations, but in choosing to be a writer, you choose to broadcast your observations and reckon that they are of value. It’s a state of mind, a matter of willing yourself to trust yourself."

There were so many times during the 10 year (!) odyssey of finishing my feature documentary, Brother Orange (now available on AppleTV, Amazon, Kanopy, tubi, Air France, Air Canada, KLM, Emirates) that I struggled with the question of whether anyone else would believe in this story the way I did. The fact that it's now available in all of these places feels really validating, and I especially love the idea that people get to experience it while hopefully traveling long distances to see their dear friends.

Speaking of unlikely friendship origin stories, I became friends with Susan first on Twitter and then in real life back around 2011. The internet still felt like a place for whimsy and discovery to me back then, and much less so now, which is part of the reason I wanted to start a personal blog in 2025.

After meeting Susan at a book event for Rin Tin Tin, we struck up a friendship and ended up pitching a documentary series together called "140 Characters" in which she would meet some of her twitter followers in real life. It didn't end up selling, but it was a great experience getting to collaborate with my favorite writer. Who I met on Twitter! I was friends with Twitter before Twitter went crazy.Here was our short pitch video that we sent out at the time, I still think it's super charming and would have been a really fun show:

I haven't seen Susan since pre-pandemic, so I was thrilled to attend her book event last night at the Central Library in DTLA. And the event was extra special because it was also the site of one of her other book topics, The Library Book. Almost an echo of the night before, getting to watch Rebel Without A Cause at the Observatory.

I came away from the event inspired to keep creating, and to stay curious about strangers and their stories. Susan talked about getting a New Yorker story from talking to a backpacking stranger seated next to her on a plane. Talking to a seatmate on a plane might be her hardest piece of advice to take, especially since I'm in a whirlwind romance with my new Sony headphones, but if Susan says it, I'll take it to heart. Following her hasn't steered me wrong yet.

When it comes to public parks built by abusive drunks who shot their wives in the face, Griffith Park is at the very top of my list. By all accounts and AI summaries I've seen, the absurdly named Griffith J. Griffith was a terrible man...but he left Los Angeles with probably my top three favorite things in the city: Griffith Park, The Greek Theater, and the Griffith Observatory.

I was first introduced to the Observatory as a young movie obsessive. It was a truly iconic location and felt like the ultimate shining symbol of exotic Hollywood glamor to me, growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania. In addition to Rebel Without A Cause, it was featured prominently in Terminator 1, Charlie's Angels, Dragnet, The Rocketeer, 90210, and as I just found out- a deleted scene with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone from Gangster Squad (directed by Ruben Fleischer who went to college with me and once tried to claim my futon as his own after summer break. Ruben, if you're reading this, I forgive you)

Anyway, back to the ode. As anyone who has seen the Observatory knows, it's just a stunning piece of architecture with incredible views of Los Angeles. I had been in the habit of hiking up there in the early mornings with Miles this year, and I'm pretty sure he was impressed with it too.

I've gotten out of the routine of hiking up to it recently because I began hiking barefoot at the suggestion of a group of older Koreans who hike there every morning, but I can tell they feel betrayed when they see me on the trail with shoes on and I just don't feel like facing their wrath on days when I feel like wearing shoes.

Sorry, I've gone off track again. The main reason for this post is that I got tickets for Lynn and I to attend a screening last night of Rebel Without A Cause at the Observatory on the ocassion of its 70th anniversary. It was a great event, one of the things that breaks through my hardened cynicism about this city. Ahead of the screening the museum was open after hours to ticket holders and Lynn and I explored each section, and special props that were brought to commemorate the film.

And finally, the other-worldly elevator down to the lower floor which was added twenty years ago in a renovation that added new spaces to the observatory like the Leondard Nimoy theater, where the movie was screened.

So in summary:

Griffith J. Griffith = bad

The park, observatory, and concert venue he bequeathed = great

Rebel Without A Cause at 70 = still iconic

James Dean & Natalie Wood's age gap = it was a different time

Los Angeles = still a magical place to live sometimes

This weekend I went back to Middletown, Connecticut to visit my cousin for family weekend at Wesleyan, and was treated to a most idyllic taste of autumn. I've always loved fall in the northeast (my favorite season, no contest) but having lived in LA for two decades now, it's become a rare treat. Another rare treat was being able to spend the day with my two cousins Franny and Finn and we had a great time walking around campus and sharing funny stories about our respective Wesleyan experiences. I also got to spend time with two great friends from my own '90s era of Wesleyan- Sascha and Sadia. I got a stupid expensive pocketsize digital camera to document the trip, with a plan to return it when I got home, but the photos look so good that I'm thinking of keeping it? Here's a photographic record of the weekend and let's just assume I miss all of these things unless I say otherwise:

And now it comes time for the thing I probably miss the most about autumn in New England, going out for New Haven style pizza. It may be my favorite food in the world, especially when paired with a Foxon Park white birch beer, probably my favorite soft drink in the world. If you're hungry and not within driving distance of New Haven, you may want to stop reading now...

I'm realizing now that two of the happiest memories for me in Connecticut are #1: falling in love with my college sweetheart for life and #2: pizza. And I debated which one to put first (jk, love you Lynn!). So the final two Middletown spots I had to document were:

The only downside of the trip was having to wake up in the middle of the night for my 6AM flight back from Bradley Airport this morning, but I truly had a great time hangin out in Connecticut.

I'm on my way to Connecticut to visit my cousin Finn at Wesleyan (my alma mater) for Family Weekend and decided to splurge on the new next gen acela because I wanted to experience a high tech French-made train running on the northeast corridor. I know how bougie and entitled this sounds, but these days I experience train travel more internationally than I do domestically. I wanted to see if this train would have some of the same feeling of taking the train in Japan and Norway, which I've been fortunate enough to do in the past couple years.

The journey was off to an auspicious start:

I love being able to read on the train, and this route to CT brings back memories of making the trip up to college, or to Boston to visit my aunt and cousins. The next gen acela version is definitely, smoother, quieter, and more pleasant. But also probably 4 times expensive, and certainly more than you'd pay in countries that rely more on high speed rail to get between major cities. But enough snobbery, here's what it looks like, along with a few detours down memory lane:

I give the Acela Next Gen an "A" for comfort, and for even trying to bring high speed rail to the Northeast Corridor even though it's speed is throttled by the aging train tracks. The cost is as much as some cross country flights, which is absurd, but it's a luxury experience. Also, the wifi is fast enough for me to blog which is pretty cool. And finally, even though comparison is the thief of joy, I had to include a photo from my most beautiful train ride ever, from Bergen to Oslo a couple years ago.

Go trains! 🚆

I also loved that 110 film was so easy to load, I was not then, nor am I now what you might call a "technically adept" person or someone you'd describe as "good with his hands." In case you think I'm just being self-depricating, in college I once loaded a movie camera with the film facing the wrong way. The whole short film came out looking orange and washed out and my professor seemed actually impressed that I was able to load the camera that backwards. This was not my only analog film related mishap in college- anyone who knows me knows this sad tale. The night of our senior film screenings my thesis film got snagged in the projector and a whole theater watched the celluloid tear and melt right there on the big screen. Not only did that launch a lifetime of screening-related anxiety for me, but the medium of analog film as a whole became my personal nemesis. I also cast blame on Isabella Rossellini for some reason, because she happened to be meeting with the head of the film department, Jeanine Basinger that same night and everyone felt that if Jeanine had been there it wouldn't have happened. Lucky for me I was entering my career in film and TV at a time when digital was taking over everything, from ultra portable DV cameras to non-linear editing programs like Final Cut Pro.

The digital revolution has been generally good for me and my technical ineptitude. In retrospect I'm glad I got some basic understanding of the analog tools back in the '90s but I don't feel nostalgic for loading film cameras or editing film on flatbeds. It was really difficult and slow and I was bad at it.

Lately though I've been getting back into some analog photography because I amnostalgic for the days of shooting a roll of film, dropping it off for processing, then waiting to see the images a few days later once they're done. I also love going to Samy's Camera on Fairfaxand seeing all of the framed stills they have along the staircase, each one shot by a legendary cinematographer.

So the last couple years I've been getting some analog film camera's off of ebay, a couple point and shoots and one Canon SLR from the early 80's. I've been inspired by the analog camera collection of my bff/documentary muse/digital media legend Matt Stopera. Here are a few of my favorite 35mm scans from recent trips and walks around the neighborhood:

So, I promised my photolosophy with the title of this post, so here it is. What works for me is that I love the look of film, for stills and movies and enjoy taking 35mm photos when I can. But I also embrace the freedom and immediacy of digital both for fun and for work. I spend the majority of my time at work editing on Adobe Premiere and obviously no one is ever going back to cutting film on a flatbed ever again. A couple years ago we even had Isabella Rossellini as a guest voice on the show I was working on, Human Resources. I think it was time I forgave her for something that completely was not her fault...and was thankful not to be editing her dialog on magnetic tape.

One of my first Sixers fan memories was falling asleep to a game on the radio and crying when I woke up and my dad told me they lost. I cried a lot as a kid. In the 80's you could only fill your media diet with so much basketball content, but today I listen regularly to no fewer than four basketball-focused podcasts. That's a lot of time that might be spent listening to The Daily or other current events that would leave me feeling hopeless and anxiety ridden. For me, focusing on basketball is a great escape. And now that I've joined the WNBA bandwagon, there's basketball all year round, what a time to be alive!

The other thing I appreciate about being a basketball fan is the sense of connection that comes along with it. For me and my dad, it's been a lifelong bond and I was happy to find this Sixers cardigan to get him for his 76th birthday. From what I hear, it's been a big hit when he walks around Rittenhouse Square.

I've tried to get my wife Lynn into basketball for almost our entire relationship (28 years) but it hasn't worked yet, and that's fine. It's good to have separate passions. I did take her to a Sparks game recently and she was smitten...with the mascot Sparky. My latest attempt is trying to get her to watch this season of Starting Five with me. Speaking of which, it's absolute malpractice if Netflix and the Obamas don't make a WNBA version next season.

I also convinced Lynn to name our first dog Julius, after Dr. J. As you can see here, he's thrilled to be dressed up in Sixers gear.

For decades now I've been an ex-pat Philly Sports fan, living in Los Angeles. It goes without saying that I never switched allegiance to the Lakers, despite my embrace of the Sparks. But that's only because Philly's WNBA team won't begin for another 5 years. One of the highlights of my fandom the past few years is going to Sixers games when they're in town, often attending their away games against both the Lakers and Clippers. I was lucky enough to work alongside a fellow insane person when it comes to the Sixers-- Joe Wengert, heard here on The Thrill of Defeat podcast discussing the roots and evolution of his Philly sports mania. Not only did Joe, his wife Holly Prazoff, and I go see the Sixers at Staples on March 1, 2020 with the full knowledge that a contagious virus was spreading unchecked throughout the state, but the Sixers stars weren't even playing. It did end up being the Shake Milton game though, so totally worth spending the afternoon yelling and high fiving other sixers fans in, may i remind you, March of 2020.

Joe and I also went to see the Sixers play the Clippers on, wait for it, the day after election day 2024. Possibly one of the top 5 most depressing days of my life. But again, basketball was a nice distraction from how awful the rest of the world felt that day. I was really grateful to be out in the world, and there was something comforting about being out amongst other people that day. And as much as basketball is a great distraction for me from the truly distressing events of the day, it's also inextricably tied to everything else going on in society. Ten days after we went to see the Sixers play the Clippers, the NBA was the first major institution to shut down due to covid. For me the start of the pandemic will always be linked to fucking Rudy Gobert wiping his hands all over the microphones (very stereotypically french sense of humor btw) then testing positive a day later.

And while my Sixers fandom started as a bond between me and my dad, it's also become a part of my mom's activist work in Philadelphia. I'm very proud of my mom for spending her spare time doing activism instead of listening to four separate podcasts about basketball like some other members of the family.

My mom also happens to be extremely supportive of all my pursuits (too supportive?) which makes this childhood photo of me even more amusing thanks to the caption she wrote in the little speech bubble sticker, "next stop... Sixers bench" I appreciate the encouragement mom, and will be cheering for the Sixers this year as if I truly were riding the Sixers bench. I've pinned all of my future happiness on VJ Edgecombe, it's gonna be great.

On the third Sunday of every month, some model railroad enthusiasts get together and run a model train yard as seriously as if the trains were full sized. The moment Lynn and I arrived, it felt like we stepped into an episode of How To With John Wilson that was set decorated by Wes Anderson's production team.

I loved seeing how dedicated these guys were to such a tactile, analog craft and that the museum has been in operation for 80 years (that's basically 160 years if you measure it in east coast years). If you visit, which I highly recommend, don't be alarmed when your GPS leads you to Alhambra instead of Pasadena. After the 210 Freeway was built in 1963 they moved the whole operation to Alhambra and took over a former rubber stamp factory (we used to make things in this country!) The site is one of the largest HO scale model railroads in the world, and I only included that fact here because i think HO scale sounds funny.

I've been excited about making short videos again for the first time in awhile. I used to do this professionally and got millions of views on lots of my videos for buzzfeed and super deluxe (nsfw) (alsoRIP). This was about 10 years ago and I realized I missed making short videos around LA so I decided to do it for a much smaller audience, for the love of the game! I recently bought an anamorphic lens for my Sony FX2 and I really love experimenting with it. As someone who fell in love with movies during the 80's, it blows my mind that I can have a small handheld camera with a lens that makes me feel like I'm James Cameron shooting T2, albeit on a slightly smaller scale. A HO scale, if you will.