“The American Mall” premiere party @ The Cabana Club!

Located just around the corner from the Cinerama Dome, the Cabana Club on Ivar has a really cool “old Hollywood” vibe that I kinda love. There’s a little swimming pool-like water running through the place, bridges to the bar, and crazy cool cabanas everywhere you look. I swear to God, this joint is so retro, you half expect to see Louis B. Mayer boozing it up Errol Flynn in the corner.

Christine and I had been here once before, for the WGA’s post-strike “Contract Celebration Party” in March, but obviously, this party was a lot more fun. And unlike the WGA bash where the bar was only halfway “open”, on Monday night, the free drinks were flowing freely, amigos!

And though most of the food was delicious, I’d have to say the highlights were the “American Mall” cookies and the Ben & Jerry’s booth — there is a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream cart prominently featured in the movie — that came stocked with five yummy flavors of ice cream.

There was also a hugely popular Sears Arrive Lounge photo booth near the dance floor (we took two sets of pics) and an area where people could spread out and play MTV’s hit video game “Rock Band” — which is also featured kinda prominently in my movie. I know, I know…product placement much? But, hello, this movie is set in a mall…so, what better place to, um, place some products?

Ooo, speaking of branding. I know they probably do this at all the Hollywood premieres, but another thing I totally loved was the fact that they slapped “The American Mall” logo on EVERYTHING. Napkins, the food trays, cookies, a super cool neon sign over the bar, hell, even the wait staff and bartenders wore “American Mall” t-shirts. It was awesome!

But the highlight of the evening was really just chilling with the cast and crew from the movie. I had met all of the core cast members when I visited the set in Utah back in February, but Christine was meeting them all for the first time and had a blast. Everyone — and I mean everyone — both in front of and behind the camera was crazy nice! Seriously, it was like old home week…

I’m sure you’ll recognize some of the more famous guests at the party — Jai Rodriguez from “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy” told me he loved the movie as did the super cool African-American chick from “High School Musical”, Monique Coleman — but, mark my words, the rest of the “Mall” cast is gonna be huge. And they deserve it, because, in my totally unbiased opinion, they really rocked that mall hard, baby.

So with Christine’s feet ready to fall off — those heels were high, yo! — we stumbled back to our car just before midnight and hurried home to open our gift bags! Sadly, no “Rock Band”, but we did get some cool guitar string bracelets like the one the Ally character wears in the movie, “American Mall” t-shirts, stickers, a CD of the soundtrack and loads of Clean and Clear products…so, hey, not a bad way to end the night.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to rinse off my new deep-cleansing acne mask and go to bed. Que viva la Mall!

Movie premiere food…

OK, the big story here is…free popcorn and soda! Yay! Sure there were some awesome finger foods at the premiere after party at the Cabana Club — I’ll post some pics of those amazing “American Mall” cookies very soon, I promise! — but Christine and I were probably most impressed with the tables and tables of free popcorn at the Cinerama Dome.

And this is no ordinary movie popcorn folks, this is Arclight Cinema popcorn and it’s fantastic! I guess it should be considering how expensive movies are at the Arclight, but wow, this stuff was so good we didn’t even share it. Nope, it was his and her’s popcorn all the way, baby!

I don’t think they did anything fancy to the free sodas — or even to the popcorn for that matter, maybe it just tasted better because it was free! Ha! — but after working up a sweat walking that half-a-block long red carpet, trust me…Coke never tasted so good!

So after mingling around a bit in the lobby with some of the rocking cast and crew, Christine and I took our seats — which were perfect, thank you MTV! — and watched “The American Mall” for the first time on that big-ass Cinerama Dome screen. And, whoa…let me tell ya…it looked and sounded awesome!

Christine and I have already watched the movie several times on DVD, but it looked pretty freaking incredible on that gigantic movie screen. Everything was so damn big that I noticed tons of stuff I’d never caught before, and watching it with an audience that laughed, clapped and cheered at all the right places was pretty groovy too.

All in all, it was kind of a magical night…and best of all, after the movie ended, we still had the after party to look forward too! So, yay!

Red carpet madness @ “The American Mall”

No film studies class I ever took at San Francisco State or AFI could ever have prepared me for how totally insane it is to walk down a red carpet at the premiere of your first movie. Not only is it totally intense and nerve-wracking, but it is also one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done.

Christine and I likened it to our wedding. You spend all day getting ready — and in Christine’s case, several days as we had just returned from a work trip/shoe shopping expedition in San Francisco — worrying that you might be late or that you might die on your way to the event (I’m not kidding, I actually worried about that on Monday) and then you get there and are forced to smile your ass off for the next couple of hours.

I’m not complaining, because it was totally fun, and, frankly, as glamorous as life as a grubby old screenwriter gets, but wow, that shit is just not normal. Crazy…

On our wedding day I remember my cheeks actually hurting at the end of the night from smiling so much, and to tell you the truth, smiling on that red carpet was pretty much the exact same way.

You never knew who was filming what and which picture or live interview you might be stumbling into, so smiling was the only safe way to walk.

And even though the folks from “Access Hollywood” and “Extra” never asked us who we were “wearing” — or asked us anything for that matter — Christine and I smiled like movie stars (or, you know, a screenwriter and his wife from Burbank) the whole way down the red carpet.

And only at the very end of our jaunt down the plushly-carpeted sidewalk, as I paused to snap a quick pic of Christine’s super cool new shoes (thank you, Michael Kors!) did I stop to think about how very cool it was to be there.

I mean, wow, strange as it all was, it was still some kind of thrill! So, rock on, “American Mall” red carpet!

“American Mall” night @ The Cinerama Dome!

Surreal as it may sound, tonight is the red-carpet premiere of my MTV musical, “The American Mall”. Wow, just typing the word “my” and “red-carpet premiere” in the same sentence is so totally bizarre. Crazy…

And to make matters even more surreal, the movie is screening tonight at the historic Cinerama Dome on Sunset Blvd. If you live in the L.A. area and haven’t been to this theatre, you are seriously missing out, man. Housed in a giant geodesic dome, the curved screen is crazy big and the sound is incredible.

Ironically enough, the last movie we saw at the Dome was also a musical. We saw “Evita” on New Year’s Eve back in 1996 and I swear to God, Madonna’s face was so gigantic on that towering screen that I almost threw up. Of course, we were sitting in the front row, so that didn’t help.

But wow, what a screen! The Cinerama Dome was built in 1963 to screen the studio’s burgeoning library of sweeping, wide-screen epics in all their glory. And though it has come close to closing a few times, the recent addition of the adjoining Arclight Cinemas guaranteed that audiences will be enjoying the enormity of the Cinerama Dome for years to come.

So, as Christine and I run out the door to do some last minute errands before the premiere — actually, she’s the only one with “last minute errands” like getting her hair done and stuff — and I practice not tripping over myself in my slippery-ass dress shoes, enjoy these vintage pics of the Dome…

We heart Obama!

Musty old McCain and his cronies have been having a field day mocking the world media’s love affair with Barack Obama this week — even going so far as to create the strangest so-called “smear clip” ever — but all I gotta say to those blue-haired squares is…jealous much?

I mean, seriously, our country could use a little goodwill right now, and if it takes sending Jedi Master Obama on a Eva Peron-ish “Rainbow Tour” to get it…then rock on, black Evita! If you ask me, the Obama world tour kicks ass. I seriously cannot wait to read the paper every morning to see where he’s landing next…

So, while McCain struggles to generate some much-needed heat stateside, I think the rest of us should buy groovy logo t-shirts like the one pictured below and call it a day. Go, Obama!

Abby’s Legendary Pizza, Grants Pass

Every time we head north to Christine’s hometown of Grants Pass, Oregon, there are two places we have to eat at. One is Millie’s Sandwich Shop on NE 7th Street and the other is Abby’s Legendary Pizza on Williams Highway. And since I somehow managed to not take pictures at Millie’s this year, I’ll tell you about Abby’s instead!

Not only is the food fresh, cheap and delicious, but the Abby’s we frequent even has an “old school” video game area in the back that used to house a super cool “Phantom Menace” pinball machine!

Sadly, the “Star Wars” pinball machine has moved on, but the memory of that strange pinball/video game hybrid and the rocking good pizza we enjoyed while playing it, lives on…seriously, I think about that game a lot!

Initially known as Abby’s Pizza Inn, the first Abby’s was founded in 1964 by former high-school classmates Albert Broughton and James Harrell — better known to their friends as Abby and Skinny — in nearby Roseburg, Oregon. Once word got out that these guys knew how to make some damn fine pizza, the legend of Abby’s grew to the 34 store chain that exists today.

And though you have to drive to Oregon or Washington to sample Abby’s, let me tell ya, it’s worth the trek. Though everything on the menu is fantastic, we always order the same thing, which I guess you could call the “founder’s special” since they are named for Abby and Skinny themselves.

My favorite is the Abby’s Special, which is your basic “works” pizza with black olives, fresh mushrooms, ground beef, pepperoni, salami and sausage. And Christine and the ladies generally favor the Skinny Special with Canadian Bacon and fresh tomatoes. I honestly cannot think of a more perfect pizza combination on your plate than these two pizza pies…this stuff is amazing.

But the real star of the show at Abby’s are the spuds. Nothing really more than silver-dollar-sized potato slices, the spuds are scattered on a pizza pan and served fresh out of the fryer with sides of ranch dressing. I know it sounds weird to eat even more starch with pizza, but man alive, these spuds make the meal!

Of course, we usually leave feeling a tad over-stuffed and in desperate need of some exercise, but hey…that’s what the video game area is for, right? Rock on, Abby’s Legendary Pizza!

The Chenbot is not amused…

By now you’ve probably all seen this year’s list of Emmy nominees — if you haven’t, you can download the full list of nominees here — overall, this year’s crop was a pretty decent bunch. Glad to see smaller basic cable shows like “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” swing a few major nominations, but at our house, the news was all about who was not nominated.

And no, I’m not talking about the extremely talented cast and crew of “The Riches” or the writers of “Lost”, but rather, the elegant Chinese robot that is “Big Brother” host Julie “Chenbot” Chen.

With the announcement earlier this year that the TV Academy was adding a Best Reality Host category, we thought for sure our beloved Chenbot was a lock for a nomination. Of course, we expected to hear the names, Jeff Probst, Heidi Klum, and even cheesy old Ryan Seacrest…but what no one expected was to hear the next two names on the list: Howie Mandel and Tom Bergeron?!

Are you kidding me? Have you seen their shows? The best things on both “Deal Or No Deal” and “Dancing with the Stars” have absolutely nothing to do with those two ham-fisted windbags! I mean, really, take them out of the equation and the shows are just as good, or, you know…bad…without them.

But “Big Brother” without the Chenbot is just a bunch of crazy, white trash drunkards trapped in a house with cameras. Now, I’m not saying I wouldn’t watch that show too, but a huge part of what makes “Big Brother” so awesomely watchable is that cool, shiny-haired Chenbot!

So…any way you look at it, our girl got straight-up robbed this week, yo!

I guess our only consolation is that the tenth season — yeah I said tenth, you got a problem with that Emmy voters?! — of “Big Brother” started last week, so that gives us all summer long to enjoy the strangely lifelike beauty of our favorite Chinese robot! And better yet, the show airs three nights a week…yah!

Emmy or not, long live the Chenbot!

The Olive Pit, Corning

No drive from Santa Cruz to Oregon would be complete without at least one stop at the legendary Olive Pit in Corning. Located just off Highway 5 about an hour south of Redding, Corning is composed of a Taco Bell, a Starbucks, a couple of very clean gas stations and The Olive Pit.

Started over forty years ago by husband and wife Pete & Anne Craig, the Olive Pit began life as small shelf of hand-bottled local olives in their burger joint. Realizing there was a huge market for these delicious, locally-grown olives, the Craig’s shifted the focus of their business, and soon, a Northern California road trip landmark was born.

We stop at the Olive Pit every time we head up to visit Christine’s family and over the years have tried a number of very tasty olives. Our favorites have always been the stuffed variety: garlic stuffed, almond stuffed, sun dried tomato stuffed, you name it, we’ve tried it.

And though we never leave the Olive Pit without a jar or two of the garlic stuffed, I have to say our new favorite flavor is the blue cheese stuffed olives. Bottled in silky canola oil, those things melt in your melt…and though I personally think they taste better cold, that room temperature blue cheese is pretty amazing too!

And olives are only the beginning here for the Olive Pit also features a huge array of locally-grown almonds, nuts, tasty jams, a whole line of gourmet mustards and pretty much anything else you can think of. Seriously, you will not leave this place hungry. Our usual routine is to hit the tasting bar first, sample the newer flavors and then pick up a crate and stuff it full of jars of olives.

In keeping with its burger stand roots, there is also a restaurant located inside The Olive Pit that serves lattes, ice cream and all your basic diner fare at shockingly cheap prices. But strangely enough, Christine and I have never eaten there. I guess the gravitational pull — not to mention the speed of service — of that Taco Bell across the street is just too strong…

So, if you ever happen upon this little gourmet mecca in the middle of nowhere, make sure and stop by for some olives. Oh yeah, and bring your laptop too because not only does the Olive Pit now have cute little tins of Olive Pit mints, but they also have free Wi-Fi.

Take that, Taco Bell!

Starbucks store closures…

I’m sure you’ve all seen “the list” by now, but this week Starbucks finally announced exactly which stores would be getting the ax in the coming weeks. Surprisingly, there were very few in the Los Angeles area, but some major U.S. cities will be jonesing for a Caramel Macchiato fix very soon.

Cities with the highest store closures are: San Diego with ten stores, Baton Rouge and Dallas tied with nine, Houston with eight and the fair city of Indianapolis is losing a whopping seven Starbucks! But the real shocker here is that the Las Vegas metropolitan area will be losing a staggering sixteen stores! Yep, you heard me…sixteen Starbucks are closing in Sin City alone. Crazy, huh?

The fact that Las Vegas even has sixteen stores to close reveals the heart of Starbucks’ problem. They grew way too fast for their own good and are now reaping what they roasted. And don’t even get me started about their ill-advised forays into music and pseudo-Indie art films. “Akeelah and the Bee” coffee cozies anyone? Yikes…

So, even though I have grown to re-love Starbucks in the last few years — I really hated them when I worked at Peet’s, but since I got fired for being late a few years back, I kinda hate Peet’s now instead! Ha! — I still think they could seriously simmer down on all the extraneous crap they sell in their stores and focus on their coffee.

Sure, I’ve had better lattes at smaller non-chain coffee houses, but when you’re on the road or at an airport and you really want something consistent, Starbucks is still king, baby! So, though I feel for the 12,000-plus people being laid off in the coming months, here’s hoping the belt-tightening makes Starbucks a leaner, meaner latte machine…

The “American Idol” Truth Tour

This Wednesday, the Writer’s Guild of America launched its first ever “American Idol Truth Tour” with a fiery press conference at WGA headquarters in the Fairfax district. Designed to promote awareness of the gross mistreatment of workers on Fremantle Media’s top-rated “American Idol”, the Truth Tour will follow this year’s “Idol” auditions from city to city to promote the cause.

And what a cause it is. Since “Idol” is a defiantly non-union show, the producers routinely break California and Federal labor laws by forcing many of their workers to pull 36 hour shifts with no breaks, no overtime and worst of all, no health benefits or residuals for the work they do on the show.

One former “Idol” production assistant revealed to the crowd on Wednesday that after factoring in all his time spent working on the show, he averaged about $4 an hour. That’s less than half the California minimum wage!

And as several of the Teamsters in the crowd pointed out, “Idol” is also one of the only shows in Hollywood to use non-union drivers. I think WGA Vice President David Weiss said it best when he scolded Fremantle for preying on the starry-eyed new-to-Hollywood crowd when hiring and then systematically using these people up and spitting them out at the end of each season.

Not only is this practice morally wrong, but it’s also illegal and with scores of pending lawsuits and labor board cases against Fremantle and several other producers of so-called “reality shows”, the heat in this kitchen is about to get pretty damn unbearable.

I guess the thing that really galls me — and I am a huge “Idol” fan by the way — is the fact that Fox and Fremantle spend so much time and money touting their massive “Idol Gives Back” charity each year, while at the same time denying their own workers the most basic of benefits. It’s just kind of mind-boggling that the same people that raise millions of dollars every year for charity could be so goddamn greedy when it comes to paying their own workers. Insanity!

So, though I did not get my act together in time to get on the Truth Tour bus to San Francisco — the site of this year’s first round of “Idol” auditions — my friend Patty and I did attend the early-morning press conference on Wednesday to show our support for our WGA brethren.

And I mean to tell ya, that crowd was fired up, baby! Slipping on our new Truth Tour t-shirts, swapping war stories with my fellow WGA strike veterans…man, it was like old home week at the WGA. And even though I didn’t bring much more than a camera with me to the press conference, I have to admit, I was pretty tempted to jump on that bus at the last minute and call it a day.

But to the hardy souls who did get on the bus and staged a rowdy protest at the “Idol” auditions yesterday at the Cow Palace, I say, rock on, writerly soldiers! Here’s to showing the world what really happens behind the scenes at the top-rated show in America!

All we can hope for now is that the press actually covers the Truth Tour events — stories about the press conference were virtually non-existent on the local news last night — and that maybe, just maybe, the soulless bastards at Fremantle will do the right thing and go union.

I know it’s a tall order, but hey, sometimes a little bad publicity is all it takes to make these corporate robots quake in their boots…so, for now, que viva la WGA Truth Tour!

Fourth of July Crab Boil

Sorry for being such a bad blogger lately, but Christine and I have been on vacation for the past week and a half and sadly, blogging was just not in the equation. But the good news is that we did lots of fun stuff that I’m just itching to write about…so stay tuned.

In the meantime, wanted to post some pics of the tastiest Fourth of July feast we’ve had in years! Forgoing the traditional BBQ meat and chicken route, my Dad, Wendy, Courtney, Christine and I elected to have a crab boil instead! And what a treat it was…

The crab was pre-boiled and cracked — not all the way, but just enough to still make foraging for the meat fun! — at a crunchy hippie store in Santa Cruz called Staff of Life. I have not been to “Staff” in years, but man, if you wanna taste (and smell!) Santa Cruz in all it’s earthy glory, you gotta check this joint out…time warp city.

Seriously, if I wasn’t carrying a digital camera and a cell phone, I’d swear I was shopping in the patchouli-scented Santa Cruz of old. And the food, well, the food there is even better. Fresh, organic, green and always totally awesome. With the exception of some foul carob chips in my youth, I have never tasted anything bad from the Staff of Life. So, rock on you old hippie store!

And since no crab boil would be complete without corn on the cob, we had some heaping piles of that too. And when you throw in some fresh-baked bread, a nice big salad, and a view of seaside fireworks in the distance, well, what else do you need? Happy birthday, America!

Southern Style Chicken Sandwich @ McDonald’s

Hooray! After weeks of longing to try the lunch and dinner counterpart to the delicious Southern Style Chicken Biscuit at McDonald’s…we finally tried the Southern Style Chicken Sandwich, and all I can say is…wow!

Though nowhere near as lip-smackingly good as the breakfast biscuit, this is a truly tasty chicken sandwich for the ages, amigos. Seriously, this shit is delicious, and could that chicken breast be any bigger? Whoa, love to see the juicy-ass chicken that came from!

Anyway, as with the Southern Style breakfast biscuit, the key to this bad boy is simplicity. There is no mayo, no special sauce, hell, there’s not even any lettuce on this thing. Just a pickle, a bun and the best damn fried chicken breast money can buy. Really, that chicken was so juicy you didn’t need mayo. Delicious!

And did I mention the size? I actually thought that our gigantic chicken sandwiches were some kind of anomaly or something, but after carefully scrutinizing the chicken breasts of our fellow diners, I am happy to report that big old chicken breasts are the norm now at McDonald’s. Yeah!

And even though the initial flood of free chicken sandwich coupons have expired — many thanks again to Tevana and Natalie for keeping us so well-supplied with those things! — the legacy of this crazy good Southern Style Chicken marvel is just starting to spread…so, watch your back Chick-fil-A!

“American Mall” desktop wallpapers @ the Arrive Lounge!

Hoorah! Remember that Sears Arrive Lounge I told you about a couple posts back? Well, it is fully operational and though you can’t order clothes there yet, you can explore the newest clothing collections by LL Cool J and “High School Musical” star Vanessa Hudgens! Wow…who knew they had clothing lines?

And even though “The American Mall” clothes don’t seem to be shown yet, you can download desktop wallpapers featuring four of the characters from the movie. You don’t have to use them as wallpapers on every computer in your house — like we did! — but they are still pretty fun, so, check them out on the Arrive Lounge downloads page.

Our favorites are the two Joey downloads, but I also really dig Penny and Ally’s as well. And of course, you gotta love nerdy old Ben kicking it old-school in that striped polo. In the movie Ben is mostly stuck wearing his bright yellow Weinerland food court uniform, so, I’m sure the change was a welcome one!

Anyway, even if back-to-school shopping is a thing from your distant…and I mean distant…past, the Arrive Lounge is still pretty cool. So, check it out!

California goes “hands-free” today!

Hands on the wheel, Californios! As of today, chatty, a-hole drivers everywhere will have to comply with Senate Bill 1613 — more commonly known as the hands-free cell phone bill — or face ever increasing fines.

I say, right on! Who in L.A. (or anywhere for that matter) has not almost been side-swiped, suddenly cut off or otherwise had their life endangered by some cell-phone-mad soccer mom in a speeding minivan? Nothing against soccer moms, or minivans — our friend’s Nic and Dan’s rocking minivan is so big, you could do laps in that thing! — but no matter what you drive, this bill was a long time coming in my book, so, yeah!

Christine and I have been fervent headset users for years — it didn’t hurt that we used to know someone in “the biz” who kept us knee-deep in new headsets! — so this new law is really just sanctioning something we already do on a daily basis. But for millions of California drivers, I think hands-free chatting is gonna take some serious getting used to.

I’m sure you’ve seen the non-stop print ads with Bluetooth this, hands-free that, I mean, every other kiosk at the mall nowadays is shilling headsets. So, seeing as one of our old standby headsets just recently bit the dust, I set out last week in search of a new one.

And when I heard they were even selling headsets at the 99-Cent Store, well, I had to check that shit out! So, I headed on over, plopped down my dollar and tried that thing out…and…drumroll please, the headset (pictured above) was so cheap that it actually broke in my car in the parking lot!

I’m not kidding, the speaker cover tore when I opened the package and without it, the headset sounds — in the words of my sister-in-law, Laura — like I am talking to you from a thousand fathoms below or something.

Honestly, I didn’t think that thing was gonna have like, Bluetooth quality sound or anything, but, wow…I didn’t expect it to fall apart on the drive home either! Yikes…99-cents was way too much to pay for that crap…

So, if you’re struggling to get hands-free-compliant today and looking for a last-minute headset…I suggest you try someplace other than the 99-Cent Store. Just an idea…