This Ain't No Backdrop

When I was in my final days at Fox in Los Angeles back in the early part of the turn of the century, I was banished to a broom cupboard in "the Bunker", Bldg. 87 or 89, I believe. It was the kind of room where you would put someone until they turned on their countrymen. I had no windows, a desk, a TV and a phone with a cord just long enough to hang myself. I played freecell and watched the Food Network and waited to be saved. That was my fault, I see now. I didn't know it, but I was in "Chez au Fond du Baril." I used to seek comfort by going down the backstairs and ending up on the New York Streets where Streisand filmed Hello Dolly and where they were filming NYPD Blue when I was there. I would sit on the stoop of the brownstone that appeared right outside the back exit to my building. And I would smoke. And maybe plan my last meal which at that time was this great breakfast quesadilla from the lunch truck. I even knew the truck's afternoon route and would often drown my sorrows in a pack of Ding Dongs and a BLT around 3pm. Sigh.

I guess what is so funny about all this now is when I walk down the REAL New York Streets here, they are so real that they look phony to me. I have been on practically all the NY Streets in Hollywood and here I am on the real ones and loving it, but they are sur-real to me. I even live in a brownstone here! It is amazing and beautiful and right off Central Park. The only difference is I no longer smoke and I weigh 60 lbs. less.

Tonight I left my office in Times Square and took the C train to meet a new friend on 34th Street. His name is Tony and we have common friends in LA. (I should say mutual, not common!) Joe and Stu. Two really, really great guys. (Joe and Stu, not Tony and me.) Well, Tony is really pretty nice. It was a pleasure to meet him and he has really made me feel most welcome here with he calls and e-mails. We had dinner in a New York Diner. I am still the shameless tourist and got the waiter to take our photo. We were right across the street from where Stu's film played in New York at Newfest this year.




Afterwards we walked outside looking up at the Empire State Building shrouded in fog. Wunderbar. Tony went downtown, I went uptown. And so it goes.

Tomorrow I am going to get my carcass in the office early so I can try and catch up and be prepared. I have a lot to learn.