Things I have seen since moving to Los Angeles...

...that I have never seen before:

- Flocks of green parrots

- Palm trees growing up through the levels of a parking structure

- More independent hamburger joints, donut shops and professional psychics than anywhere else in the world, I think

- Hand-pushed taco carts looking for business in a residential neighborhood

- Shopping cart return entrepreneurs

A list...

...of people who've been surprised, pleasantly or otherwise, by the fact that I listen to Steve Reich for pleasure: Alec Soth, photographer, 2003, Kristin Makholm, PhD, curator/art historian, 2006, Paulus Berensohn, potter/dancer, 2009.

An idea for a movie

Robin Hood vs Dracula - Count Dracula terrorizes the medieval english countryside, searching for the last of the mythical silver arrows from the Quiver of Longinus, the only weapon with the power to destroy him forever. The corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham finds himself unable to quell the hysteria of the peasantry in the face of a rising plague of vampirism. Seeking to restore civil order, and desiring the silver arrow for himself, the Sheriff offers heroic outlaw Robin Hood and his band of merry men a pardon in exchange for eliminating Dracula and bringing him the arrow. Who will win and who will die when the Prince of Thieves battles the Prince of Vampires?

An idea for a television series

Pseudoscience! - shot on 16mm film and featuring dramatic voice-over narration and a synthesizer-heavy soundtrack in a stylistic homage to 1970s pseudo-documentary programs like In Search Of..., Pseudoscience! will trace the historical development of easily-debunked modern myths like the Da Vinci code, mayan calendar prophecies of an apocalypse in 2012, satanic child-abuse cults of the 1990s, the biological basis of race, pre-millenial tension, extra-terrestrial encounters and more, in order to demonstrate that the stories behind them are often more fascinating than the myths themselves.

An idea for a graphic novel

In a terrifying collision of black magic and mad science, the dead Beatles return from the grave as bloodthirsty cybernetic zombies! Only by learning to set aside their differences and open their hearts can the living Beatles hope to put an end to their former bandmates' homicidal rampage!

An idea for a movie

A mysterious radioactive meteor falls to Earth, causing the recently dead to rise as zombies and attack the living. In a desperate attempt to save humankind, a team of scientists assembles the ultimate fighting force: a cowboy, a ninja, a knight of the round table, a bomb-heaving anarchist, a shaolin monk, a riot grrrl and a mexican wrestler. Together they must battle their way through the zombie hordes to the smoking crater where the meteor lies and destroy it.