Some things in life are inexplicable. Chocolate chip bagels. Registered independents. The old guy at my gym who huffs oxygen from one of those wheely tanks while he works out.But maybe most perplexing of all is that adjacent to the paradise that is Los Angeles is the Angeles National Forest. Or, as I prefer, the Devil’s Anus.
I’ve shot two movies up there. One experience was such a well written-and-shot film that it was worth it. The other one... well, as I trekked up the windy main road to the shoot, a Ninja rider sped past me and pancaked into a large rock around the bend. He got off lucky.
Cell phones stop working about 100 yards from the base of this mountainous s-hole. So whatever happens to you in the ANF, literally no one will hear you scream.
There’s snow on the ground year-round up there. Now, I have this on good authority – snow has its advantages. It’s pretty. It’s fun to build things with, such as a snowman, an igloo and the very popular, um, enormous pile of snow. If the power goes out you can take items out of your fridge and stick them in drifts outside your door. Let’s say you have a deceased pet but the ground is too hard to dig a grave. Problem solved.
But while it’s one thing to visit the land of ice and snow, it’s a whole other thing to live there. Which makes it all the more confounding that people actually do. Log cabin-dwelling types who think that plaid jackets are evening wear, and a box of wine is Chateau Lafite.
Michael Caine says he chooses films based on their shooting locations. Warm climates only. The man is Albert friggin’ Einstein in my book.
