This Is Too Much.

From the #EasyFire in Simi Valley - this thoroughbred goes back into the blaze to get his family. Not all heroes wear capes...💪🐎😍 pic.twitter.com/BsU6PlBq8R

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) October 30, 2019

Almost Perfect.

The only way this rooftop pool in downtown LA could be any better would be if you filled it with Diet Coke and threw Mentos in it.

Looper.

I asked the director of my TV movie if we could do our lines really quietly so that people would turn the volume way up before any explosions.

She declined. I love her nonetheless. And as for dialogue, I did the ADR (automated dialogue replacement, or “looping”) for the film the other day. The footage looks great, and the music and sound design really move the story along.

Can’t wait for it to premiere. And it will, soon. DNA Killer. Coming this spring.

Poultry Time.

If restaurants were smart, they’d randomly call me asking if they should send over a chicken sandwich, because the answer would always be yes.

It’s true. I usually order the chicken sandwich. Mainly because I like my food to be more cowardly than I am.

And no one makes a better version than my favorite restaurant: Son of a Gun. I hadn’t been there in far too long, so it was nice to go back last night. The sandwich is still delicious. The smoked mahi dip (served shabby-chic with Lance Captain’s wafer crackers) is still amazing.

The Italian hamburger – homemade chocolate/hazelnut ice cream on a brioche bun – is fantastic. I hear more and more that these days, LA has the best restaurants in the world. Thousands of restaurants with great range. It’s good to be the king.

Weekend Question:

How many beer trucks can you “accidentally” run off the road before your insurance company becomes suspicious?

One Last Pitch.

A couple years ago, Brad Pitt was investigated for child abuse after yelling at his kids on a flight. That said, they better send my parents to the electric chair.

If you have yet to see Ad Astra, it’s still in theaters, albeit matinees. It’s one of the best movies of the year, and as we head into Oscar season, you really ought to see it. And if you’re here in LA, you get the great joy of seeing it at the ArcLight – flagship of all theaters, where the lunar vehicle from the film is on display. It’s pretty amazing. Go this weekend.

Getting The Band Back Together.

With all due respect to Tony Robbins, if I wanted to actually get rid of all the things in my life that didn't “bring me joy,” I’d just throw myself into a dumpster.

And I know just where to find one: in my sitcom, “Hucksters,” that I wrote and shot last summer. I love the first episode, but have been sitting on it, honing two more that I want to shoot. It’s getting to be about time.

It was a thrill producing and starring in the pilot last year, alongside my co-star Ben Pace. And Ben has been very good about pushing me to finish so we can get all three episodes aired.

By the way, the above dumpster POV is pretty groovy looking, but trust me – in the 103° heat of Canoga Park, it smelled horrendously rank. The glamor of showbiz.

The Brunch Club.

If “bae” means bacon and eggs then yes, I was chilling with my bae.

And my good friend Joe. Joe was the production coordinator on my TV movie. (And an amazingly-prolific TV writer.) We decided to bust the myth about people in showbiz only talking about getting together, and had brunch at Eggslut. They don’t have a liquor license, so Joe arrived with three mini bottles of champagne and spiked our orange juice. Mimosa producer.

I’d been meaning to try Eggslut for a while. The bacon, egg and cheese on a brioche bun was everything I imagined it would be. Highly recommend. Bring your own champagne.

Room For One More?

Whoever named The Great Depression in 1929 probably didn’t anticipate my Saturday night.

The Yankees season ended over the weekend, and for me, a lunatic who watches all 162 of their games every year, it hurts. To their credit, the Yanks fought until the end, tying the game with a two-run home run. I screamed so loudly, I quickly sent an unprompted apology text to my neighbor. For real.

Then the Yankees gave up a home run and it was all done. Above, Yankee manager Aaron Boone shows some love to the pitcher who gave up the home run. And the love was legit. Everything you need to know about Aaron is summed up by his father, also a former manager: “Aaron was always the kid who went to the kids who had no friends in school. Aaron became their friend. That’s the kind of person he was from the very beginning.”

That’s Aaron on my t-shirt (and me at the OC County Fair) hitting his own historical home run when he was a player. Very good man.

Other than that, really nice weekend. Fancy haircut, brunch with a friend, saw my nephew. Hey, my meds finally kicked in.

It Was The Worst Of Times.

Is it okay to clothesline people on scooters going down busy sidewalks yet?

Rest in peace, bicycles.

In Which I Pray To The Weather Gods.

Besides inspiring men’s deodorant scents, forest fires are evil.

Last week, they traipsed way too close to LA, and the dangerous air quality meant many kids and high school sporting events had to be postponed. Meanwhile, ironically, the sunset was breathtaking. 

After a record wet winter, it hasn’t rained here in six months, so I’m petitioning the heavens for a heavy downpour. If for nothing else, it’ll be a chance for me to show up at a cemetery standing really far away from a funeral under a black umbrella, so that people will think the person died with a dark and interesting secret.

Get Together. Have A Few Laughs. Shoot A Kickass Film.

Brunch combines all my favorite things: sleeping in, bacon, and waiting 11 hours for a table.

It was totally worth it when the cast of my TV movie got together for brunch before our shoot began. Credit to Lisa France, the director, for making it happen. We bonded before we even started shooting. (And were able to take family photos together that were used to dress the sets.)

I’d like to think our chemistry will be evident on screen. And that screen is in your living room in a few short months. DNA Killers. Coming this spring.

Moving Them Fat Butts.

I got attacked by a pig the other day, and accidentally won a 5k road race.

Okay, that’s entirely true, but man, these guys can move. The Fall Festival at the Grove featured Alaskan pig racing (do all animals haul ass in Alaska, or just pigs and Huskies?) and I had a front-row seat.

The key to getting pigs to perform is simple: stuff their faces. Feed them to get them out of their trailer and into the starting gate. Have a trough of foot at the end of this steeplechase to make them really motor. Then have dessert waiting back in the trailer so they return unprompted. I, for one, loved it. Ricky may be getting a younger, even fatter brother soon.

Extra Happy Birthday.

I always expect wives to refrain from blowing out the candles on their birthday cakes, because they don’t want their husbands gettin’ any ideas.

But my friends Aina and Bru have a great marriage, as evidenced by her commitment to put out those sparklers. It was her birthday Saturday, and we got together for a really nice dinner party at Melrose Umbrella Company.

There’s nothing better than spending time with friends. It’s been proven to raise serotonin levels in the brain. Plus you get some yummy food and cake at a very cool place. Melrose Umbrella Company has great food and drinks, and interesting décor. Check out this antique file cabinet repurposed as a tap system:

Groovy. Happy birthday, Aina.

Your Assignment:

Try to have a better weekend than this guy, whose golden retriever insisted on carrying their purchase home from the liquor store.

Bustin’ Fasts.

A cleanse for me is switching to white wine.

For the Jews, it’s Yom Kippur. My fellow Yids fasted all day yesterday, atoning and repenting on the holiday. (Not me. Food is my religion, so I piously stuffed my face.)

Nonetheless, my friends Marc and Lisa are always so nice and invite me to their annual Yom Kippur break fast. Joining them feels like running just the last mile of a marathon, then celebrating having finished, without all the nipple chafing.

Great spread. Great people. Thank you Jesus.

So Close.

I don’t really get how fine art can be. I mean, maybe if I saw it in a bikini.

I need a museum more my speed, like the Academy Award Museum. I passed by it yesterday morning, and the construction is really coming along. (Sort of. It’s actually running very fashionably late, as it was originally set to open this May, but will now be opening early next year.)

The AAM will be comprised of two buildings. The orb will be called The Sphere, and feature a 1000-seat theater named after David Geffen. The main building, which was previously the May Company department store, will house artifacts like the tablets from The Ten Commandments.

See? So much better than a regular museum. I remember my sixth-grade class being taken on a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where we realized our favorite exhibit was “Elevator Buttons.”

Watch This.

The first 40 years of childhood are always the hardest.

Just ask comedian Gary Gulman. He’s tall and handsome. He played college football. He’s insanely funny. He has a good heart. (Lately, he’s been giving free standup advice in the form of tweets. He’s up to tip number 282.) He’s married to a sweet, beautiful woman. Yet he was massively depressed and suicidal.

Gary finally received the right treatment (including a three-week stay in a psych ward while he was administered electro-shock therapy – it saved his life), and decided to launch a new comedy tour called “The Great Depresh,” in which he was entirely open about his battle with depression. Not just open, but so funny – including a joke about how his hatred of essay writing probably saved him from committing suicide more than once, because it would’ve required him to compose a suicide note.

His tour culminated with an HBO special, which premiered over the weekend. Watch it. It’s sweet and informative and hilarious. I won’t spoil any more of it.

If you’re not familiar with Gary’s standup, here’s a clip from one of his previous specials:

Weekend High And Low.

I never realized how short a month is until I started paying rent.

And a month must fly by at the Avalon, a luxury new apartment building I visited over the weekend in Hollywood. Check out the lobby, completely wired for doing work or hosting a party, and very tastefully decorated to hike the rent up even more. (The neon reads “Without you there is no us.”)

Meanwhile, for the rest of us peasants, all-new jumbo, stuffed Cheez-it squares. THIS is why I listed Pizza Hut as my emergency contact.

Tragedy.

Tushar Atre went to the same high school as me. Then he went on to become a real one-percenter, owning his own tech company and marijuana business – both of which unfortunately put a target on your back.

Tuesday, several people broke into Tushar’s home, kidnapped him, drove off with him in his girlfriend’s car and killed him.

I posted the news on a Facebook group page for my hometown, and by all accounts from people who knew him, Tushar was a very good guy. Home invasion is the worst nightmare in the world, and I can’t imagine what the last moments of his life were like. If anyone deserves to rest in peace, it’s him.

Been A While, But Once Again: Out-Of-Context Thank-You Notes I’ve Recently Written To Casting Directors.

• Is it “sup” or “suh”? I want my grandma’s eulogy to be just right.

• I imagine a third zebra strolled casually while whistling and pretending to read a newspaper onto Noah’s ark.

• Excruciating cashier small talk. Brought to you by chip card readers.

• I like to think the automatic soap dispenser is just really happy to see me.

• Less than two weeks until Canadian Thanksgiving. Better start marinating the beaver.

• We men very much enjoy our all-in-one shampoo-conditioner-body wash-face soap-toothpaste-car wax.

I’ve Never Wanted Tonsillitis More.

30 Seconds Of September.

In September, a 127-year-old woman passed away, which we already know is a lie because the earth isn’t even 127 years old.

Here’s my September, one second per day: