Nattily Clad.

If I’m wearing a suit, you’d better be dead or getting married. 

Or having me audition. Hollywood has ramped back up, thank god. It felt weird to put on a suit – let alone long pants – for the first time since February. Anyone else forget what their nice shirts look like? 

By the way, I was technically in a suit on Yom Kippur. You’re welcome, Mom.

Could Be A Trap.

I wish Halloween wasn’t cancelled this year, because I won’t get a chance to whisper “Better hope it’s not the poison one,” when I hand out candy. 

Someone on my block is doing the next best thing. The Gatorade bottles with the “FREE UNOPENED” note on the street next to a sketchy construction site probably contain more piss than real fruit juice, but I’m still going to pass.

My First Drive-In Movie.

I’ve saved $8215 in movie theater popcorn by switching to COVID. 

But on Saturday, enough was enough. I saw Tenet at The Paramount Drive-In Theater. It was a great experience I waited way too long to have. 

The Paramount staff has it down to a science. They patiently guide a long line of cars onto the lot. (And very quickly out after the movie ends.) They can squeeze 800 vehicles in, and with two screens running simultaneously – and two screenings per night – the place can rake in over $40,000 daily. During Coronavirus, their ship has come in. 

On top of that, they profit from the snack bar, located in a building between the two screens. The line moved pretty quickly, but the food was nothing special. Stale popcorn/soft pretzels. (We saw one theater-goer run off the property to pick up a pizza down the street. Hero.) Plus they don’t pump the movie’s sound into the building while you wait, which would be such an easy thing to make happen. They do sell beer, which is odd because just about every customer is driving home, but who are we to judge? 

Making the evening extra cool: The Paramount was the shooting location for Brad Pitt’s drive-in-adjacent trailer home in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It doubled as the now defunct Van Nuys Drive-In. 

Novice me learned the lot is filled with rows of small concrete hills, so you can park in a way that allows everyone in your car to look up to the screen. I remember hills like this from the cool drive-in scene in Heat, but thought it was just warped pavement:

  

That was shot at the Centinela Drive-In, by the way, one year before it became an apartment complex.

Do yourself a huge favor and find a drive-in near you. Many are popping up temporarily, often in regular theater parking lots accompanied by food trucks. Doesn’t get much better than that. Get out of the house, keep your windows up, smuggle in the kids. I highly recommend.

The Smell Of Popcorn. And Exhaust.

I’ve never been to a drive-in theater – except for the all the times I park on my neighbor’s lawn and watch movies through their living room window. 

Tomorrow night, I’m going to broaden my horizons by seeing a film at the LA-famous Paramount Drive-In. I hope I kick myself hard for avoiding this my entire life. Thanks, COVID.

Here’s A Twist.

I heard Coronavirus makes everything taste like LaCroix, so now I’m wearing seven masks. 

I pulled six of them off for something I’d never experienced before. I had an audition for a TV show this week, and was asked to do the same scene twice – with and without a mask. 

I suppose this may be the look we’ll be seeing on some TV shows as the virus lingers past season premiere dates. Just know my lips were fully emoting.

Swing And A Miss.

The night my Lifetime movie premiered, I saw these tweets from two random viewers. It was an open-net shot I had to take. But instead of freaking these two out, to this day there’s been no response. 

Thanks millennials. I’d like to think I spooked you off, but you were just busy eating your avocado toast.

One More Excerpt.

My friend Mark said he won’t get a tattoo because “you don’t put a bumper sticker on a Ferrari.” Which is weird because he’s a ’92 Chevy Caprice at best. 

The bumper sticker that always caught my eye was from radio station Froggy 101 on “The Office.” I always get a kick out of authenticity, and this show had plenty of it. It came up in the anthology book I’m reading in a story from Mari Potis of the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce:

I got a call from Phil Shea, a property master who told me they were doing a pilot for a TV show about a fictional paper company that would be set in Scranton. He wanted to use a Scranton Chamber of Commerce sign for the walls and then asked if I would help with some other items for the show. Then for the next nine years, I became the person that got them authentic Scranton props for the background. Eventually, we sent them truckloads of items submitted from local businesses that lined up to donate them at Steamtown mall, hoping to get free advertising on TV. It was the yellow Froggy 101 sticker (from Dwight’s desk), pizza boxes and newspapers… whatever they needed.