Recent reading: "Hollywood Hustle"

Hollywood Hustle: A Thriller by Jon Lindstrom

 

Actor (General Hospital, Bosch, True Detective) turned novelist Jon Lindstrom was the guest at our December Sisters in Crime LA meeting and not only was he a fantastic speaker, his first novel, Hollywood Hustle, turned out to be a fantastic read.

 

Lindstrom's acting career began in the early 1980's and he's worked steadily ever since (he's also done some screenwriting and directing) so he knows how Hollywood really works and how tough and unforgiving it can be, and at the meeting he mentioned how many people he'd seen give up over the years. Winston Greene, the protagonist of Hollywood Hustle, is one of the survivors. Once considered the next Kevin Costner, Greene's career was negatively affected by alcoholism and the tragic death of his wife in a car accident, but later in life he's sober and his career has settled into low-budget but steady work. The current dark spot in his life is his poor relationship with his grown daughter Clare, who shares not only a drug and alcohol fueled slovenly life with her loser husband, but also a six-year-old daughter Amy, who Win adores.

 

Hollywood Hustle starts off with a bang. Winston awakes to find Amy at his bedside. She leads him outside to the man who brought her there, and that guy informs Win that they have kidnapped Clare and will let him know about the ransom. In spite of not becoming the next Kevin Costner, Win is still famous enough to be recognized by the public and also famous enough that the kidnapping crew believes him to be movie-star wealthy. He's not, and that fact drives a lot of the drama as he desperately attempts to round up sufficient funds to save Clare. 

 

Lindstrom writes short, snappy chapters that help move the chaotic action along as it ricochets around Los Angeles, from Winston's home in Wrightwood, to Sylmar, Venice and various freeways, all introduced by their proximity to Hollywood. Lindstrom also does an absolutely amazing job of getting right into the action, then unfolding the story, doling out the colorful cast of characters, their backgrounds, and how they all reached the point where we meet them. As a writer who has struggled with this, I found it to be a master class in launching directly into the action while unspooling the backstory bit by bit as needed. The last time I was this impressed with this ability was Devil in a Blue Dress. Like the Walter Mosley novel, I'll be revisiting this one for both the story and for writing advice.

 

Lindstrom's next book, Hollywood Payback, will be released in April. I'm looking forward to it.

 

From the book:

 

Teddy took in a long breath and let it out. "This is a crew, Win. They've done it before. Maybe that's all they do, and they're usin' this car to let you know how far they'll take it. On a regular ol' sunny day I'd recommend callin' in the cavalry, but this time...I don't know." Faint sounds from the TV wafted through the floorboards. "What puzzles me is why they didn't just take her," he said, cocking his head downstairs toward Amy.

 

Merry Christmas!

 

I could do this

Totally doable:

 

Count Orlok wishes you the happiest of holidays

Except for the morning part...

 

And the Oscar goes to...

Belated news as this week was finals week of English 2 for me, so I haven't weighed in on this yet. But as of 4pm today, my fall semester final essay was submitted and another semester in the books! I am free of school assignments until Spring semester begins in mid-February! And so now, da entertainment industry newz.

 

An oldie but goodie from I Can Has Cheezburger. Remember them?

 

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was apparently thrilled to announce that YouTube will be airing the Oscars beginning in 2029.

 

Oscar on the move image snicked from here.

 

The contract runs through 2033. 

 

Time will tell if this is a win. ABC has aired the Oscars for decades and viewership has dropped dramatically over the years as Hollywood holds less and less sway over the masses. It will be interesting to see if YouTube can reignite interest in the ceremony or if they inherited an albatross that ABC will be glad to be rid of.

 

Have a Retro Christmas

The good old days. Images collected from around the internets.

 

 

With age comes...

 

Recent reading: "We Did OK, Kid"

 

We Did OK, Kid: A Memoir

by Anthony Hopkins

 

This is a wonderful memoir of Sir Anthony Hopkins's life and times, as well as his career as an Oscar-winning actor. He was an only child whose parents despaired of what his future held as he was a middling, disinterested student and didn't seem to have any particular talent or ambition. In fact, at one point he announced he wanted to be a hobo when he grew up. But love of film, literature, poetry, and an innate gift for reading material out loud eventually led him to the theatre.

 

We Did OK, Kid takes us through Hopkins's childhood in Wales, into his acting career in film, television and theatre, and how he honed his skills to become one of the greatest actors of his generation. We see his early exposure to legendary actors like Richard Burton and Laurence Olivier and how they molded him. On the personal side Hopkins doesn't shy away from the disasters that his first two marriages devolved into and of course there's his battle with alcohol (he's been sober for decades and often speaks eloquently on the subject on social media).

 

Hopkins also spends time explaining how he crafted what is probably his most famous performance, Dr. Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. It says a lot about his preparation that even during the table read he managed to frighten co-star Jodie Foster. It's a fascinating behind the scenes look at what is considered by many to be the embodiment of one of the greatest villains in film history.

 

Hopkins managed to eventually settle into a happy third marriage in 2003. His only child is a daughter named Abigail from his first marriage. When he left that unhappy union, he walked away completely feeling it was best for everyone involved, resulting in estrangement from Abigail and he admits that he wishes he could have had a better relationship with her. But of all the ups and downs Hopkins has experienced over his long life (he'll be 88 on New Year's Eve) he seems to have made his peace with it all and now appears to live a happy, examined life with regrets accepted and dealt with.

 

I cannot recommend this memoir highly enough. I expected Hopkins to be fascinating based on what I'd seen of him on film and social media, and We Did OK, Kid didn't disappoint. 

 

Recent reading: "The Comfort Crisis"

The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self

by Michael Easter

 

 

This book was used for my current English 2 class (critical thinking and writing) and we've spent the semester having to spot fallacies, strengths, and weaknesses in Michael Easter's thesis that modern conveniences and technology have made us weak, mentally, physically, and emotionally. A resident of Las Vegas, it seems that Easter's focus is Western society and while I agree overall with his point, I had a few issues with how they were presented.

 

The main issue I had didn't have anything to do with an actual fallacy or factual issues (so I struggled with those assignments) as I did with the extreme (and therefore unrelatable to the average reader) experiences he cited. I totally agree with him that we were fitter and sharper when life was harder and took more effort (or any actual effort). But Easter uses a month-long trip to the Alaska wilderness, where he learns to survive in a harsh environment in the same manner as people did before there were any modern conveniences. He lives and sleeps in a tent, learns to track caribou, and eventually hunts one down to provide by that time in the trek very welcome substantial food.

 

Easter seems to have unlimited resources to travel to meet with experts. As a writer for Men's Health, I assume that they paid for a lot of his travel expenses. Sending him to Austin, Texas, to meet with a fitness coach he'd already interviewed online didn't seem like too much of a stretch. But at one point, Easter embarks on a trip to Bhutan to see how they live a more enlightened life. He describes the trip as "four flights across 48 hours, 14 time zones, and 9.465 miles" and while the chapter is fascinating, the more Easter and others he interviews who have similar extreme experiences, the less and less relatable it becomes as he fails to offer practical examples to his readers of how to improve the effect of modern conveniences in their everyday lives.

I do recommend this book if you are interested in some pretty fascinating stories that give you the opportunity to live vicariously through people who have the ability to manage experiences that most of us would never have the opportunity to experience. In a way, The Comfort Crisis isn't just a book to help you shed your dependency on modern tech, but also a vicarious travelogue.

 

Taxed to death

So nice of PetSmart to break out all the taxes we pay here in Los Angeles. Keep in mind, all I bought was cat food.

 

 

Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. California taxes are out of control. Being in L.A. just compounds it. One can only hope we get new, competent leadership at some point.

 

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

A gorgeous December day on the channel!

 

 

The last pirate standing at the pirate house. There used to be multiple pirates (including one on a rope rappelling down the house) and a cannon. Now there's just one lonely pirate remaining. Looks like the captain is going to go down with his ship.

Even Kermit is leaving Hollywood

For years the entertainment industry has been fleeing Hollywood. Vancouver, Toronto, North Carolina, New Mexico and Georgia are just a few of the places that have benefited from this exodus, mainly due to the vastly lower cost of doing business outside of California.

 

And now Kermit the Frog is departing Tinseltown. The Kermit-as-Little-Tramp statue that has graced the main gate of The Jim Henson Company on La Brea for so long has been gifted by Henson's family to The Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. 

 

The lot, originally Charlie Chaplin Studios and later A&M Records, was sold last year so that may be the reason for this move, although if I bought the place I would have tried to include Kermit's statue as part of the deal. 

 

I think the gate is going to look sadly naked without it as another part of Hollywood history moves on. I haven't been to that part of town in ages, but I may need to drive by so Kermit's nod to the lot's founder can make me smile one last time.

 

Farewell!!! (*sniffles*)

 

UPDATE 1/2/26: Looks like there is some good news - John Mayer and McG, who bought the Henson lot, have renamed it for Chaplin and intend to preserve its history. Note: If you want to read the entire article linked in that post, you'll need a subscription to the L.A. Times.