The First Echo

The wise prophet Ferris Bueller once said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Clearly Mr. Bueller isn't a 31-year-old unemployed/freelance writer who has Prius payments to make and student loans to neglect every month*. If I may, I'd like to tell him that life indeed moves pretty fast. However, if you've been stopped for a prolonged period of time, twiddling your thumbs, you can still miss it. Having left my employer back in February, my weekly routines of waking up, attempting to hit the gym, watching The View, getting booked on a few writing gigs, and spending hours in almost every Starbucks this side of La Cienega have made these past eight months fly by at a pace I've never experienced.

Nearly seven years ago I had written a "chapter email" to all of my friends and family back home (remember, this was before I ever acquainted myself with a blog) about my first experience as "an …

I am Jennifer Aniston.

Well, I can relate to the character she played in Friends With Money. In the 2006 dramedy, acutely written and directed by Nicole Holofcener, Jen's character, Olivia, is a down-and-out broke girl living in West L.A., surrounded by loved ones who have enough disposable income to fund a small private school for several years. I included the film in a list I compiled three years ago called "10 Great L.A. Movies" (you can catch it here). I also considered it one of the ten best movies I had seen that year.

Olivia hoards small sample jars of designer facial creams and soaps she acquires from various department stores throughout the city because, obviously, she can't afford the full-sized, full-priced bottles. In one particular scene we see her line up dozens of mini-bottles in her bathroom cabinet while she partakes in her nighttime facial ritual. Sometimes she'll even enlist her well-off friends to grab a sample for her; twice the moisturizer fo…

I thought I'd save this for next year's anniversary blog celebrating 10 years of living in the City of Angels, but why wait? I'm sure I'll stumble upon other discoveries before next summer rolls around. Here are twenty little nuggets I thought I'd share in the meantime (are there any I'm missing?).

1. Arclight Cinemas = Best. Popcorn. Ever.

2. Friends in other cities may gather together for movie nights and board game nights. Here, they gather together for award nominee screener nights and my-friend's-guest-starring-on-CSI nights.

3. Attractive, scantily-clad joggers should not be allowed to stretch and stand on the sidewalks of busy intersections; it's a driving hazard. And just not right.

4. When in doubt, take Fountain Avenue (or Olympic).

5. When the invite says 8pm, arrive at 9pm. Or, depending on the host, don't show up at all.

6. Some casting directors are jaded, former actors with a penchant for pot-smoking, obsessing over the shenanigans o…

Color me indecisive.

I'm going back and forth among three singles that have been tickling my fancy recently, hence my delayed choice for this month's anthemic tune.

The first is Lady Antebellum's "We Owned The Night." The country trio finally won me over during their Saturday Night Live performance last week (btw, Melissa McCarthy, I love you), and I can't help but feel like taking an impromptu nocturnal road trip up the coast or lighting a bonfire somewhere up in Malibu whenever I hear this breezy track.

Then there's James Morrison's duet with Jessie J, "Up," a song with a message I can certainly use to help me get through the rest of this "interesting" year.

But it's Mayer Hawthorne's "The Walk" that has completely won me over, and the video for this soulful throwback stars that hot chick from The Event, who could very well be JoJo's older sister.



All three songs are worthy selections for the season, but you know…

While you put the finishing touches on that slutty Halloween costume you'll eventually throw together at the last minute you may want to play these 25 tracks to help you get into the mood. Soulful throwbacks, mesmerizing vocals, and high-energy dance is what's on the menu. My second fall compilation of 2011 is now being served.

*And yes, those would be download links to some of the tracks below (get 'em while they're hot).

1. "We Found Love" by Rihanna feat. Calvin Harris
2. "Just In Love" by Joe Jonas
3. "I Like How It Feels" by Enrique Iglesias feat. Pitbull
4. "Shake It Out" by Florence + The Machine
5. "Russian Unicorn" by Bad Lip Reading - Upon the first listen, you may not get the lyrics at all. That's because it's one of those songs you need to see to believe. The geniuses behind BLP have produced a single as an alternative to the Michael Buble video for 2009's "Haven't Met You Yet," and the …