Let's assume you all know me, and I know all of you (all eight of you reading this, that is), and move forward with the dish and deets.
 
What follows is all a blurry haze of weird, unnatural sex, dangerous non-prescription drugs, and far too much discussion about the impending Screen Actor's Guild strike. I can't be held accountable for how factual my take on the proceedings is going to be. All I can say is that, over the next twenty-five weeks here at Psycomic.com, I'll try to be honest (which is more than most 'net columnists will give you).
 
Last week, my life became a thrill-a-minute joy ride through the glamorous and exciting world of making motion pictures, and I figure that'd probably be more interesting to share with you guys and gals than a weekly dissertation on what comics I like and why, or who I think is fucking up the comics industry, or whether Hal or Kyle is the one, true Green Lantern. We pretty much all know the answers to those questions (Green Arrow because I'm writing it, anyone who's thinks the kids will ever come back to this medium, and Hal Jordan), so there's little point in talking about it. This shit that I'm about to tell you, however, is real inside dope, and I need you to promise you're not going to share it with anyone else, as I need my day job, and I don't want to get kicked out of the movie club for talking smack about the secret process of how Hollywood works (to kill the suspense: it doesn't).
 
We started what is referred to in the movie biz as 'pre-production' - which essentially means everything that has to happen before Jason Mewes can utter the immortal line "Snoogans!" on film. The script's been written (and re-written, and re-written), the studio (the Dimension arm of Miramax) is humoring us enough to break off a couple bones to finance the realization of it, and all that's left to do (aside from the thousand boring-ass technical details that the producers take care of while I'm sleeping or watching TV) is cast some open roles. What better way to forge the single step that'll mark the start of this million-mile debacle-in-the-making than by planting one's foot firmly in (hel)L.A.? If you're casting, it's the place to be - as it's the town where all the actors and actresses seem to migrate and sleep with one another.
 
To wit, here was how week one and that process played out.
 
Sunday
Contrary to popular belief, I don't mind getting out of 'the Jers' every now and then. It's not so much that I hate the state (the wife does--with a vengeance), as it's nice to break with the domestic routine from time to time. To appreciate this, you have to understand my average day consists of an early rise to the tune of a yowling child (who wants neither love from me nor her mother, but instead to be placed in front of the tube for more pre-dawn 'Teletubbies' hate-marches), the massive consumption of at least a box-full of whatever pre-sweetened cereal I found a triple coupon for that week, many failed attempts to get into my wife's drawers, and finally, a nod-out at around eight p.m., while bitterly watching a DVD of some flick that made more than all of mine put together at the box office. From cradle to grave, if I'm lucky, all my days will resemble that schedule.
 
But not last week. I packed up kit and kin and flew to Bev-er-ly. Because I'm a superstitious weenie, I insist that the wife and I fly out first, with the baby and her grandparents following the next day (as we're going to be gone for over a week, and she doesn't know how to operate the stove just yet because she's fifteen months old, we didn't want to leave the kid at home; and as she's a handful, and I'm going to be as useless as tits on a fire hydrant because I'm working out there, the wife's parents graciously opted to tag-along and help out). We get to L.A. Sunday afternoon, and one of us is in Heaven.
 
See, the wife's originally from the City of the Angels. Well really, she's originally from Boca Raton, but had been living in L.A. for seven years and working at USA Today writing features about the Vapid and Vacant when I met her (I was one of the V&V's in question, and our meet-cute story is just about as adorable as two bunny rabbits fucking, but I'll save that for another time when I'm running late on a column deadline; like today). So for her, it's always a sort of homecoming when we go to L.A. - especially since it's getting "really cold" for her in Jersey (it's about sixty five, mind you).
 
Me? Fuck, I hate Los Angeles. The reasons for which are pretty routine and boring enough to fashion a sitcom out of, so I'll not regale you with the fine print, and leave it simply at me and the town don't really get along, is all.
 
We get to the Four Seasons hotel, judge it goodly enough to sleep in without fear of being chewed apart at night by cockroaches (my secret hotel paranoia), hurl our bags into a corner of the room, and rush out to catch a moving picture. As we are in a major metropolitan area, there are certain cultural outlets (yes - the irony of L.A. and the phrase 'cultural outlets' is not lost on me) that one must take advantage of because one doesn't find such in the sticks of the Jersey 'burbs. That night, we opt to take in an art house picture that wouldn't make it to our neck of the woods for, oh, say two years. 'Girl Fight' is on the menu that eve, and it's a tough sit for me because I've seen it already in Sundance when I was a judge there last January (Hey everyone! Look at me! I'm pretty fucking full of myself and important!). But the wife hasn't peeped it yet, so I suffer through another screening, even though it's the kind of film you really only need see once (which, to my mind, is a ringing endorsement, as most flicks don't warrant seeing ever; especially my own).
 
We turn in after that, as tomorrow starts the long process of meet-and-greets.