Books and Cookies

This Santa Monica storefront's name is quite a promise. In short, everything you could possibly want under one roof. Plus a plush speaking version of that pigeon you're not supposed to let drive the bus (I prefer to imagine his voice in my head).

A Lot of Lions

Actual Advertisement Used to Entice Theatergoers

All the world's a stage...or at least it is on this poster.

Love's Gas

Love's gas: not to be confused with hate's electricity, or indifference's two sticks rubbed together to make a fire when camping in the woods.

Waste Please

The garbage receptacles on the Disney lot impel passersby to use them for their trash, but the statement also could be read as a command to create more trash. As in, "Please, in our 1930s font, make haste to make waste!" Maybe to keep Mickey Mouse, in his guise as the sorcerer's apprentice, occupied. Cue broom.

Ocular Recognition vs. Linguistic Cue

Do I really have to count? Ugghh, math. One, two, ohhh...FIVE pens. Well, that saved me a load of trouble.

Still Life with Old Lady Items

Because that's how I roll.

Happy September 19th

With much love and joy: past, present, and future.

(Also, ideally a living room with a 1950s-style mural like this one. There's a Monday wish for you: "I want a lake!")

I Wish My Ferrets Were That Nice To Me

Yet another opportunity to enjoy mockumentary "April," this time through online film festival OneCloudFest.

Pleasant Relief

A recent excavation trip in a friend's family garage uncovered this vintage bottle of "Pleasant Relief," a medicine designed to casually lighten the internal mood with its fictional pinkhood and gracious font. Here's to the manufacturer composing a version for the twenty-first century, in which the malaise brought on by the altered tempo of lifestyle is easily washed away with one spoonful, or perhaps two. I call it "Lovely Reintegration," or "Enough with the Facebook."

Paid Kiss

Earlier this week I worked on location in a Hollywood hot spot. I spent the morning hanging around Eva Longoria's Beso, soaked with beer and liquor from every night it'd seen before, and full of flashy but mop-able surfaces. How else can you explain dark red snakeprint couch cushions, seemingly leather from far away but as safe from stains as a kindergartner's plastic seat? In the light of day the clear vat of vodka and pineapple, the splashes of light fixtures, the dark floors all seemed like a cheap setup for getting laid; more viable as a television set than a real-life activity: and there I was in the middle of it. Proving my point that in order to get me to go to a nightclub, you have to pay me.

Mermaid vs. Dog Voice

Tomorrow I will be in a production office performing all of the female dog voices in "Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3" instead of auditioning to be a mermaid in an advertisement to sell pirate alcohol, because they need a stand-in for the dog voices and I am not a "professional mermaid" (actual quote from casting). Am I am a professional female dog? No, I am not a bitch, but I will stand in for several small furry ones tomorrow. That's just the life of an unprofessional mermaid.

Dirt Girls in a Grout...in Italian

The stateside wait for my Swiffer ad continues, but a friend unearthed this version currently playing in Italy. As my agent pointed out, one commenter wondered "Qual è il senso intrinseco di questo spot??" which translates roughly to wondering what the deeper meaning of it all is. I'm just guessing here, but: how awesome dirt-covered high heels are? How funny it is to personify dirt as a pack of girls-on-the-town? That you should clean stuff with a great product such as this one?

God In Our Own Image

They say man is made in God's image, but the modeling works both ways. Donut shop? Donut God.