L.A. is such a magical place. A few months ago, my husband got on the subway in Los Angeles, and got off the subway in New York. It is one of those things that would be unusual in most places, but here it is not all that uncommon.
It was a movie shoot set in New York. When Geoff came up out the subway, there were New York City cabs, steam coming up apparently from below the street, and groups of people in suits and coats way too warm for this sunny day.
In the photo above is a New York City cab. The green pole in front of the cab is actually a palm tree. All of the palm trees were wrapped in green so that they could be more easily digitally edited out of the shot. It turns out that they don’t have many palm trees in New York. The tank of nitrogen is what they used to make the smoke apparently coming up out of the street, something we don’t have here.
L. A/ doesn’t have the New York style hot dog carts seen above. Unlike the boiled dogs from New York carts, I’ve seen dozens of stainless steel baking trays over sterno outside sporting events, conventions, and bars. These trays are covered with sizzling Danger Dogs – hot dogs wrapped in bacon. I’d like to pretend I’m not the sort of person who loves bacon in everything, but have you ever had a maple bacon donut? I’m just saying. Sadly, this hot dog cart did not have real hot dogs, and the steam rising from it also came from a nitrogen tank.
This is the kind of magic that you stumble across often in L.A. Where else can you sit in Blue Bottle sipping coffee while watching Kim Kardashian walk into The Henry 4 times in the span of a few minutes? This was a few weeks ago and it was windy and her hair just wasn’t behaving for the crew that follows her around and documents her version of reality. They had to keep doing her entrance over and over.
With so many of my friends in the industry unable to work, I am so looking forward to the day when they and I can all get back to our reality – doing the work we love.