City of Donuts

There are a lot of donut shops in Los Angeles. Every corner has a Randy's Donuts or a Stan's Donuts or some other building with a man's name and the word "Donuts" after it.

All of them look like they were built and 1955 and then left alone to slowly decay, as if they're not really restaurants but rather elaborate mausoleums housing the actual original donuts that belonged to Randy or Stan or whoever the hell's name is on the roof.

There have been some donut innovations in the last few years, however. I was in a 7-11 last night and Krispy Kreme was offering a donut that is actually 5 donut holes stuck together. This is a pretty lazy innovation, of course, and completely destroys the entire concept of the donut hole since (a) the collection of holes is exactly the same size as an actual donut and (b) the donut-hole-donut did not itself have a donut hole.

Donuts haven't seen this kind of controversy since the much fought over introduction of the fritter.

It's Hard Out Here To P.A.R.K.

I'm in LA for a few days hanging out in Sean Conroy's apartment and pretending to be a struggling screenwriter. There's never been a comedy-drama-love-story between a night janitor and a coma victim and I intend to be the one to write it!

But it's a lonely town this Los Angeles - filled with flat-top buildings, garbage, rust, vagabonds, and beautiful, beautiful sunshine. I've spent most of my time here so far looking for parking. I also watched the last half of "I Robot."

Sean's apartment is in Hollywood, only a few miles below the famous hillside sign, and only blocks from the famous Shakey's Pizza on Sunset and Winona. I didn't eat any of their pizza, but I parked in their parking lot for a few minutes just to see how it felt not to be looking for parking.

Tomorrow I'm planning to walk down the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame and buy a fake beard at Hollywood Toys & Costumes. Then I'm taking a meeting at Universal under the nome de plume Stefan Spielberg. I watched a DVD on pitching movies this morning, so I think I'm ready. Look for "Dream Girl" coming to theatres in 2009! (Starring David Strathairn? Fingers crossed!)

Running For Her Mom

We found out a few weeks ago that my girlfriend's mom has Stage IV pancreatic cancer.

It's been a scary and mostly helpless few weeks.

But now Kate started a website all about her quest to run a half-marathon in October and raise $3,000 in honor of her mom to donate to research on pancreatic cancer.

Please check out the website and please donate to the cause.

From her site:

I hope to raise $3000 by October 1, and will be donating all money raised toward Pancreatic Cancer Research at Mass General Hospital in Boston. Pancreatic cancer is one the most underfunded cancers in America, yet every year over 30,000 people die from the disease. WE NEED YOUR HELP - even a dollar is a huge contribution!

Please visit Running For My Mom. And please give what you can.