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This is not what it looks like!
Throughout my career, I can honestly say I never dipped my pen in the company ink, if you get my meaning. I came close, once, at a Christmas party, with a recordist from the Sunset-Gower lot, but some friends realized I was making a total ass of myself and intervened. I was really drunk. I…
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What the f**k do you want?
People love to talk about the time they met [insert_name_of_famous_person_here]. My mom had a story about running into Jerry Lewis at an ice cream parlor she told for years. And given where I worked, I had plenty of “sightings,” if you want to call them that, but for me they were just another day at…
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One Ringy Dingy
I often if not always tell the story of my working life as the heartwarming rags-to-riches tale of the boy who left the seminary, got a job in the entertainment industry as a secretary, and retired 17 years later (for health reasons) as a facilities, logistics, and infrastructure vice president. And while that is true,…
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This is a raid!
When I wore a younger man’s clothes, Martin, Paul, and I were the three musketeers; we had all been Franciscans and Catholic seminarians studying for the priesthood, but after college found ourselves an unlikely posse. Martin was a high school principal – black and overweight, Paul was in federal law enforcement – quite muscular and…
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Brain Surgery
A man walks into a party. Guests are milling around. There is a low hum from the combined conversations of the partygoers, and over it can be heard some faint music. I think it is “Songbird” by Kenny G. Yah, it is. I’d know that song anywhere. Remember 1987? You couldn’t get away from it. …
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Sometimes I lie
Last week, I was having a conversation with the esteemed director of my residence here at Stonewall Gardens Assisted Living in my apartment, me seated, her standing in my open doorway. Under normal circumstances, I think the world of Brittany – she is intelligent, experienced, professional yes, but perhaps more importantly she is kind, compassionate,…
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Leave the trumpet-blowing to the musicians
I am actually a very shy person. If you find that easy to believe, good; I’ve done what I’m supposed to do. I may be outwardly shy and non-confrontational but sometimes, inside, I well up with megalomaniacal self-belief. In my head I act out little vignettes where I not only get my point across but…
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Stupid User Tricks
I learned just about everything I know about writing computer code from a man named Carl. I met him in the early 90s when we were working on creating a digital, automated way to transmit raw union payroll data from my company (a sound postproduction studio) to his (a payroll processing company). The idea was…
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Orange please
I have already told you of how my life of crime was over before it began thanks to an ill-fated attempt to steal a flashing orange traffic barricade in the dead of night with a bunch of friends when we were teenagers. But that was not my only brush with the law. In my 30s,…
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Directing Traffic
“Hollywood” as an industry goes through cycles. Of course, you have the big studios which each have the facilities to complete an entire television show or film “in house.” But economic conditions sometimes dictate outsourcing to specialty studios that can often provide work at a more cost-effective price point. It was during one of these…
Your mileage may vary.