Back to New York for a bit of a break before hurling myself into the fires of Hollywood once more for the ever-intensifying stretch that leads to the start of I Love Your Work shooting on January 8th. Too stressed out, jet lagged and sleep deprived for genuine pith or wit, I fall back upon these two passages on that most unique city of angels to summarize my thoughts.

On Los Angeles versus New York:

LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities; New York gets god-awful cold in the winter but there’s a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in those streets.

– Jack Kerouac, On the Road

On the lovely individuals with whom I’ve interacted thus far:

The men who work in this town, and, to a lesser degree, the women, display behaviors that would undo them in any other profession. Egomania and greed that would disgrace any executive in, say, the insurance or aerospace industries are here rewarded. And even for those who run afoul of the law and are convicted of crimes, there is an apparently bottomless well of forgiveness. “Nobody cares about that shit,” one studio head said recently. “If you’re a money-maker, you could have killed and eaten your own children. It doesn’t matter as long as there is the perception that you can make somebody some money.”

-Charles Fleming, “Failing Upward in Movieland”

Boy, I can’t wait to go back.