Hollywood is an amazing place.  Literally anything can happen; and when it does, it’s luck…  

That’s been my attitude; the one that’s helped me continue to dream the impossible and literally kept me alive.  As my friends and fans know, for six months of last year, I was really struggling.  Just to survive. I’d been power-couch-surfing, staying on friend’s couches and, with a little luck, eking out a living as a writer.  Always good to have a roomie who can cook and clean and shop, so it’s like having a live-in butler and chef.  I never take anyone’s generosity for granted.

I was in Uber bad luck

Last November, just before Thanksgiving, I was living comfortably in a nice Hollywood apartment, paying $20 cash a night.  $600 a month for a room up at the Hollywood foothills, just below the famed Hollywood sign.  I had been driving for Uber and Lfyft for 18 months, doing long hours and making just enough to pay rent, feed myself and pay business expenses, including $20 a day in gas and an exorbitant $150/week to lease the car from Uber, plus special commercial insurance.

Well, I got sick.

Two weeks not driving and I fell behind in payments.  Uber repossessed the vehicle (to be fair to them I was behind two months because I wasn’t driving as much as I should have).  Then, my roommate kicked me to the curb.  Told me he could get more money for the room, “sorry”.  In one 24 hour period, I went from employed and housed and fed to unemployed, homeless and car-less.  And, hungry.  In LA, where you need a car just to drive to the bathroom.

Passenger lucked out with a writer/driver

Perhaps the greatest thing about driving Uber and Lyft in Hollywood is all the unexpected interesting people and connections you meet on a daily basis.  One of those rides was a recently widowed doctor who told me how she always wanted to write a book on the behavioral differences between male and female patients.  It was gonna be a humor book.  Well, literally being in the driver’s seat, I made a left turn and began my elevator pitch, selling her on the idea of hiring me to write her book.  We exchanged cards, and later, emails.  In those emails, we agreed on terms of the contract and were all set to go, then she ghosts me.  Stopped hearing from her. My luck had run out.

Enter Drew, my fabulous boss at The Hollywood Dog…

Drew knew someone who got me a beater car.  A 2004 Mitsubishi Elance.  Too old to Uber in because ride-sharing companies require you to have a newer car, ten years old or less, but a car nonetheless.  So, while I was able to get around, I had no home or money coming in.  And job hunting when you spend most of your day trying to find a place to sleep is hard, if not impossible.

Then, luck.

A good friend, fellow comedian, in Hollywood offered me a bed in his apartment for free until May 1, when I’d have to start paying rent.  That’s one problem down. Still no income.  I applied to Trader Joes, but they didn’t hire me.  In the mean time, I signed up with a telemarketing company and still waiting to hear back.  Really what wanted my old job back.  As a driver.  Or, with a little luck, as a writer again.

The luck of Dorian

So, this morning, I go to my local Starbucks to work online.  To write screenplays and search for work and build The Laughter Foundation.  What happens?  My car goes dead.  Battery.  I had jumper cables, but the problem was that my car was wedged in between a cement island in the parking lot and a van.  A van with “The Magic of Dorian” and a phone number on the outside.  I called the number.  A nice man who was in Starbucks, a magician named Dorian, came out and gave me a jump.  He’s a really great guy and from what I can see, a really well-respected magician.  Check him out!

Never get out of the boat

I went back into Starbucks to look for writing work.  BINGO! An email came through.  That widow I met in my Uber months ago.  I closed a multi-thousand dollar deal to ghostwrite a book for her.  So, there ya go, Ladies and Germs. There’s always hope and there’s always magic in Hollywood!

You just gotta hang in and soon enough, luck will come your way.

Paul McCartney’s With a Little Luck

For The Hollywood Dog, this has been Steven Alan Green 3/30/17

Whatever happened to manners?

The last time America understood the phrase “Excuse me…” is when Steve Martin exploded on SNL in 1975.  Why have we all turned into a band of passive aggressive push-arounds?  Although born and bred right here in these United States, I lived and learned manners “whilst” living an alternative life in a land 7,000 miles away on a tiny island known as Great Britain.  I didn’t know I was an American until I moved to England.  What I mean is that I really stood out.  There’s a bad joke over there about us Americans. Why do Americans talk so loud?  So you can hear them over their clothing.  You see the Brits are notoriously reserved.  But it’s more than that.  They are indeed unconsciously sinister. Everything is fair play, run on a society based logic, understatement, and indeed implication.  Over there, Excuse me, is fighting words.

Revenge, I mean manners (excuse me) is a dish best served cold

A joke from my stand-up act points out the difference.  In America, we’re very direct.  The typical American is like (spoken with a tough New York Brooklyn accent) “Bob, you’re full of shit!” Direct, you see?  But, in England, it’s delivered much more cold and even paranoid making.  “You know, Bob.  If one didn’t know you any better, one might think you were playing with the truth!”  More sinister you see and less confrontational.  In England, “we” say “sorry” dozens a times a day.  You’re going into a store and someone is coming out through the same door and there’s not enough room for you both, so you cover your face and say, “Sorry”.  Sorry for what?  You didn’t build the door.  Or if you want to interrupt a passerby’s solitude, you open with “Sorry…” before you ask for their watch and threaten to stab them.

In America all we got is “Excuse me.”

You’re in line at the supermarket, you leave the line for a moment to get some chewing gum on the nearby rack.  You get back to your place in line and there’s someone there.  What do you do.  If you use the phrase “Excuse me”, meaning you are about to simply politely inform them of your rightful place in line, fear awaits you because the phrase “Excuse me” has somehow become a prelude to a confrontation.  “Excuse me?  Excuse YOU!” and then guns ablaze.  Try going to your local Starbucks.  You know that little sugar and cream stand for making your coffee exactly how you like it?

Sugar and spice

Notice next time how a stranger who must pass his or her arm in front of your eyes to reach for the yellow packet of carcinogenic fake sugar, never says “Sorry”; oh no.  What you’ll hear is very quiet whispering. Indecipherable mumbling, which is supposed to indicate, “I deeply apologize for invading your space and I hope you can forgive me and not think me a crazy pervert.”  Something like that. I say, teach your fellow American how to be polite.  Just communicate.  Don’t be afraid to let a stranger know you don’t want to kill them.  You just want some bloody sugar.

Steve Martin’s iconic Excuse me.

This has been Steven Alan Green for The Hollywood Dog. 1/31/17

As many as several lifetimes ago, I bought a house.

A lovely dark old castle in the hills of Hollywood, overlooking the Hollywood sign and usually some kids throwing rocks at the “H”.  The house was built for Boris Karloff, the original Frankenstein actor who apparently had an unusual penchant for collecting stuffed animals for some reason.  Therefore, being thoroughly British, I understand this oddity. This love for the inanimate. Upon my first day after closing escrow, I make my way into the basement of this Moorish architectural find, even though it had terrible lighting.

Good lighting makes all the difference

Nearly knocking myself unconscious by the swinging lightbulb, I uncover a treasure-trove of dusty old books. Because most of the books were flagged with bookmarks apparently made up of the skin of snakes and lizards, I pause.  Not being swayed one way or another, I decide, in spite of the bad lighting, to at least leaf-through one. After all, the book which caught my still working eye is most fascinating, as well as precipitous indeed.

Black Magic and Lighting for the Insane

“Black Magic and Lighting for the Insane” – published in 1754 – is a guidebook for local government, in particular the ordinance of the local constabulary.  The police that is.  Sicne, I was bemused to the point of completely missing my mid-afternoon tea and scones, I decide to sit back on an old wicker chair and read the most fascinating stories of supernatural intrigue, as they related to 18^th Century normal police work.

But then…

The lightbulb went out.  Because of that, I stumble my way to the staircase and out towards my Uber. I suddenly find myself on Westwood Boulevard, happily discovering a little storefront with the most magical and wondrous lighting I’d ever see in all my lifetimes.  Lightwave Lighting.  2335 Westwood Blvd.  I find the staff helpful and very knowledgeable. Soon enough, before I knew it, I am back in my dusty old mansion on the hillside, enjoying another Gothic novel, along with a cup of fennel tea.  Life is grand, especially in a new light.

Enjoy my video visit with Lightwave Lighting.

Nigel Arrisson

Los Angeles, Dec 18, 2016

What’s up, dawgs! You know I love to share my real opinion, as real as it can be. Call me Scrooge but what is going with the Christmas tree?? Oh Christmas tree, how dry and burnt your branches… Being from the Lake Tahoe Basin I pay attention to the environment, and with some learning in the medicines I view sickness in a broad scope. Many diseases have taken tolls on large bands of trees in North America. Including severe drought, mountain pine or bark beetles and varieties of fungus. With the world caught in the middle of such catastrophic suppositions it seems inhumane and even criminal to be chopping down a tree that would last longer than my own life and then decorating it like a drag queen for Gay Pride. The story of the tree, though, what is it? Is it the pagan holiday where we scavenge the forrest for nuts and berries and medicinal mushrooms. Placing the winter bounty under and on top of the meeting spot our elder guide arranged for us. Is is the Hanukkah bush, a representation of bounty and life…

Before modernism I can imagine it was difficult to live a single day without learning a new skill or task or fact about the world. Fast forward to 2016 and we couldn’t be further from our roots. No pun intended since you chopped them off… Humans have evolved to the extent our existence in coming years is debatable? Yet, we have harnessed almost every available resource for our own gain not the environments. OH Christmas TREE!! We still have the time and money (credit okay) to purchase a slaughterhouse Doug Fir for the delight of the season. Lest we not forget the fire hazard that this seemingly barbaric tradition offers our home. How nice that the lights we so admire gleaming off the dying branches could ruin our lives, even permanently. The floor below the tree filled with Chinese plastic, created by burning crude fuel sent to those nations. The pollution in Asia so bad it closely resembles England’s Great Smog of 1952. You cannot see the sparkling lights of a tree or on a home with the level of pollution we are talking about. Let alone gasp at the lovely sight of a glowing bush.

That’s okay, America has environmental protection laws preventing our air from filling with those toxins. Wonderful, seasonal gatherings soon to litter the landfills. The more glitter the worse for the environment, the fake tree a bi-product of oil as well. I’m not fussing with the despicably ironic, wasteful, tasteless pain in the ass, Oh, Christmas tree! Maybe you read this and you bought a living tree and you plan to plant it. Are you sure you won’t be fined?? After all it seems typical for regulation to waste money to throw you in jail for doing the right things and keeping you loose if you are prepared to pillage the Earth. How about a sponsor-a-tree program to rebuild forests? We have the technology to take a photo and create a hologram. We could even design it with an air freshener combo to spritz the room with an “evergreen” scent.Can we get some GMO trees up in here?? I hope you enjoy your tree as much as I enjoy the absence of death and destruction in my home this winter. If you plan to chop up your tree and use it for firewood or even mulch or compost… May the magic of natural light warm your path to sustainability.