Life is a Super Bowl

Happy Super Bowl Sunday!

I'm here at my favorite Starbucks in Sherman Oaks on Ventura the last time before moving out of Gilley and his fiancee Kim's LA place.

I was watching DVDs from Gilley's library as the cable was canceled earlier in the week.  I had never seen Travolta and Winger's URBAN COWBOY and just a few minutes into the great flick, the kind of humanistic, zero CG, flick we don't  see enough today, I see Winger doing a sexy mechanical bull ride in a joint called Gilley's.

I'll be asking Gilley when I see him tomorrow -- when I give back the keys on the VW his fiancee, the lovely Kim, loaned me when she headed off to New Mexico -- was URBAN COWBOY, and the mega nigh club called Gilley's, the inspiration for his stage name?



Gilley Grey was born Gilbert Anderson.  But since someone with that name already existed in the Screen Actors Guild, Gilbert became Gilley Grey.

Kim does not like the Gilley name but I find it fits Gilley's energetic generous personality.  But Gilley Grey is mighty tired right now because he did stunt work and transpo on PASSION PLAY, the new film with Mickey Rourke, Megan Fox and Bill Murray for 6 weeks solid, 16 hours a day.

Gilley hit it off well with Rourke and Murray in particular.  Bill as Gilley tells me is much fun in real life as he is on film.  And Rourke is the charming same charming rascal on and off the silver screen too.  Gilley did not get to spend much time with Megan Fox, but Gilley did get to see her in her angel wings, as she plays an angel that Mickey's character must rescue.

Sounds like PASSION PLAY might be a great flick that would silence some of Megan's detractors.

Today Gilley hooks up a trailer and hauls it to LA to load his stuff up and split to New Mexico for about 5 months.  I worry he's going to fall asleep at the wheel making a 34 hour round trip after a marathon film shoot.  I'll volunteer to drive him back if he can book me a flight back to LA.

Gilley's been a unbelievable roomate and so has Kim.  They feel the same about me.  We had all hoped the great sitcom CARMEN'S PLACE, about a stripper fitness club, that we all worked so hard on creating, well, I did all the writing as a way to bater for rent, might be a quick sale and change our lives.

But it's been the usual huge struggle just to get it submitted and I had to call in some favors with my entertainment layers.  It's slowed us down and we started the process too late in the pilot season but maybe this summer we can take run at it again.  It is one of the funniest things I've written and I am proud of it.  One of my pals at ABC who works on LOST loves it.  So who knows?  Ageism is alive and well in Hollywood and a guy in 50s like me is really up against it.

Now Gilley and Kim are leaving for New Mexico.  At least I won't have time to miss them too much as I'm battling to launch BuzzBroz in the middle of an economy so tight it feel like the labors of Hercules.  I find myself constantly making wrong guesses about work and cash flow.  People I usually depend on for backing are nowhere, acting frightened and behaving erratically.

Take a billionaire pal who called be just before New Year's.  The billionaire said, "I love this BuzzBroz thing to market one of my empty condo towers. Expect a call from my people tomorrow.  Give them a good quote and the job will be yours."  Kim and Gilley heard the call on speakers in the car and we were all high as kites as with the big job I'd be able to hire Kim and pay her a modest salary.

Now it's Super Bowl Sunday and still no word from the billionaire's people.  When I finally chased him down yesterday he basically called me a pest for calling him for the final word, which was, "We'll call you soon as we know.  Don't call us."

I could leave for year for World Trip and not miss a thing.  I may just do that as I continue to pair down my possessions.  I filled half a dumpter of stuff I tossed that I had tucked away in Gilley's place.  Half a dumpster!  And after my eviction last fall I'd never imagine I still have that much stuff.

Stuff!  I rented a 10 foot by 10 foot storage spot in Agoura where stashed stuff I was when the eviction hit.  I've pulled all that matter from there and that's half full of old furniture I'll now abandon.  I held onto it hoping things would get better with the new BuzzBroz biz that has been a drizzle instead of the steady rain I need. Now I'm abandoning ship on the storage spot and losing all that furniture.  Oh, well, most of it was 15 years old anyways.  New stuff awaits this purged warrior of the Great Depression 2.0. when the storm is over. I' haven't had less stuff since college.

More soon on my ongoing search for a new roomie.  One of my new clients is now 60 days behind on paying me and I'm flat broke.  But thankfully, I found a couch to crash on with an amazing radio star and motivational guru, Bradley Quick.  Brad stepped up from the filmmaker group called THE TABLE, how I also met Gilley.  I needed some rescue with the short notice Gilley had to give me when we leased the apartment in only about 48 hours thanks in part to a BuzzBroz video I made of the nice place. 

I like Brad and we may even do a 90 day lease once my check comes in next week as my struggling client has promised.  But Brad's used to living solo so I'm going to keep looking.  Harder to do now without a car but that's what the internet is for.  I'd like to live near the ocean for a while.

Too bad that nice lady with a place in Venice Beach was worried I'd be good for the rent based on my honesty.  I may be a deadbeat but I'm an honest deadbeat. 

My lesson from all these hard times is we all more connected than we realize.  The daisies in this daisy chain are wilted and brown.  But spring is coming, even if it skips a year to 2011.  Meantime, it's a great time to write, , film, blog, hike and bike.

Even in the worst of times... Life is a Super Bowl.