Darren Radar

OLD BLINKY I love my computer, but it is nearly as high maintenance as my feline companion . I bought the floor model of the Apple MacBook from the Bestbuy near my place in late 2006. It's a great machine, but in order to be able to use it for the transcription job I signed up for when I first moved to LA, I had to partition the hard drive - running the Apple environment from one portion and the Windows environment from the other. This has created a myriad of issues within both operating systems, the most recent of which is that the beta version of the program that I used to partition the hard drive is no longer available and now the only way I can make any changes is to purchase a whole new operating system from Apple. Ya know, I like Apple products quit a bit, but they really have racket going with upgrades and service. Just saying. During one of the colder days in LA, I came home to find the keyboard of my open laptop covered in cat pee. Because I had left the computer o...

CIGARETTES & CAT PEE I am not a neat freak. I wish to god I was, but dust bunnies and grime have had one up on me in nearly every apartment I've rented - the exceptions have been the times when I have lived alone. I have not luxuriated in a single occupancy scenario very often in my life, but for some reason, living alone encourages cleanliness in me. Roommates over the years have ranged from a super finicky acquaintance to a devil may care chimney stack of a best friend. But, it has not been the quality of roommate that has influence my tidying up habits - it is the mere fact of sharing a living space with another that has the duel effect of inviting disorganization to my routine as well as dampening the impulse to set things in order. I find I can live amidst the daily muck as long as the air in my home resembles something clean and/or is pleasing to the nose. I'm not a big fan of scented sprays, but readily employ incense, candles, and oils to fight back less than des...

1025 Highland The Giant People of Hollywood - Part 1 I don't know the dimensions of the signs, but they're huge. Giant pieces of patchwork fabric cover the North and South sides of the building entirely. When I'm looking down on LA from the top of Runyon Canyon I can see the sign clearly from over a mile away. An iPod ad perpetuates its iconography on the side facing the Hollywood Hills and a movie advertisement perpetuates the local industry on the side facing Downtown. The building is at least 15 stories high and half again the width of that, but it is very narrow, like each floor is made up entirely of one long hallway. When I first arrived in Hollywood the the building held up an an ad for the movie of Dreamgirls. Over the roofs of the low houses and buildings and through the palm tree tops, I could see the top half of the sign from the front door of my apartment. The back of three sequin-dressed girls as they take center stage, facing a crowd obscured by glaring ...

Horatio 17 and counting. The year has been up and down for my cat, Horatio. He's adjusted fairly well to California. He looks good and his coat has returned to its original color after having turned slightly orange-red just before the move. He has a couple new enemies, the neighbors cat and the giant raccoon that lives under the apartment building, and he's managed to escape the confines of 818 Las Palmas a few times by pushing out the screen on the large windows in the front room. He still throws up with regularity, but after a recent change to an all-Fancy-Feast-all-the-time diet, he seems to be keeping the food down much better. He has a very nice Indian vetrinarian who has treated him for the annual urinary tract infection as well as for a nasty case of fleas (something new, Colorado being so dry that fleas are rarely an issue). By all accounts he's a healthy old man of a cat (around 85 in human years). The vet and I decided to experiment a bit on Horatio earli...

Here, in no particular order, is a view from the last 365 + or so as seen in reverse reflection from a speeding car. Ahem. 818 Revisited The numbers of my address, having worn on me for a year now, seem symbolic. Mystically the numbers have to do with success and resurrection. The building is about 80 years old. The water pressure is practically non-existent. The bathroom sink and the shower have stopped up a number of times. If the link trap in the sink where the washing machine drains isn't cleanned regularly the sink will overflow. It's happened four times now. Of the four units in the building, we occupy the lower left. Just outside the windows that run along the North side of the unit is a long driveway leading to the garage in the back - a concrete canyon that broadcasts, like a speaker tube, any and every sound coming from within our apartment. Our neighbors upstairs and in the building next door are privy to our conversations, music, and the television we choose ...

Due to new and long-standing issues with time, computers, and discretion I have been criminally lax with the upkeep of this here blog. A Year in Review is scheduled to post before 2007 comes to a close. Perhaps this will calm the clicking throngs who come surfing here for the latest on yours turly...or...at least the two of you with diminished enough lives to check back here more than once - you know who you are. I'm almost ready, my darlings. Ready to reveal a year of so-so survivalism, crazy love, and time spent under the garish, pock-mark-enhancing, light of self-examination. Tune in...very soon...for the not-so glamourous account of an ex-mormon sausage chaser who decides, in the throes of mid-life, to toss his crisis smack dandy in the middle of a shiny cloud of pollution called Los Angeles.

Part I: HELLO DOLLY It was close enough that I could ride my bike from home. On the list of pros for a part-time job at Second City, this was the topper. The pay wasn't great and the hours could be better, but for someone new to the city the location was attractive, both practically and mythically. When I won the job I took it as a sign and immediately quit the full time ocean mopping gig I had across town. On a sunny Los Angeles morning I loaded my backpack-toting body onto my bike and headed North passed apartment buildings and several small movie and television studios. On the map I had printed out I had overlooked a street that bore a resemblance to my last name and was amused when I found Schrader Street on my zig-zagging path. Ten minutes from home, I rounded the corner off of Schrader, slid backward off the seat of my ten speed and - standing a foot on the lower pedal - coasted down the sidewalk. When I came to a stop my running shoe alighted on a pink marble star surrou...

A number of weeks ago I took part in my first casting director workshop. "The workshops are kind of a racket," said the actor who turned me onto them, "but it is a good way to be seen by casting directors and to network with other actors." I haven't shopped extensively for acting instruction, but I've done enough looking around to know that most classes are at least a few hundred bucks and usually lead to more classes in the same price range. At $35 a pop, casting director workshops seemed to be the most affordable way for an actor to keep his teeth white. I audited a workshop before deciding to participate. It appeared to be an awkward hybrid of a professional resource class and a practice audition...and as good a way as any to get started in LA, so I signed up. The night I attended, a casting director for The Office was running the workshop. She was pretty and polite. She spoke briefly about her agency and then grouped actors into twos and three...

Moving to LA from Denver has been a cultural baptism of sorts. While the look of many commercial buildings and cars and boulevards is disorienting-ly familiar, the rest of the city brims with voices, people, plants, and advertising that are anything but. The daily exposure to a diverse population has been overwhelming and reassuring. Somehow standing in line for take out in a Thai restaurant staffed by Korean- Anglo- and, Japanese-Americans with a crowd of patrons consisting of a gaggle of gay Aussies, a pair of botoxed British ladies, and several African-American couples causes me to feel more clearly defined. Defined as what, I'm not sure, but the feeling of definition is there. This exposure to human diversity also involves my employment experiences here. Recently I was hired as a temp at MySpace. MySpace, for those of you who don't know, is a free, on-line social networking and promotion website started two years ago as a little marketing tool for a guy who wanted so...

Two and half weeks ago I had the privilege of taking the small trek to Pasadena from Hollywood to attend a political program organized by the Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace. I had never heard of the ICUJP before, but by the end of the evening my indulgent despair over the American government and its people had taken quite a blow and I was faced with the kind of religious/political/cultural alchemy that lies at the core of the American promise. "ICUJP was created to support the work of Faith Leaders from Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, and Baha'i and other backgrounds who say, "Religious Communities Must Stop Blessing War and Violence." The program consisted of selected readings from Voices of a People's History of the United States, a book compiled and edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. From the introduction, "I wanted my readers to experience how at key moments in our history some of the bravest and most effectiv...

Timothy James Brown has drawn Valentine's Day cards every year for his friends and loved ones for as long as I have known him. The cards range from hilarious to disarmingly sweet to just plain strange, but they are always unique and always delightful. I do not possess the skills necessary to draw him a Valentine, but I do love him and I am grateful to have him in my life and I have a keyboard in front of me. So, here's to you Timmy, one of the most romantic men I've ever met. No one can lift the mood of love like you when you smile, laugh, and honor the dizzy, dizzy light of possibility. You are Rumi dressed as an existentialist. No one else understands so clearly what love is and can be. Your stature and your generosity and how you open yourself to a room are inspiring. I don't care what that bitch in your New York singing class said, you have a lovely, lovely voice. You really get love songs. Really. Not just selfishly or because you are in love or because they ...

A few weeks ago Tim Brown, my lovely roommate and friend, managed to swing two free tickets to Carrie Fisher's one woman show, Wishful Drinking, at The Geffen Theater. Ever since seeing Postcards from the Edge I've envied the way Carrie Fisher can take her damaged parts and polish them into shiny, richly colored jewels of comedy and the opportunity to see her live had me practically giddy. We arrived early and found a pre-show reception in progress. We were not on the list of guests but I really had to pee and the reception party was nice enough to point me in the way of the boy’s room. When I returned I found Tim with a glass of wine in his hand and a face about to give birth to some news. "Okay the wine girl just came by and Debbie Reynolds is behind me." I had stopped listening at "wine girl" and started searching the room. "Behind ME, Cinderella." Said Tim with velvety exasperation. Thoughts of free wine spun me as I turned to look over T...

In LA unknown actors are not seen as real people, but they can assume a sort of vague realness in the eyes of others by resembling a celebrity. In my life I have glanced the periphery of LA realness when I've been told I remind someone of Simon Lebon, Neil Patrick Harris, Leonardo DeCaprio, Carry Grant, Garrison Keillor, and most recently Mark McKinney. I have met these comparisons with some flattery, some distain, and more than some confusion. I recently had lunch with an actor/writer friend who told me that I needed to get my look together and asked me what I thought my type was. Drenched in the uncertainty of an actor who has recently landed in LA sans trainer, dermatologist, life coach, and guru I replied, "Oh, I don't know...nerdy dad? Gay office temp?" He agreed with my assessment and said "or someone like the actor who plays the son on Desperate Housewives." Later I was told by my roommate, Tim Brown, that I should get the roles like Mark McKin...

Last Sunday a friend invited me to a yoga class. After two weeks spent exclusively in my car, at a desk, or on the couch I was in serious need of a body reconnection. I have done yoga, in a not very disciplined manner, off and on for the last 6 years, but what I have learned could not have prepared me for this class. My understanding of yoga is not very historical and not very sophisticated. I took it up pretty diligently for a year or so after my brother committed suicide. It was a way for me to process the ocean of that experience and I am almost certain that without it I would have...well, I wouldn't have been able to face the reality of that death in quite the same way. The class started late and the wooden floor was filled by the time the yogi, a be-turbaned, 67 year old woman, joyfully made her way to the front of the long room. She was late and she spoke for some time about a yoga conference she had just returned from. She had attended the conference as the lead rep...

Here I sit at my first temp job in LA. Offices are the same where ever I go; grimy cubicles, shutter inducing florescent lighting, cell phones and LAN lines ringing in concert, copiers and printers coaxing exasperation from every human in need of them, managers and employees huffing, sighing, gossiping, and assuming a "this stuff really matters" stance during meetings while underneath they day dream and keep close watch on their secretes. The good thing about being a temp is that unless you light something on fire or show up naked, the regular office folk are usually happy to see you, at worst they are indifferent. This regard gives one the feeling of being needed and anonymous and free from the mill of office politics. There are the occasional permanent employees who project an exotic gaze onto a temp, viewing this outsider as someone from a land far more exciting, dangerous, and far less stable than their own. They smile at you with curiosity and sympathy as you pass t...

Thanks to everyone who has asked after my brother. He is currently in an acute rehabilitation facility getting help on constructing his future. As my younger sister, Debbie, pointed out in a mass New Year's Eve text message, "Be grateful for what you have because it could all change in a second." ...And usually does. My very good friend, Lindsey, brightened Xmas in LA LA Land with her vivacious personage. During her stay she claimed that we had officially moved beyond the friend stage and should now consider ourselves full on siblings. I was thrilled by this claim and agree to it immediately. Lindsey is an amazingly loyal and compassionate person and has been a nurse, teacher, and confidant to me over the last 7 years. Mostly she's been a great friend. She always seems to be available when I need someone the most. And I - much to the chagrin of many in my life - am all too often in need. She's smart, funny, brimming with creativity. She brings energy to...

My older brother, Mark, was admitted to the hospital two weeks ago after getting into a fight at a party. Physically, he is on the mend, but he is still unconscious and the prognosis isn't very good. For those of you who pray, I would ask the you send a little light in the direction of Utah. Thanks.

The late afternoon light is quite beautiful here. Everything is pink except the deep chalky green palm trees. The buildings and the sky are soaked in a fuzzy, hypnotic haze. It’s nearly enough to distract from the helicopters that seem constantly in the sky from 3pm to 9pm. I hear them as I putter around the walk-in freezer that is my apartment. It's cold for California. I had to buy a space heater! In California! The unexpected is the only reliable element in any plot, plan, or circumstance. I futz with my computer. I call service support. I call Bestbuy. I research computer info on line. I strive to understand this machine and make it work for me. I search for cheap software on-line and end up creating a flyer for some second-hand software pusher in the hopes that he'll give me what I need for free. I sit and surf, worry, experiment, try desperately to teach this old brain something new, and when I can breath back some worry I move from the ice chamber and swim ...

We arrived on what seemed to be a scrambled signal. After leaving Barstow in the early afternoon, two Saturday's ago, my beautiful sister, my cat, and I became a red blood cell in a large clog in the artery if Interstate 15. The subsequent detour added 4 hours to what would normally have been and hour and a half trip. By the time we arrived in Los Angeles it was dark. There were a number of phone calls made to my new roommate and to the U-haul station where I was planning to drop of the truck and the trailer I was pulling behind it, which contained my car. After three or four missed or mistaken exits my sister and I reached the Uhaul place 30 minutes before they were going to close. I figured I would just drop off the trailer that night and then drive the truck to my new apartment, unload it, and return it the following day. Getting the car off the trailer took no time, but due to the angle of the turn from the street getting the truck and trailer into the Uhaul lot wasn...

Moon Over Buffalo opened four weeks ago and it’s been nothing short of delightful. It's that rare theater experience where the ensemble clicks and grows and treats each other respectfully, even when tensions are running high. I am grateful for the personalities I get to share a stage and greenroom with and am honored to be close to so much talent. The cast and crew have socialized in various groups and sets over the course of the run and every single gathering has been warm and entertaining - so much so that I'm losing way too much sleep and consuming way too many libations for my own good. This experience is a welcome reminder of just how satisfying theater can be. My mother, younger sister, and two of my younger brothers and their wives came from Utah to see this show. I was a bit nervous when anticipating their visit. I tend to get more nervous when someone I know is in the audience. But, for whatever reason I was not nervous as I peeked through the curtains and saw ...