The Urban Man

The Balcony Principle

Like most modern humans, I believe in the Balcony Principle: that is, that all our work, all our struggles, and all our commutes will each year culminate in a summertime balcony moment. Not on just any balcony, of course, but a balcony like in one of those glossy ads and overlooking something large and beautiful: a lake or a beach...

Sleepout

The other day my friend Dave and I were sitting outside at a Culver City café, watching the traffic lights change along Washington Boulevard, when he explained the trouble with modern life. All our problems, he said, stemmed from eliminating natural cycles. Electricity has eliminated night; air conditioning has eliminated summer; laptops have destroyed rest. We import food to obliterate growing seasons, and create pills to bring a halt to both boyish exuberance and women's menstruation. Lately, my G-d, even the concept of primetime TV is being lost. "All this linear, 24/7 living," said Dave, "causes discontent in the human soul."

A Short Vacation

You may or may not have noticed, but chaos has been in fashion for some time. You have your art expressing confusion and death, your t-shirts featuring dangerous words and half-formed images, your leather jackets decorated with skulls and iron crosses. Then you have your nihilist lyrics, your deconstructionist architecture, your torn jeans, your misogynist rap, your New Yorker short stories, your video games set in smoking ruins, and of course, performance art. Even if you peruse the recent release aisle at the video store, you'll notice that 90 percent feature some form of grim horror...

Sudden Kinship

When happy endings come to modern films or novels, they often come like this: An orphaned character, beset by evil-doers, finds an unexpected family among a ragtag collection of fellow travelers, unanticipated neighbors, animated toys, or funny forest creatures...

Hollywood Epistemology

People complain that we in the media expect too much of actors. That we ask them deep philosophical questions and want them to reveal great truths when they're masters of nothing but illusion. Why should we care what they think about life and the universe? Shouldn't we be interviewing, like, actual wise people?

Random Access Memory

It's a few days before Memorial Day, right here in the Kingdom of Forgetting, and the Urban Man has gone down to the veteran's cemetery. Yes, the cemetery. Wait...don't tune out just yet, my swift and belovèd Angelenos, zipping down the 405 to the next big thing; or just now heading home on the 10 with that nice full-day-at-the-beach feeling; or better yet rushing to apple martinis at your friend's excellent after-the-barbeque bash...

Keeping the Muse Happy

If we want to get this economy moving, the Urban Man knows we're going to have to sacrifice to the Muse of Excess Spending. We may have to burn some incense, sing some songs, and of course, buy a few presents to make her happy...

Square One

People say that L.A. has no beginning and no end, but it's not true. We have Santa Monica Pier. Surely, this is the very first place everyone visits when they arrive in the metropolis, the spot where we all wash ashore to thrive or fail...

Hi-Def

Legacy Player:

Here in the metropolis it's important to maintain a clear self-definition, no matter what. You may not have landed a role in years, but remember that you're still an actor. You may not have gotten a golden parachute, but don't forget you're still a high-flyer. Even if everything else goes to hell, you have to keep your abs in line and your cheekbones visible...

Solidifying Your Brand

Legacy Player:

Seeing the Light

Legacy Player:

Like most people who live in L.A., the Urban Man believes in cosmic enlightenment. Me, I’ve been enlightened eight or nine times. Usually for about 10 minutes. It doesn’t stick, but I remember each brief ascendance fondly...

Natural Born Leaders

Legacy Player:

Here in America, we work hard to cultivate leaders. We hold leadership seminars, we put up leadership posters, we celebrate risk-taking. And I guess it works — I mean you never know when someone will suddenly grab the flag, blaze a new trail, or think out of the box. Along the way, the rest of us get tied, you know, to their bold visions...

Clothing the Naked

Legacy Player:

Historians like to say that L.A. is not so much a place as a "blank canvas" where new places get painted in every few years. And of course, they're right. Each generation gleefully wipes out the city that came before: parks, buildings, boulevards...

Corresponding Affections

Legacy Player:

The trouble with love in the big city is not that people are callous or self-involved, it's that they evolve so quickly. When people say, "I swear I will love you forever," they mean they will forever love the person into whose eyes they are gazing at that moment. Unfortunately, within a few years…or months…it's pretty likely that person will change into a different person with, like, the same name. So…when one or the other party packs up and leaves, no oath has technically been violated, because neither of the original parties still exist...

Just...Don't Do It

Legacy Player:

People are always telling me that the solution to the world's problems is to drive less, spend less, and stop creating consumer bubbles. But I don't see why. I've built my whole life on bubbles: a tech bubble, a real estate bubble, a financial bubble. When each bubble pops, there's always one more...