It's Almost Like A Billy Joel Song!

Billy Joel has a famous song called "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" (which has much less rage and angst than "Say Goodbye Hollywood" by Eminem) that first came out in 1976. Forty years after that song was released, our family is staying in Hollywood and officially saying goodbye to Missouri.

I can hear you asking, "Haven't you been away from Missouri for four years already? Why are you just getting around to saying goodbye?"

The answer is....We finally sold our home in St. Louis.

I've mentioned before that Zach and I moved to Los Angeles in January 2012. We put our house on the market but we were in no great hurry to sell it because the two of us would go back to Missouri if he didn't like trying to be an actor. It quickly became apparent that Zach had a future out here so we decided to seriously try and sell the house. While the "serious selling" was just starting to kick into gear, Dana landed a job with the American Cancer Society and had to be in California in two weeks. This left us no time to handle the necessary landscaping, painting and repairs that normally need to be done to any home to make it "seller friendly". Instead, we decided to use the home as a rental property so we could get the monthly mortgage covered and not have to pay both California rent and a Missouri house payment.

We were pretty lucky with our renters most of the time. We had one family rent it while they were repairing storm damage to their home that turned into eight months worth of rent as their repairs went on longer than expected. We also had a series of families that were temporary Missouri residents while their husbands were doing their medical residencies at Washington University. All of the families took care of the property and seemed to care about keeping it in good shape.

However, there were a few bumps along the way.

Here's a fun fact for you: If your home in the state of Missouri sustains water damage while the house is being used as a rental property, your homeowners insurance will not cover any of the damage. Let me repeat that for you: NONE OF THE DAMAGE!!!! After our last rental family failed to check the sump pump in the basement (to the tune of $6000 worth of out of pocket water damage repair expenses), we decided it was time to finally sell the house.

The ease of owning a rental property is often related to how easy it is to reach the property in times of need. When we first moved to St. Louis, we still owned a home in Memphis. In the 4-5 months it took us to sell that home, I would go check on it and take care of the yard and any small repairs. I also worked at a country radio station so my trips to Memphis would often go like this:

• Get off the air at Midnight in St. Louis
• Drive 4 hours to Memphis
• Take a sleeping bag and crash on the floor of the empty house for 3-4 hours
• Get up at 8am and take care of any pressing issues
• Leave by 1pm to drive back to St. Louis to be on the air at 7pm

Does that sound like a pain to you? Yes, it was a pain but at least I was close enough to drive there and take care of any issues that needed to be handled at the house. Using the water damage example again, I couldn't exactly jump in the truck and go take care of it because it would have taken me two days to get to Missouri. We were lucky enough to have a great rental property company watching after our home. Greg Rybacki, and the entire team at Rybo Properties, found the people to get the water out of the basement and fix the entire mess for the lowest price possible. Greg also watched over the whole project and made sure it was taken care of correctly and on time. I can't praise the guy enough for taking care of us over the past four years. 

When we made the final decision to sell the house, we turned to an old friend who would have our best interests at heart. Joanne Balis put up with way too many questions from me as well as a couple that flaked out on the first contract we had on the house this year. After that disappointment, she found the perfect couple to buy the property from us.  

When we made the decision to sell the house, I emailed some friends in St. Louis asking their advice and recommendations about painting and landscaping. I sent the email asking this question at 1am California time. At 8am California time, I woke up to a message from Mark Seibel asking me to call him. Mark runs a stone, paving and concrete company and instantly went over to my house when he got the email. He had already taken photos of the property and had a plan of what to do around the house. Zach and his son have remained friends over the years and I am glad to say that Mark and I are still friends. He went far beyond what my simple advice email asked and I can't thank him enough. Plus, I love the fact that he made his son mow our yard for free the entire time it was on the market.

I haven't set foot in the house since 2012. I drove past it a few times when I was in town but that was just to check on the outside of the home and to make sure the property was being cared for by the renters. It long ago stopped being a home to me and was just a piece of property that I owned. It's only been in the last week that I've actually started to feel some nostalgia for the place. The sale closed yesterday so I'd like to say goodbye to:

• Ken - The neighbor we never saw and only knew was alive when the pizza delivery guy would show up at his door.
• Miss Norma - The widowed neighbor who was always nice to Zach and snippy with me.
• The homeowner next door - Thanks for showing me the kind of people I would never let rent my house.
• The neighbor on the other side of the house - I don't remember her name but I do remember her dislike for everyone else in the neighborhood. I think I sealed her hatred for me when I was playing with my dog and she came out to complain that the dog was barking too much. I replied with "Would you like me to teach her how to moo or meow? It would be a great trick and might not hurt your delicate ears so much." She had no use for me after that moment.
• The neighbors with the live chickens in their backyard - I'm pretty sure they were running drugs out of their home but they were low key about it.

Unlike Billy Joel, we will keep saying "Hello to Hollywood". I may not live in a big house in Los Angeles but at least I don't have a home in St. Louis anymore to give me constant worries about flooding and tornadoes and whether or not the renters are taking care of the place.

Having said all of that, I certainly wouldn't mind an order of toasted ravioli from St. Louis!

This actor is in Hollywood for the long run.

A Night Of Hollywood Rock 'N' Roll

Like a lot of people who came of age in the 80s, I loved the music that came out of the Los Angeles rock scene. Dana also loved the metal music that came out of Los Angeles. A partial list of the bands that we both liked at the time includes Motley Crue, Dark Angel and L.A. Guns. One major difference between the two of us at that time in Memphis was the fact that Dana got to work at a radio station that played that genre of music. I also worked at a radio station at the same time but we played such cutting edge Los Angeles acts as The Bangles, The Go-Go's and Nelson.

We both thought how cool it would be to hang out on the Sunset Strip at The Roxy, The Whiskey or The Rainbow. A night filled with rock 'n' roll, booze and half naked rock fans seemed like a great idea. I've spent a good amount of time on the Sunset Strip since moving here but I never pictured the majority of my time being spent at Nick on Sunset while Zach was filming at Nickelodeon.

Flash forward many years and Motley Crue is wrapping up their tour and life as a band at The Staples Center. While not quite the Sunset Strip, there was a definite "L.A. Vibe" to the show since the Crue is considered a hometown band by the city.

The final show was on New Year's Eve but we were there the night before on December 30th. I was expecting the crowd to be nothing more than a convention of 80s burnouts and over the hill rockers. I was surprised by the wide range of people in the crowd. It was a combination of people who loved the band in the 80s and came to the show dressed (not in an ironic way) in their 80s gear, parents with kids that actually seemed excited to see the band as opposed to being dragged to the show by their parents and a large portion of people who wanted to see the Crue one last time.

Dana thinking about the music while I'm thinking about the price of beer at the show.

Instead of a beer soaked venue like The Whiskey where the sound is loud and the only souvenir is a hangover, there was a pop-up shop full of Crue gear that also included Kings jerseys with the Crue logo on it. Instead of simple bar food like onion rings and fries, Staples had salads, sushi, McDonald's and California Pizza Kitchen to keep the crowd full and happy.

My favorite Crue item of the night.

When the Crue comes to mind, I think of loud music, pyrotechnics and half naked girls. The show had all three of those things but two of them were slightly disappointing. Staples Center is a great place to see a basketball game but it kind of sucks for a rock show. The venue is so large that the sound gets lost as it leaves the stage. The music volume and even the pyrotechnics sound seemed to be at low to medium volume most of the night. Motley Crue sounded great but there is no way I should have been able to have a conversation with the guy next to me at a normal volume. I never had to raise my voice to be heard over the music.

The most rock 'n' roll thing that happened all night were the guitar and drum solos and even those seemed like they were happening far away from the crowd. There were plenty of shots on the TV screens of the half naked dancers who seemed to be having more fun than any of the band members on stage.

After the show was over, there was not a rush for the door to get to the next bar before it closed. A good portion of the crowd was discussing being up for work early the next morning.  It was a great show but a far cry from the debauchery I always imagined a Crue show would be from footage I saw in the 80s.

There is still a great rock scene that happens on the Strip with the rock lifestyle still being practiced on a nightly basis. It wasn't all that apparent at the Crue show but it was a good night for Los Angeles rock music. It showed that no matter how old the band (or their fans) the love of rock music still builds a community no matter where the venue is located in Los Angeles.

This Actor Didn't Want To Hang Out At Motley Crue With His Parents

Things You Learn When You Leave The Bubble

I am writing this update far from Hollywood. It's the holidays so we are visiting family in Arkansas. It's good to be here for a few reasons:

*Visiting family is always a good thing.

and

*Sometimes you have to get out of the bubble of show business to realize that not everyone is constantly thinking about Hollywood.

I've lived in many different cities and almost all of the stores and restaurants shut down on Christmas Eve. I was alone on Christmas Eve (as Dana and Zach had already left town) but I wasn't bored by any stretch of the imagination. A good 70% of the bars and restaurants by my home were open so I had plenty of food options. There were still Christmas Eve services and folks singing Christmas carols but it seemed like any other day in Los Angeles.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog entry (right here), a good portion of the conversations in Los Angeles revolve around show business in some form or fashion. I was at LAX flying out for Christmas vacation and heard conversations about DVR ratings, weekend box office numbers and pilot casting possibilities. About 60% of the passengers on the plane were wearing some sort of "Hollywood gear". I spotted production crew jackets, free t-shirts from movie screenings, baseball caps from TV shows and even a headshot or two being passed around while waiting for our flight.

I flew from Los Angeles to Dallas where I was greeted by Southern accents, SEC and Cowboys jackets and people discussing college bowl games and Jesus. I had a layover that left me enough time for lunch. I was reading the latest copy of "The Hollywood Reporter" when I noticed two people pointing at me. I couldn't hear their entire conversation but I did make out the words "movies" and "producer". 

Once I landed in Memphis, Dana picked me up and we headed to see her parents in Arkansas. It was late in the day and the lack of crops and green fields made the scenery rather bleak on the drive. The bleakness didn't grab my attention as much as the sky above as we drove past the small towns. It's almost impossible to get a good view of the sky in Los Angeles. There's always a hazy layer of smog that blocks the view. You have to get out of the city to really see the stars. We went to Big Bear in August and enjoyed the night sky. After four months of not having a good view at night, I was amazed at how bright the stars seemed and how easy they were to view. It's a fact that escapes your mind when you are used to not seeing the stars clearly on a daily basis.

We arrived to find a sick teen actor on the couch. He must have caught some sort of bug on the airplane because he was throwing up and running a high fever. Remember what I wrote above about Christmas Eve seeming like any other day? This did not hold true in small town Arkansas. It took me 4 or 5 attempts to find a Walgreens that was open on Christmas night. They were only open until 8pm and it was 15 miles away from us. Dana and I jumped into a vehicle and raced to the store to get Zach some medicine. The very nice lady working that night asked what we were looking for in the medicine aisle. We explained that we had just flown in from Los Angeles and that the kid might have caught something on the plane. We didn't mention the Los Angeles thing to brag as much as it was a simple part of the story to explain how he fell ill. I was in another aisle when a fellow customer came up to me and asked if I knew Tom Cruise or Bruce Willis. I told him I hadn't seen the guys for a few weeks but I would catch up with them in 2016. I sometimes forget that people who don't live in Los Angeles think that everyone knows each other (including super famous actors).

The bubble of show business is all around you in Hollywood. It becomes such an everyday part of life that it seems odd to be around people who aren't worried about their next audition or if their lines will be cut out of the final shooting script or how to get a script seen by the right people at a studio. I'm not saying if one viewpoint is more valid than the other one. I do know that it's good to get out of the show business bubble every now and then. It recharges your batteries, puts everything in perspective and helps you focus on what goals you want to achieve when you step back inside the bubble of Hollywood.

This Teen Actor Is Feeling A Little Bit Better Today.