Up on Redcliff Street

It's a twisty drive up to Redcliff. You just take Berkeley off Silverlake and you're right there. Fred the landlord has a few properties here on this lot and he doesn't mind about most things as long as the rent checks come through on time. Fred listens to old timey music you can hear through the screen door and has a small and alert white dog that sometimes sits on the picinic table and watches people and things go by.

Today I worked from home. Mostly on account of my producer and my editor are both in New England at the moment, where I've heard they're getting some weather. I'm only doing research now, and I can do that here. I'm reading two books. One about how to tell stories and the other is the diary of Werner Herzog that he wrote during the filming of Fitzcaraldo back in 1980. It's Stephenson's book but I have no idea where Stephenson is right now.

The weather is fine. It's always warm and breezy and dusty and filthy. They got the Silver Lake all fenced off with barbed wire and security shacks. I guess water's something of a hot commodity out here and they use the Silver Lake to pump it around to faucets and toilets. But there's a nice dirt running track that loops around the lake that's pretty popular between the hours of 4:30 and 9pm. I walked around it tonight at about 8 and passed probably 100 people. If you make your own hours I'd say get out there around 2pm and you got the thing to yourself.

I been getting out doing some running and the architechture is strange and modern and the trees seem strange and ancient. There's all these new buildings around here but in your gut you can feel that California is an ancient, natural place and there is only a fragile and uneasy truce between mankind and nature here. Sometimes out by the Silver lake in mid-afternoon you'll be elevated into a trance-like state for a few moments that reminds you of a dream. Not a good dream or a bad dream. Just a strange dream. The dead can still feel the California breeze.

I am learning my way around town and some things are happing as I'd hoped and other things aren't panning out too great but mostly everything is going according to plan. Sometimes I feel like a paratrooper that's been dropped behind enemy lines and caught a bad gust of wind and ended up alone in the woods. But then the Scottish blood in me takes over and mechanically starts digging trenches. I just finished reading 'The Art of War' and learned that the 5th form of war is Siege Warfare. It is the lowest form of war but is sometimes necessary.

The submission date for Tribeca is December 14 and we're going for it.

Well, here we are at the Battle of Los Angeles.