Soccer, Palm Springs and The Big Bang.

(nb: Not one for taking photos, I have posted some Serena took while here in the appropriate blog. So have a scroll back through the earlier blogs and take a look. Also the Tracker link to your right has been updated and features some interesting 'behind the scenes' footage you might enjoy. G.)

Yes, it's been nearly a week. Having just dropped Serena off at the airport I find time opening up in front of me again. I'll miss her. There are some unexpected bonuses to saying goodbye to her however. My room looks really massive and I feel like I'm back to work again. I only have a few more weeks in L.A so I need to make the most of it. Boy we had some fun though and she was kind enough to leave me a good half a head of long blond hair everywhere.

Last Saturday was my HouseMates birthday. Ken, our driver rolled up in his black stretch limo and we all piled in for a Ventura winery tour. We were 6 and a half in all and only made it to two vineyards. The half was a 6 year old plied with sugar to keep her interested. Poor thing. 6 hours in a car, even if it is a limo is a long day. I was knackered at the end of it, and have had to explain knackered, buggered, shattered and shagged a few times. Interesting we have so many words for tired in New Zealand. Was very tempted when asked if we "mix with the aboriginals in New Zealand" to make up some bollocks about a slave trade but couldn't do it. Bless.

The following morning the girl and I were up early and on the road to Palm Springs. A two-three hour drive into the desert gateway towns is quite something. We took the Aerial Tramway (it's a Gondola) from the desert floor to the snow capped peak of Mount Whatsamacallit. ahem. Apparently it's like going from Mexico to Canada, temperature-wise, in 14 minutes. We threw snowballs, prayed for a mountain lion sighting (well I did) and threw more snowballs. Back to the desert, mexican for lunch in town and off into the desert to fart in solitude, 4 Mexican meals in a row was starting to take its toll. A quick look in town didn't inspire us. It's a kitsch retirement village with hints of rat-pack former glamour.

 We opted for the Indian Canyons and got a eyeful of why the place is called Palm Springs. Walking through canyons under the shade of date palms following the streams to their source, I loved it. So have centuries of other people too and the signs are everywhere. Serena got all excited about cacti and I finally figured out my keys jingling in my pocket wasn't a rattlesnake after all.

I've managed to accrue another couple of parking tickets. Yep. Two more, at $50 a piece. Read the signs buddy. And 4 minutes over is still over. Ouch. We've been eating lots of great food, and when I can drag Serena away from all things Mexican some good cafe's too. Though we found ourselves taking a lot of photos of food when it arrives. When a plate of food is bigger than my head I'm not quite sure what they expect me to do with it.

Tuesday night we were VIP guests to the live taping of an American comedy show The Big Bang Theory. Serena's good friend and now buddy of mine is a production assistant on the show. It was a fascinating and bum-numbing experience. We don't have anything like it back home. After surrendering our phones, camera etc to security we were allowed onto the Warner Brothers lot and oo'ed and ahh'ed at the lists of films shot in each building. Stage 1, Casablanca, Demolition Man, that kind of thing. Mad mix of everything. We were early so our man took us for a pin on a buggy to fetch Johhny Malecki his pre-show jamba juice. (And it's sentences like that that really make you feel like you're in L.A.) Mr Malecki was in Roseanne many years ago and is now playing Leonard in The Big Bang and slammed a door into my face by accident. He was in a hurry and I was standing in a really stupid place. When time came we are lead to our seats in a small theatre-like seating block. The four main sets are laid out side by side in front of us. Comic-book store, Hall-way, Penny's room, Boy's lounge. A big stage with impossible sightlines for us on all but two of those sets really. Also there are 4 large moving cameras with a crew of three each roaming between us and the action. Luckily we have Numb-Nuts the goofball crowd warmer-upper. God knows what his actual name and title is but he's been doing it for years and is paid a small fortune per show. He explains how it al works, cracks gags, makes us make noise, pulls out lame magic tricks and does every cliche buskers trick in the book to keep us chuckling along. We were over him pretty quick but the majority of the crowd was loving it. They plied us with pizza and candy and recorded our laughter all night. The actors were great, and under a lot of pressure. 1 take and 1 for safety, producers and directors and writers running in to change lines between takes if we didn't laugh hard enough. The actors do a curtain call and some of them are obviously affected by us more than others. It's a weird mix of tv and theatre and I'd love to have a go. Afterwards we stuck around for the final of the cast/crew table-tennis tournament that had been running all season and got to meet some nice people.

The gods heard me. The following morning I had my first comedy audition. Guys in their thirties dealing with girl troubles. Feeling pretty relaxed, enjoying the mad warm up routine in the waiting room by the girl who said I look like a young Anthony Hopkins, walk into The Room and Hello! 8 People? Producer, writer, creator, and others, I think. Cue nervous giggle, stupid gag and dry mouth. I did okay, but okay isn't really what anyone's after over here. Good comments on my accent and told my audition was 'hip'. Curious.

Got to really blow out the post audition blues by painting my face black and white, wrapping a New Zealand flag around my shoulders and joining 4 actors, 2 Air New Zealand Pilots and a honorary Kiwi mexican mother-daughter duo at the Mexico vs All Whites game at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

Kick off at 8pm and we really should have left at 4. 90,000 people all wanted to drive there too please. We we walking up to the stadium as our national anthem was playing. I swear, we were the ONLY Kiwis there. That's 6 Kiwis and approximately 91,800 Mexicans. Some people just stared confused, others would run over to shake our hands, call us brave, and run off to tell their mates some crazy New Zealanders were here. Serena and I never got to our seats. It was impossible. Security was overwhelmed, entrances were blocked, the noise was unbelievable. As we walked up to the gates I had just a small notion of what it must have felt like approaching Omaha Beach on D-Day. We saw some of the first half where we held Mexico to nil all, and most of the second half when the All Whites finally buckled and went down 2 nil. Not a bad result for them, and we made it out alive so not a bad result for us.

Serena's last day today spent at the Getty Center. Stunning building designed by, um, some amazing modernist genius to house Getty's beautiful collection of Art. The whole experience is a treat. You arrive to be whisked up to the summit aboard a space-age looking white monorail and wander around this architectural masterpiece looking at ancient, middle ages, renaissance, modern art works. Funny though, same reaction I had at the Louvre to massive middle Age and Renaissance paintings. Boring. And weighed down in Christian Guilt and fervor for me get interested. And photos of modern american urban landscapes didn't really do it for me. A gas station s a gas station mate. But amazing tapestries and 13th century books and the like made it all worth it. Actually the gardens, the views and the building itself were the highlight. So there.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with a director about a horror film. Exciting. A genre I'm not the most familiar with, but a character I am. I'll let you know. Well done for reading so far. That one was well overdue and I'll endeavor to keep it short and succinct from here on in. Well, I'll give it a go. I'm a good quarter Irish.

G