#studiocity howtolove

[n0resistance]

Studio City

   My friend would say beautiful things come out of Studio City. She grew up there and turned out to be one of the coolest humans I ever met. I remember being in traffic on the way to the Sylvan and Esso Concert at the Greek Theater as she said that. My lease was about to be up in East Hollywood and I desperately wanted to visit The Philippines with my friends and then move back to New York. I needed to save money and had to come up with a plan to have it all work out. My lease was up on February 1st; I remember that because I moved to LA on January 4th and stayed in an Airbnb until I was able to sign a lease a month later.

   So my plan was to work and save until May and leave for Singapore and then The Philippines on May 7th. I asked my best friend if I could stay with her and pay some rent, utilities, so I could save enough money to leave. Thankfully she and her roommate were okay with it. When I left, I only brought a small hand-carry, backpack, and my ukulele on my trip. I left my big luggage in LA (my moving to New York luggage), so when I came back to New York I purposely had a layover in LA to say bye one last time and get all my stuff.

    It all was a good plan that was working out but to be honest 3 full months of being a gypsy to save money for a month-long trip and a move back to Brooklyn was difficult. I think I’m a good roommate because I’m never around. At the time I was working 2 jobs. 1 concierge job and the other as a bar-back on weekends in West Hollywood.  Every time I got paid it went to a flight, a hotel, and the trip I was about to embark on. My route was Singapore, Manila, Palawan, Cebu, Bohol, Manila, back to a layover in LA for 12 hours, and then home to New York.

   If I wasn’t at work I was working on a project. Having 3 months left in LA to create, I was trying to get involved in everything. My projects were acting in the play Romeo and Juliet, post-production on the short film “Layla”, and my first attempt to write and perform the intro to a one-woman show. Doing that and having a bucket list of places to visit in and near LA. There’s so much to see on the West Coast outside of LA proper.

   I was happy to spend the last 3 months in LA with my best friend from Jersey. Sometimes I would sleep at either one of my two other friends’ places I knew from work who lived closer to my jobs. One in West Hollywood and one in Hollywood. I was so lucky to have these girls and the best part was it was a good excuse to actually hang out with each other. LA is spread out and if you didn’t plan it, it’s easy to never see each other. Especially if you only have a bike like i did. So these sleepovers were literally just catchup before I said goodbye to my friends.

   I did feel unstable not having my own place. One time I reconnected with a guy whom I met when I first moved to LA. He was performing somewhere in the valley. He toured around 30 countries and was living in Airbnbs or couch surfing as a lifestyle. What amazed me was his ambition to perform everywhere. It was pretty annoying that at every single spot we went to, even if there were already performers there, he would squeeze his way to get on the mic. One restaurant we went to in Studio City had live performers and somehow this kid got on the Mic, singing "No Diggity" and had a minor altercation with the lead singer who got paid to be there.

   The lifestyle he was leading not having a consistent paycheck and being on the go that much, it altered his sense of time, space, and reality. Traveling is exhausting and even though he was pursuing his passions; everyone needs a little stability. In the end I called him my Layla, after the movie. Who’s a person who’s there for the moment and disappears with a inspiring image.

   My best friend and I would go and try different vegan food in LA. They had so much to offer. My favorite was Sun Cafe in Studio City. Couldn’t believe it was vegan and the food was like crack. I cooked a lot of pasta at home; it’s the only thing I’m excellent at cooking since living in Italy. My fav times were cooking pasta and catching up with her.

   I worked a lot and then had rehearsals coming up for Romeo and Juliet. I was so happy to get the roles of The Prince and Peter. At the beginning, The Prince stops the brawl. In the middle, Peter is a servant who tells Romeo about the party. I also was at the end having the last words to the dramatic scene. The play was an all-girl cast.

    I had never done Shakespeare and originally auditioned for Romeo. There’s a lot of research that goes into it for me. To actually understand what I’m reading. Watching the original movie helps a lot. It’s almost a different language. We had an impressive fight choreographer for the fight scene. The kissing scene was very believable. When I promoted the show I would tell people that it was an all girl cast with women fighting and making out. It was a joke but that was really what it was. The other actors were so talented and I was thankful to be able to do it. The play even made it into LA Times as a must see. 

    The completion of my short film Layla worked out because of a deadline and a rigorous schedule. I would go and be in the room to edit the film with the cinematographer and editor in Santa Monica everyday after work until it was done. I felt the need to be in the room since I hadn’t done that the last two times of making a short film. Editing is really where a movie is made. That process was fun. I learned it matters who you make movies with and if you have the same goals for the process to go smoothly. I prefer to be deadline oriented and with me moving home there was a sense of urgency. This to me is important because as artists we can feel a sense of complacency without deadlines.

    My go to bar in North Hollywood called Idle Hour. It's a bar that is shaped like a barrel with an actual dog house in the shape of a dog in the back. I never got to go to the jazz club I wanted to go to called The Baked Potato. Some place I’d like to try and see again if I can. I did like the tikki bar and this dive called residuals. A residual is when you do a commercial and get checks for $10 or a different amount when it airs but over the course of 10 years, they would have people’s pay stubs attached to the wall. At the end of my time at Studio City I partied, I worked, and I joined this group that met up to create dialogue for a one woman/one man show in the hotel we worked at. Before I left we were going to perform what we personally came up with in front of a small audience.

   Now this group had steps every time we met. The first time we just wrote a stream of consciousness. Then we shared the entry of what we wrote to a partner. I made a friend who's from North Jersey in the class who also lost her mom. Learning that felt really connected to her and vulnerable. Then we took our stream of consciousness and told it like a narrative with an activity and a setting. I called my piece "Little Girl". The monologue was short and effective and really pierced me emotionally which impacted other people. I wrote that my mom was a dancer and my dad was a traveler who saw a lot of the world. While I was telling their story I was folding napkins because in the piece I was at my job in a restaurant with an apron on. I tell the audience that my parents don't live their passions anymore because life got in the way, having a family got in the way.  So I made it a purpose to pursue my own passions. In the monologue I’ve been shut down by someone who’s close to me who says "I'm a bad actress who's never going to make it". Every time I said that line a tear came out because it was true. Or felt true, even if it was not, I believed it to be true. Even though I'm thought of in that way and don't have support, I do what I do because my parents are not able to, and maybe that experience and my own happiness is enough motivation to keep pursuing what I love.

     It felt good. I screened Layla at a Tibetan boutique shop in Santa Monica and every actor, coworker, and friend who I met in LA came to the showing. Where we projected the movie onto a white sheet and had a speaker. We all sat on the floor, the space was filled, and went to the bar on the other side of town called Harvard and Stone to celebrate. I left shortly for Singapore and was really happy to change my life into the unknown.