And the best part of the award was that I think his brother was even more excited than Clint. After having watched the entire series of "Arrested Development" on DVD recently, I started obsessing trying to remember if Clint Howard had been in any of the episodes. (For the Clint Howard novices, Clint has been in just about everything Ron Howard has ever touched. Often in memorable, small roles.) I still don't know about the "Arrested Development" thing.
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| Clint Howard as Balok in Star Trek |
I e-mailed his agent and Clint Howard e-mailed me back directly. I asked for a bio and he said he had one but it wasn't very good and that he wasn't even sure where it was. Humble. I already love this guy. I also know that we are doing the interview Thursday instead of Friday because he has a doctor's appointment. His e-mail address has the name Mr. Shiddy in it. We're tight like that already.
Some more humble people I fell in love with this week: Bud Gaugh, Eric Wilson and Rome Ramirez. I remember years ago being backstage at a G. Love & Special Sauce concert with Long Beach Dub All-Stars. They each had their own area to hang out in, and I will never forget how disgusted I was because the All-Stars let their dogs run around pissing all over this historic theater in LA. I was not their biggest fan after that.
But last Wednesday, I interviewed Bud and Eric, the two remaining members of Sublime, about their new band Sublime with Rome. Having lived in Long Beach during the post-Bradley Sublime boom, it was extremely common to have run-ins with various Sublime members, associates or hangerson. I was once nearly pummeled by a man who held a chair above his head threatening to hit me with it while I was eating a plate of food—and he was some sort of recording engineer or something for them at the time. I can't remember his name. But it was certainly another strike against the Sublime sycophants for me.
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| Sublime with Rome. Guess who the new guy is. |
Talking to Bud and Eric more than a decade after Bradley Nowell's death was very interesting. They were candid and refreshingly sober. They, like many of us, made some mistakes, and they did shitty stuff when they were drunk and high. (Who hasn't?) But damn they wrote catchy songs.
It's interesting to hear their enthusiasm for the new kid they have singing with them, who is much better than you expect. They are now like tour dads for their lead singer—giving him advice, living clean and healthy lifestyles. They look at Sublime as a business now, as they should. Anyone who accuses musicians of selling out is under 30 and has never had a mortgage.
Tomorrow I am heading to a luncheon with Jimmy Vaughn and Michael Anthony (the other guy from Van Halen). And I am supposed to do a phone interview with Rob Dyrdek. As much as my job makes me miserable at times, and I'm exhausted, believe me, there are times when I have to think about the fact that I "get" to do this.
That is something my friend Dave Wielenga told me years ago. When I was first starting out writing, he and another OC Weekly editor, Steve Lowery, would take me to lunch and fill my head with reporter-like things. And one of the most valuable things Dave ever said to me was a time when I was stressed out because I had a couple of big writing assignments due and I was feeling overwhelmed.
I rattled off the list (we were probably sitting at Taco Mesa if it was a Tuesday) of all the people I needed to contact and the stories I needed to turn in by when and blah, blah, blah. Dave looked at me and stretched his hands out on both sides to drive home his point, and he said, "No, you get to interview [insert someone famous here], and you get to go to [insert exciting, VIP event here]."
And it clicked. It was some of the best advice I ever got about being a reporter, and it is something that still flashes when I am going through a poor-me-I-have-so-much-work-to-do-and-my-life-sucks moment. I see Dave with his hands stretched out, with his Jesus hair flapping in the wind. And then I look at the enchilada-style burrito just below those spread eagle hands and I think: "Mmmm. Taco Mesa."
Now—I "get" to write about Weezer, Matt Costa, James Fletcher, Sublime with Rome and Henry Clay People in 250 words.
