Celebrity Sightings...sort of

Well everybody, this could be a long update...

So this was a pretty cool weekend out here in Los Angeles.  I had my first celebrity sighting! Sam Freakin' Jackson!

Alright, so that's not really Samuel L. in the flesh, but it is a not-too-terrible wax sculpture of him.  That's because this past Saturday, my friend Alli and I checked out the Hollywood Wax Museum.  It was pretty funny.  First of all, it only took like 15 minutes to go through the whole thing, 20 minutes tops.  Some of the wax versions of celebrities looked pretty good.  Others were terrible.  Here's a sampling of a few.  I'll try and upload all of my pictures to facebook and give you a link.  

The Samuel L. Jackson was pretty good compared to the others.  There was a good Angelina Jolie, too and a very good Hugh Heffner.  One of the big highlights was definitely the wax recreation of DaVinci's The Last Supper.  The wax Jesus and disciples were right around the corner from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and this:

That's right, here's Spidey and I.  You can see my face was still pretty red from the rash over the weekend.  Anyway, I'm still trying for that web-slinging.  Well it didn't work in New York and it didn't work here.  My pose could probably use some work.

Here's Dustin Hoffman from the Hook scene.  The Robin Williams in the scene wasn't very good, but I did take a picture of him anyway.  

There was a horrible Ace Ventura, and a not too bad Leo in Titanic, followed by two Sean Connery's and the museum ended with a disappointing Denzel Washington in a submarine movie I couldn't remember.  

Alli and I did some more Hollywood exploring on Saturday, including taking the Subway to Universal City and CityWalk, but I'm going to Universal Studios on Saturday, so I won't talk about that now.

Sunday was also a great day as my roommate Rob and I went to the beach.  I hadn't been yet, even though its only like 10 minutes away.  

It was so beautiful!  It looked like it wasn't real, like a postcard, with the land spreading out to both sides and the mountains rising above the ocean.  It was very cool, plus it was like the nicest day ever.  In the picture above you can see the Santa Monica Pier off in the distance with a roller coaster and ferris wheel and stuff.  I just couldn't get over how amazingly picturesque it all was.  I get a major kick out of the lifestyles these Californians are living, especially the people at the beach.  

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the lifeguard hut and truck, but I didn't run in slow motion yet.  I did however sing the theme song in my head: "I'll be ready..."  And I'll admit, just now I found and bought "I'm Always Here" by Jimi Jamison on iTunes.

Finally, on the way home, we drove past Venice High School.  Does it look familiar to anybody?  "I got chills, they're multiplyin"

It should look familiar.  Maybe you can tell from this picture that Venice High School was the site of Rydell High in the movie Grease.  Of course it was recently painted white from the sand color it was in the movie.

So we got home from the beach and almost immediately I got back on the bus to go downtown to church.  I haven't written about it yet, but last week and this week I went to a church called Mosaic.  It's pretty amazing, the church doesn't actually own any buildings but they meet in a few different places every Sunday around southern California and San Francisco, too, I think.  The lead pastor, Erwin McManus delivers a message at most of the Los Angeles area locations, and Sunday nights he speaks at the Mayan Theater in downtown LA.  

Now downtown LA is not exactly the place you want to be hanging out any time at night, but the 45 minute bus ride has definitely been worth it.  The Mayan is an old theater downtown that someone obviously put a lot of time, money and care into building.  Every inch of the place is built to look like a Mayan Temple, with hand carved Mayan Gods and symbols all over the place.  The Mayan is now an apparently hip and popular club (not affiliated with the church) and on Sunday nights Mosaic rents it out.  The place has amazing theatrical lighting and they have had absolutely amazing bands come and play each week in a concert-like setting.  The first week I was there the mosaic dance troupe performed, and last week the mosaic improv comedy team did a sketch.  It's so cool for them to be utilizing so many different kinds of talents in this very non-traditional worship setting.  The theater itself isn't huge, though, with maybe about 200 to 250 people attending each service, which makes for a very intimate experience.  

Anyway, the reason I went to the church in the first place is because Amanda listens to podcasts of Erwin McManus's messages each week and he has definitely not disappointed.  He is an amazing teacher.  The cool thing about the 5pm service I go to every week is that he does something he doesn't do at any other service and that is have a question and answer session, where he answers questions people write down.  It's awesome.  I love it and it's amazing that after a full weekend like I had, even when I'm worn out and tired and would like to just stay home and vegetate before the work week starts, Mosaic fills me up with energy and everything I'm needing.  So it turns out it isn't that hard to find God in the second most sinful city in the country.  

Well, that's about it for now.  My rash is clearing up, and will hopefully be completely gone by the weekend.  Like I said, I'm headed to Universal Studios on Saturday with a studio-mate or two and my actor friend Kyle Shepard.  Should be a blast.  I might have an update before then, we'll see.   Probably.  

I hope you're doing great.  I miss you!

much love,

Alex