Close Encounters of the Tommywood Kind

Los Angeles is as much concept as city, set in a desert that flows to the sea; that ends in the sand where an ocean begins whose horizon recedes in the sunset; a city where emigres and the children of immigrants have come to make their dreams come true. It is a mix of the sublime and the obvious, of the new and the nouveau, of the selfless and the selfish. It is as delicate as the quality of the light, the air and the surf; and as ephemeral. It is about the outdoors and about what happens behind closed doors. Life is lived in LA in a garden of unlimited potential, a crap game where people believe that, at any moment, one well placed bet can change your life. Tommywood covers this waterfront, filtering the landscape through a very personal lens. Writing Tommywood has allowed me to explore the city I live in and become more engaged and involved in the intellectual and dream life here. I've been able to interview icons as disparate as architect Frank Gehry, French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy and legendary producer Robert Evans. I've had a backstage tour of Disney Hall, visited a charter school in South Central, and was a given a tour of his home by painter R. B. Kitaj before his untimely death.