I was just minding my business dancing away at three in the afternoon inside of the always cool, on a Saturday, Hard Eight Lounge.

            “Downtown Oliver Brown,” said the beautiful DJ Eden, dancing up to me.

            “Eden, you’re so beautiful it hurts my soul.”

            She twisted and turned around me. “So, what did you think of Lucky Strike?”

            “It doesn’t open until Monday,” I answered, not all that concerned with a concept that, at least in my mind, bordered on Hollywood meets corporate America—my least favorite things next to ingesting broken glass.

            “I heard they had a party last night,” her hair whipped across my face as she said this.

            I stopped dancing and inserted my now very dirty feet into my flip-flops. “No one told me they were having a party.” I began text-messaging Eric. “Is there something going on at Lucky Strike?”

            “I don’t know.” Appeared back on my iphone.

            “Where are you going Oliver? C’mon stay and dance…”

            I walked directly over to LA Live and proceeded up the escalator to Lucky Strike. Continue reading OLIVER STRIKES OUT →

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There is a part of me that misses those days in the hills above Sunset…

This is as far as my script about an author who moves Downtown to escape the pretentious idiots in Hollywood had progressed. See, I write at Starbucks and most of my friends don’t understand that a writer’s office is pretty much wherever he opens his laptop—in this case 11th and Grand.

“Hey Oliver,” said my buddy Rick, who’s been overseeing the remodel over at the AT&T building for the last year and a half.

“Hey Rick.” I would have invited him to sit, but he sat before I could get the words out.
Continue reading A DAY FULL OF WRITING →

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1100 Wilshire had been an office building with no tenants before the most recent housing boom came along and made it a place that people who enjoy a sky-pool call home. Frankly, the pool at the Skyline, where I am currently borrowing a rich friend’s place, is probably the nicest in Downtown—I’ve used it once. Anyway, it was David Kean’s fortieth birthday so there I was.

“Happy birthday, old boy,” I said handing David a bottle of wine that I had just picked up from Mike Berger at Ralph’s.

Continue reading AN INTERSECTION OF LOCALS →

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“Hey Oliver, slow down a second.”

I stopped half a block short of 7th on Flower so my homeless buddy Stretch could put a torch lighter to the pipe in his hand. I call him Stretch because he’s almost seven- feet-tall and looks like he weighs one-sixty or less. “Stretch, you know I don’t approve of you smoking crack.”

“Oliver, I’m a homeless black man with HIV—give me a break. Smoking crack is the least of my problems.”

“Well maybe you wouldn’t be homeless if you didn’t spend all the money you panhandle on drugs.”

Stretch laughed. “Oliver, you spend more money on coffee than I do on crack.”

Continue reading HANGING WITH STRETCH →

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“I just dropped Kevin off at the airport, so I can come hang out,” Joe’s voice rang out through my iPhone. “Where are you?”

“I’m at Starbucks on 11th and Grand—come pick me up,” I answered back, wondering how I was going to get my hair cut at Salon Eleven and meet Joe in the same one hour time frame—oh well.

Some background: Joe, like most of my friends, has become rich over the years. And yes he’s good looking too—whatever. So, now that he’s sold his luxury mansion rental business in Sun Valley for zillions he’s decided to come back to LA, specifically Downtown to get serious about business.

Continue reading INTRODUCING DOWNTOWN OLIVER BROWN →

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