L.A. Magazine featured the life of an actor-waiter in its August L.A. Archetype column, and now come November, another former Minnesotan appears in the very same column. Hmmm…

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I’m two weeks away from launching my web opus: USofAnderson.com—hence my recent hiatus from the blogging world.

It’s a project that has consumed me like a room full of puppies, vicious puppies gnawing my ankles like KFC chicken wings, for nearly three years.

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I was in the TC this past weekend to attend the Upper Midwest Emmy Awards (the Redemption Party videos I produced last year were nominated in a promotions category) and to visit Dad who, God willing, will be starting his second round of chemo at Abbott Northwestern Hospital this week (the peach-fuzzed monk is upbeat and ready to go to battle).

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From a Hollywood perspective, Brett Favre is a master storyteller and screenwriter. We’re talking William Goldman and Syd Field good. Perhaps there’s a ghostwriter involved, but regardless, Number 4 is spinning the most delicious, Jimmy Stewart-esque tale since It’s a Wonderful Life, and isn’t it just a wonderful life in Viking country now?

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Some people do drugs to get high; I just need a live taping of Prairie Home Companion (street name: PHC) to get a little juiced, staggered, and steamed.

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Hollywood is apoplectic today with the news that 111-year-old talent agency William Morris is merging with the fourteen-year-old agency Endeavor. Endeavor was started in the mid-nineties by Ari Emanuel (the inspiration for Entourage character Ari Gold and brother to Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel). As the trades are reporting today, it’s a well-suited match: William Morris has cash from its lucrative music ventures and decades of TV packaging fees (The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Cosby Show) while Endeavor has the more impressive client roaster of Hollywood’s elite actors, writers, directors, and producers.

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Bloggers love to apologize for long hiatuses between posts. The posts often start out with the gripping lead: “Sorry it’s been sooooooooo long since I put anything up here. But life has been CRAZY! Sooooooooo much to catch up on . . .”

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Every winter I pay homage to my Minnesota roots and journey within thirty minutes of Yosemite National Park (this isn’t Southern California anymore) to Mammoth Mountain and SoCal’s Mecca for skiing and snowboarding. A volcanic peak that lives up to its name, Mammoth is nestled in California’s Easter Sierras and is just five hours, or a one-hour flight, from Los Angeles. It ranks regularly as one as the top resorts in the country, with quality snow that extends the ski season into June and some years July 4th. Ski Magazine called the “unbound terrain park system” the best in North America, which can only be attributed to the West Coast’s religious surf-and-skate culture. It’s a place of incredible peace, beauty, and powerful skiing--much like the ice hills of Afton Alps that taught me the importance of a good edge.

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Reuters had a good article early last week on how the economic downturn/recession/OMG-I-have-no-money-no-heath-care-no-new-Tweets depression has caused Wall Street to back out of billions of dollars worth of film deals.

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I’m not sure how I feel about Hollywood’s grand night ’09. My director friend, Steph Green, nominated in the short film category, lost to a Holocaust film; Hugh “Wolverina” Jackman pranced in a top hat; and Tina Fey and Steve Martin made me laugh at Scientology. Slumdog’s win made America and India feel good, even though I like to call it City of God-light (there’s a heckuva movie), and Milk’s deserving wins in best original screenplay and best actor delivered some of the most notable acceptance speeches of the night. I’ll admit, I had tears in my eyes when Dustin Lance Black spoke of his long journey to the Kodak Theater.

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