Losing Loop
Between books, in the heat of the Valley, David "Tell Me Everything" Rensin is out of the loop, looking for the loop, and looping into blogdom as one of the group bloggers for LA Observed's new blog, Native Intelligence. Let's be with him as he loses his blogging virginity with an excerpt from his very first blog item:
I woke up a few mornings ago feeling out of the loop. Way out. Again. I don’t want to make a big deal here; feeling out of the loop is part and parcel of living in Los Angeles and working in the media-industrial complex. Or even just visiting friends in the Malibu Colony for a day at the beach. (You might say that living for forty years in the San Fernando Valley is like getting a Lifetime Achievement Award for being out of the loop.) Still, compared to writing for television, the movies, hip magazines, and now the blogosphere, authoring books can seem like living in what the late Douglas ("Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”) Adams called the “unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy.” (A book signing/reading attended by more than five people is a crowd. The average is two.) But still no reason for alarm. Just as being slightly overweight, losing brain cells every day, and a couple other chronic conditions I know I have but can’t put my finger on at the moment, I’ve learned to live with it.This time I lay in bed next to my wife, in that twilight haze between being grateful to see another dawn – I’ve sworn to live to 110, but no reason to be arrogant – and wanting to shut my eyes, put the pillow on my head, and sleep until well past noon. Suddenly, a vertiginous sensation of disconnect, discontent, and the certainty that wherever it is at, I’m not there, clutched my guts in its ham fists and refused to let go. I flashed back immediately to the previous night’s dinner conversation with a thirty-something couple, both hot, hot, hot with entertainment industry potential, who were so sure they were in the loop to stay that they believed their children would be born with silver loops in their mouths.
...I just know I’m missing something. There’s a brass ring out there waiting to be grabbed and taken home. My needs for loopdom are simple: I just want to be able to shop at Whole Foods without feeling like I really belong at Ralphs. Oh, and I want all those health freaks in their muscle shirts and leotards, who smell like barley and patchouli, to melt on the spot like a warm Cinnabun. There’s a place I dream of where there are twenty words for “brilliant”, but none for “anxiety.”
I want to be in the loop even though as my friend Carrie says, it leads to “a constant state of lack and need. A gross existential solipsism. A hunger that when satisfied only makes you more hungry because the loop, the information and inclusion that supposedly makes you happy, is, like a wave, ephemeral. Tomorrow’s birdcage liner.”
More about David Rensin?
David Rensin has written or co-written twelve books, including Tim Allen's mega-best-seller, "Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man," Chris Rock's "Rock This!," super-manager Bernie Brillstein's memoir "Where Did I Go Right?," WWII hero Louis Zamperini's incredible survival saga "Devil at My Heels," and his own 2003 bestseller, "The Mailroom" — an oral history covering sixty five years of what's it's like to start at the bottom dreaming of the top (like Geffen, Diller, Ovitz, etc.) in a talent agency mailroom. His new book, "All For a Few Perfect Waves: The Audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer Miki 'Da Cat' Dora" — an oral biography of the once and forever (and late) enigmatic king of Malibu and world wanderer — based on more than 300 interviews worldwide — will be published by Wm. Morrow in Spring 2007. You can also wander around Rensin's website, where there are no opinions all of the time, at www.tellmeeverything.com. Rensin has proudly lived in or near the San Fernando Valley since 1964.
"a vertiginous sensation of disconnect, discontent, and the certainty that wherever it is at, I’m not there"
Maybe he needs to do a little volunteer work or something.
Lena at July 29, 2006 10:53 AM
He is...he's blogging!
Amy Alkon at July 29, 2006 7:12 PM
Sounds like poor old David needs a glass of wine -- pronto!
LA Frog at July 29, 2006 10:18 PM
"he's blogging!"
That's voluteer work? I thought it was self-promotion.
Lena at July 29, 2006 11:48 PM
Later the same day...
"I thought it was self-promotion."
Oh, my. Lena was certainly getting her bitch on, wasn't she? I apologize for my insensitivity, Amy. I very much appreciate the forum you provide for us here.
Lena at July 30, 2006 1:12 PM
Apology accepted. And your contributions are much-appreciated. It's actually rare David ever writes anything about himself. In fact, it's the first time I've ever seen anything by him about him!
Amy Alkon at July 30, 2006 4:18 PM
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