Old Hollywood Briar

Old Hollywood Briar is the pseudonym I use to publish artwork dedicated to my appreciation of the sweet Virginia leaf. It’s the way I keep my name out of studio searches that would frown upon a connection to the cavendish. When I think of Old Hollywood, I always think of my grandmother, who came out west during the Oklahoma dust bowl, eventually landing a job at McDonald Douglass in California where she made the triggers that dropped the allied bombs during the war. Or my Grandfather, the LAPD beat cop whose transfer to the duty station at LAX in the 1950s meant that he was the defacto gaurd for the jet setting celebrities of his day. For the record, he always used to say Elizabeth Taylor was the most beautiful of all the actresses in real life. Maybe it’s presumptuous for me to call myself Old Hollywood, after all I’m in my early forties, but I’ve seen a lot in my time. I was the house photographer for KROQ, a columnist for the North County Times, I spent several years as the house photographer for Coachella. I’ve partied with Paul McCartney on his tour bus, interviewed Chubby Checker and we used to throw parties at Helen Miran’s estate above the Chinese theater. I’m writing this to you now, in my very old and very small house in the Hollywood Hills, under the Hollywood sign. Most people don’t know it, but there is a giant lake just underneath the large white sign. They say some people just have an old soul, but I’m so Old Hollywood that Ed Asner once gave me a poster of himself in the nude as a gag. Hollywood, and the culture exuded from these hills is a lot different than people normally imagine, David Crosby was famous for always having a pistol in his belt and Jim Morrison’s dad started the Vietnam war. There’s something comforting about Old Hollywood, even in the tough times we knew how to turn on the shine that could give you that smile or that fond memory that would make the day a little brighter. Maybe that’s just a pipe dream; but that’s exactly why I’m here.