I LOVE L.A.

Hi all.  E.J. here.  With Tony gone for two weeks and my inability to post original thoughts even if I had one it was twigs and seeds here for a while.  Sorry about that.  Tony scolded me and has given me a tutorial so I’ll try to be better about posting.

I made my daily visit to one of my favorite sites, my Mama’s Realestalker site today and she had a quick story about a house on Sunset Plaza being sold by Suzanne Rico – some CBS talking head – and her live-in, Ethan Dubrow.  Young Ethan is an interesting story.  Like most young “producer types” in L.A., his father is somebody, which is how one gets to be a “producer type” most of the time.  He had gopher-type jobs on a few films and than was Executive Producer for The 13th Warrior.  His mother Donna was married to John McTiernan, a director (Die Hard, Predator, The Hunt for Red October, etc.) who was caught in the 2006 Anthony Pellicano wiretapping scandal.  He pled guilty to lying to FBI agents investigating Pellicano when he told them he didn’t hire Pellicano to wiretap producer Charles Roven (Batman Begins, Three Kings, Scooby-Doo, etc.).  In fact he apparently had.  Oops.

McTiernan and Roven were working together on a stinker called Rollerball and fighting over who was really the boss although it was supposedly about “creative control.”  According to stories they’re both kind of porky in general, but McTiernan took it to another level by hiring Pellicano to listen in on Roven’s phones.  He would not have been mentioned except his ex-wife ratted him out after a pretty ugly divorce.  McTiernan told the FBI he didn’t know anything about Pellicano but they found out from Donna that he had indeed been using Pellicano since the late 90’s.  She was pissed because she also knew that her ex-husband paid him $100,000 to spy on her during their divorce.  Nice guy.  I do love a love story.

Young Ethan apparently inherited his father’s love for his fellow man which led to a problem and Pellicano’s alleged involvement.  In the early 90’s Donna and the elder McTiernan were still together it seems, and young Ethan lived in a house in Hollywood.  I think it’s at 9219 Robin Drive in Hollywood, according to later zoning meeting notes, but I’m not sure.  In 1993 Ethan had some friends over for a dinner party and thought it would be a good time to show everyone his new shotgun, which was loaded.  That’s what you do when you have a shotgun in Hollywood, those coyotes and black bears the problem that they are in the hills.  As you would expect with a young Hollywood Mensa meeting, the gun went off and killed a friend named Adam Scott, which is sad.  I don’t mean to make light of that at all.  It’s very sad.  Interestingly, Scott’s father was the President of Pasadena City College and a State Senator but apparently in Hollywood you get one GET OUT OF JAIL CARD if you kill someone even if they’re related to politicos.  It was this case that prompted McTiernan to allegedly hire Pellicano to intimidate witnesses a few years later for some reason, that according to the still-angry Donna.  Ethan pled out to involuntary manslaughter, but I’m not sure what sentence he got.  Probably 4 hours of Community Service and a $50 fine.