Lana

I am sitting here eating some lunch after a very productive ride. For some reason I have become a tad bit stressed out regarding my foot and how it was going to effect my upcoming ½ Ironman in Kona. I was started flipping through the channels in an effort to just “tune out”. I stumbled across Court TV where they were covering the Phil Spector murder trial. It was a bit shocking to see him sitting there as the victim of this murder was my friend Lana Clarkson. I had been following what was going on briefly in the news. Her sister had told me a while back that they had actually got a date set for trial. I didn’t realize that it would be shown on TV.

Watching made me reflect a bit on Lana and my time getting to know her. It brought up this whole notion that what is happening to us is something that we are constantly creating. You see, Lana had the ULTIMATE desire to make it in Hollywood. I have never met someone with such determination about this. Given the fact that she was 40 years old it was very inspiring to see this 6 foot tall, outwardly funny yet extremely sexy and diva like women constantly go on about how she was going to make it in Hollywood. She went after every lead, had meetings with producers and directors, mingled with anything that could help her career. I think it was just part of who she was to never give up. In many ways she had made it. She lived the life of someone that was famous that to many might have seemed a bit obnoxious. I loved it! She was never rude to people and found the good in pretty much everyone she came across. In a way she was a bit like Tallulah Bankhead always calling everyone Dhaaaarling. For the amount of attention that Lana needed she put out twice as much to whoever was present.

I had picked her up at her cute little house in Venice (Which was sadly torn down after her death) to go to her “final” birthday party. We were meeting some of her friends and family at Il Sole on Sunset. When we got there you would have thought that Julia Roberts was walking in. Lana knew how to make a true Hollywood entrance. It wasn’t today’s cheap Paris Hilton entrance but rather an entrance that had the glamour of old Hollywood. People responded to it and every time she did it, she truly was famous.

I miss her and am sad that her life was taken like that ( I am 100% bias and feel there is no way that Lana took her own life) but at the same time I have this odd feeling that Lana might be okay with what happened. She wanted sooooo bad to be famous and now she is infamous. She is the victim of a huge Hollywood murder. Do I think that if you asked Lana when she was alive if she would want to be the victim of a Hollywood murder? No I don’t think that. But I do think that the universe works in very mysterious ways and you have to be careful at what you are trying to create out of life because you just might get it in a form that you haven’t thought of.

When I was at her funeral in Malibu I remember at the end one of the lawyers getting up and telling us that there was some paparazzi out side and that they apologize for that and we should just ignore them. I was very sad at the funeral but when that was said it put a tiny smile on my face because I could just hear Lana where ever she was going “What do you mean SOME? Where the HELL is E Entertainment? “ Lana would have wanted EVERYONE there. As sad as the whole experience was for the family, it really seemed like paparazzi would be the ultimate tribute.

Anyway, Lana reminded me of two things. One, you ALWAYS have to go after your dreams at all costs. If not, what else are we here for? Two, you have to be careful about what you put out to the universe. That is very “The Secret” but I do believe that it is the law working amongst us all.