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The Adventures of Downtown Oliver Brown

The Adventures of Downtown Oliver Brown is a semi-fictional tale of Downtown nightlife written by Stan Lerner.

Forty-year-old Oliver Brown, a talented and critically acclaimed writer, just did not find the success he deserved in Hollywood. It made financial sense to move Downtown and no lack of good bars and restaurants eased the pain.

Stan Lerner is an award winning-author whose diverse credits include the novel “Stan Lerner’s Criminal,” the novella “In Development,” and the children’s book “Stanley The Elephant.” He's lived in Downtown Los Angeles for the last thirteen years.

Be sure to check back each week to see where Oliver's latest adventures have taken him.

Finally an Encore for Oliver

By Stan Lerner — Sunday — 2 Comments

After being turned away at Encore by an Asian security guard, even though we had a perfectly legitimate appointment at the spa, (and because I was hallucinating, as was Dave The Jew -- I must insist you read my previous blog “No Encore For Oliver” as even now it is too painful to delve back into that part of my seriously damaged gray matter) at Dave The Jew’s urging we went for an Oriental Foot Massage.

This forty-dollar experience, which in fact was a full body massage, put every high priced spa I’ve ever been to, to shame. With knots I did not even know that I had purged from my body we headed back to Whiskey Peet’s fifty thousand square foot mansion. — Continued Inside...


No Encore for Oliver

By Stan Lerner — December 28, 2008

“Whooooo Shiiiiiiit!!! Look what the cat done dragged into Vegas!!!!” screamed the large, handsome, cowboy looking fellow that had come to greet us at the airport. I staggered off of Stan Peters’ Gulfstream V and watched as the cowboy fellow lifted Stan off of the floor in a hug that would have crushed a hearty grizzly, no doubt. Hopefully you’ve read the last...


Oliver Visits a Whiskey Bar

By Stan Lerner — December 18, 2008
2 Comments

I don’t really vibe with Seven Grand, too many people, too many guys, and a college hipster feel around the pool tables that I didn’t even like in my college years. Those would be the three years at UCLA before I dropped out for no reason. But Seven's Grand's where I ended up. I sat in the front booth, the only spot that frankly doesn’t feel like a sausage...


Oliver and the Final Beam

By Stan Lerner — December 11, 2008
9 Comments

“Oliver, the NSA tells me that you’re not writing at your usual Starbucks. Is everything okay?” asked President Elect Obama. “I’m fine. I’ve just been writing a lot about L.A. Live so I’ve been working out of the Starbucks over there. I like to totally immerse myself in my subject matter.” “Yeah, I thought that might be the case. The piece about the architecture...


Oliver Lights a Tree

By Stan Lerner — December 07, 2008
9 Comments

When you’re Downtown Oliver Brown, not much fazes you. But waking up with my hot nineteen-year-old girlfriend’s MOTHER naked in my bed did actually give me what felt like a flutter in my chest followed by considerable shortness of breath. I would have been completely distraught but for the fact that my girlfriend Misha’s mother is the former supermodel Paullina...


Oliver Encounters a Critic

By Stan Lerner — December 06, 2008
2 Comments

I stopped by Starbuck 11th and Grand with every intention of walking over to the new Starbucks at LA Live. But as a member of the Downtown community, I did feel obligated to at least say hi to my all my friends—wouldn’t want my absence to be a cause for concern. Well, I’m sitting with David, the realtor, and Victor, the owner of Hard Eight clothing, sharing a...


Oliver's Reputation Preceeds Him

By Stan Lerner — December 04, 2008
3 Comments

I spotted Tim Leiweke, the president of AEG, out of the corner of my eye. I had just sat down at Starbucks, 11th and Grand, to finally focus on a script about a writer who moves Downtown to get away from the pretentious idiots in Hollywood. The irony of course being that I was there to write a script for Stan Peters, the subject of the cult classic book “In Development”...


Oliver's Thanksgiving

By Stan Lerner — November 26, 2008
4 Comments

“Hi, Oliver Brown speaking,” I said into my iPhone. “Oliver, Stan wants to see you in his office with something on paper,” said Iren Shmeklestein, longtime sidekick of the powerful and scummy producer, Stan Peters. “Iren, it’s not that I’m avoiding Stan. And I am truly grateful that he kept me from running off with someone else’s bride-to-be at Lucky Strike...


Oliver Strikes Out

By Stan Lerner — November 24, 2008
6 Comments

I was just minding my business dancing away at three in the afternoon inside of the always cool, on a Saturday, Hard Eight Lounge. “Downtown Oliver Brown,” said the beautiful DJ Eden, dancing up to me. “Eden, you’re so beautiful it hurts my soul.” She twisted and turned around me. “So, what did you think of Lucky Strike?”


A Day Full of Writing

By Stan Lerner — November 19, 2008

There is a part of me that misses those days in the hills above Sunset… This is as far as my script about an author who moves Downtown to escape the pretentious idiots in Hollywood had progressed. See, I write at Starbucks and most of my friends don’t understand that a writer’s office is pretty much wherever he opens his laptop—in this case 11th and Grand.