1097852 A very special episode for me as Chinatown with Jack Nicholson might be my favorite movie. I don't know anymore. I mean, there was a lot going on in Tropic Thunder. <object width="440" height="361"><param name="movie" value="http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/player.swf?mediaId=3731759"/><param name="wmode" value="transparent"/><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/><embed src="http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/player.swf?mediaId=3731759" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="440" height="361" allowScriptAccess="always"></embed></object> <p> In Chinatown, Jack Nicholson has his nose partially cut off. Nothing that dangerous occurs in our Chinatown episode but there is a terrible rickshaw accident. I don't think the lady was hurt. If she was it's an ESPN legal issue. We can probably just give her some park hopper passes for DisneyWorld. My favorite moment in shooting the episode is when our director, Josh Shelov, kept yelling "lock it down!" so as to get control over the scene the camera was taking in. "Lock it down!" was a very effective command for those who were being paid to be there and for the English speaking people nearby. But for those whose mother tongue is one of the many forms of Chinese, Josh Shelov yelling "lock it down!" was no more meaningful than Josh Shelov yelling out "The Knicks need to get back on defense!" My favorite Chinese restaurant is in San Francisco. It's called House of Nam King. You should go there. Just tell the boss you like chicken or shrimp and he'll bring out many plates of things with chicken and shrimp on them. That's just how it goes down at House of Nam King. The only complaint I have is that they serve Coca-Cola by the can not by the bottle or fountain. Also the napkins are junior high lunchroom thickness. I guess that's two complaints. Come on, House of Nam King, you're better than that. That last paragraph wasn't germane to whatever it was I was talking about. In our Chinatown story we are telling two mistruths. In the script we are lying to our bosses by going to Chinatown instead of going to China to cover the Olympics. As a bonus, we lied somewhat in our story-telling by shooting the episode in Brooklyn's Chinatown instead of the one in lower Manhattan. I didn't even know Brooklyn had a Chinatown until they told me to get in a van and I saw Manhattan disappearing behind us. It was that morning I learned that Allison Becker, who plays my producer Sarah, did not like to talk very much in the early morning hours. She doesn't even like to listen very much in the early morning hours. But I kept talking anyway. I don't know what I talked about that morning. Probably the fact we had left Manhattan and the story was going to be inauthentic. Boy, was I wrong. Brooklyn throws one authentic looking Chinatown. There were Chinese people and Chinese things for sale all over the place. You'd have thought we were in China or at least San Francisco's Chinatown except that there was no House of Nam King. Man I love that place. You should go there. Our story is mostly about us lying to ESPN. In the fake world of this fake miniature TV show all that lying will end up coming back to haunt us. But we won't get in any big trouble. This is all pretend. But please keep clicking on and watching more episodes as our real lives depend on it. true 2008-12-05T11:28:20Z 73930 1 2008-12-05T11:32:42Z