There was nothing more Hollywood than the what I experienced today: my first press junket. What a day, 22 interviews in all ... and tomorrow I get to do it all over again.

I was up at 6 AM to hit the gym and I could tell I was in L.A. There were already two people who had beaten me to the fitness center to get their sweat on.

After two drippy hours, I made my way back to my room where I spent the next hour and a half playing catch up with the east coast and all the happenings of The Con office, the completion of the film print for the first week's theatrical run and future press dates.

I shined myself and did my first interview by phone before heading upstairs for the day's onslought pf media.

NOTE: A junket is by far your first real taste of the machine that is the mass media marketing that goes into the release of a movie.

In this room of the hotel, they had cleared out all the furntiture and set up a betacam, lights and two chairs. This is where I would be for the next six hours, churning out a TV interview every fifteen minutes for a variety of media: local, national, cable and international.

By noon I had completed 8 interviews and was pulled off the seat to do a phoner with a reporter from Colorado. We squeezed in one more TV sit down before I got to grab some lunch.

And this lunch would be the one of the greatest ever.

I sat down with the head of the company that is distributing the movie, Mr. Samuel Goldwyn Jr. himself. Hollywood royalty. His father was the man whose company became the core of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. A legend.

It was incredible. Talking to the man who launched the careers of Julia Roberts and Jim Carrey, producer of Master and Commander. He's been around and knows this business better than anyone.

We talked for about five minutes before I got pulled away do do another phone interview, this time with a local L.A. radio affiliate. I paced around the pool for fifteen minutes talking "Super Size" magic before returning to my lunch.

I sat back down and finished eating my chicken ceasar salad, talking shop with the Guru Goldwyn and took a step back in my head to examine the situation: just over two years I had been evicted from my apartment and was sleeping in a hammock in my office, now here I am, less than three weeks away from my first feature film being released, having yet another quintessential Hollywood moment and feeling humbled by the miracle of it all.

I was back in the hot seat by 1 PM and had knocked out another 6 interviews over the following three hours.

I left the room energized and ready for my next sit down interview.

NOTE: It's hard to get tired when you're talking about a movie you've poured your life into for the last year.

After an hour in the poolside cabana with a reporter from a well known magazine I was done ... at least with all my domestic commitments. I had a glass of Shiraz while the publicists downloaded tomorrows hectic schedule to me, then I made my way back up to my room where I had a half hour of peace and quiet (AND NO TALKING) before the next round kicked in.

DOWN UNDER TIME

At 7 PM, I started a two hour session of phone interviews with Australian interviewers. The movie opens there this summer (U.S. summer, Aussie winter) and I had to tap all the long lead press. Talking in 25 minute blocks, I hit 5 major news outlets. By the time I hung up the phone, I was ready for some sleepy time.

But there's no rest yet - because when the fire is hot, its time to start cooking (or some other self motivating cliche.)

I went to the Avalon bar at 9:30 to meet another potential show runner for the 30 Days series. This time it was a female producer with sick major prime time TV credits. She knew her stuff and I was doubly impressed. After an hour of talking docutelevision, we parted ways and I bounded back up the stairs to order some late night spring rolls and to hit the e-mail one last time.

Clock says midnight, I want to get up early tomorrow to try to beat those eager beavers to the gym, so its adios amigos . Tomorrow is another day.