About
Eric James Miller got the nickname Venice Dude while living in Venice Beach, California. His record for not going east of Lincoln Blvd. (California Route 1) was twelve weeks. His record for keeping the top down on his 5-speed Toyota Celica was nine months.
Though he remains inspired and hopelessly in love with the many different moods of Abbot Kinney’s famous city by the sea, a conflux of eolian circumstances moved him away from Venice in 2004. Forever a “VeniceDude” at heart, he now makes his happy home outside of Las Vegas with his beautiful wife Laura and their golden retriever Zazzy (who some believe is the reincarnation of Eva Gabor).
Born just before the idealistic high water mark of the 20th century in Washington, D.C., Mr. Miller started delivering The Washington Post in Bethesda, MD when he was 13 years old. At 15, he got a job with his best friend Steve Robertson washing dishes at Sir Walter Raleigh Inn. He left a promising career in the restaurant business the summer before his freshman year in college to make big money sweeping dust and pushing wheelbarrows of cement for the Lenkin Company on the ABC News building in Washington, D.C.
When Autumn rolled around he escaped from inside the beltway and went to Macalester College in St.Paul, MN. While there, he discovered folk singers like Bob Dylan and cross country skiing with Viking women. The next four years centered around reading everything Conrad, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Hesse, Kerouac and Graham Greene wrote. Many late nights and week-end afternoons he hosted “Miller Time” on WMCN. His quite popular radio shows rarely strayed from his musical roots of Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno, David Bowie and the Talking Heads, but he did dabble in some Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Dire Straits when coerced by his listeners. Graduating with a double major in English and Accounting, immediately after college he returned to Bethesda and had the good sense to begin supporting his budding writing habit by accepting a position in the Management Information Systems (M.I.S.) department of Price Waterhouse.
After several years analyzing mergers and acquisitions, auditing health care, retail and banking operations and basically doing an excellent job counting other people’s money he sold his car and moved to Europe. Living primarily in Greece, Switzerland and Berlin working odd jobs more for the experience than the colorful local currencies, this idealistic Miller kid intended to write a science fiction novel that had come to him in a series of dreams. But exploring the art and history of Europe, surprise, surprise! consumed most of his time and passion. “Glass World” did finally get written, but not until years later during a manic summer in Denver.
After returning to the U.S., options in world commerce were evaluated as a car-less-by-choice American. New York and San Francisco appeared to be his best options. He went to visit an old high school chum living in Brooklyn and lucked into an apartment in Manhattan above Betsy Johnson’s Soho studio. He accepted a job in operations at Conran’s (pre-Ikea) but the next day met a mesmerizing brunette at a Halloween party who almost talked him into getting in her car and moving to San Francisco with her. In some parallel universe, Mr. Miller did get in that car and whisked across the continent to an alternate life in Northern California. But in this universe, he made a tough choice and chose to stay Manhattan where he ended up organizing boat show exhibitions and editing a newsletter about off-shore sailing for Deerfoot Yachts.
When Deerfoot was sold, the company prepared to leave its comfy Greenwich Village digs for humid, bug-infested Florida. Florida had been thoroughly explored in Miller’s youth and wasn’t an attractive option. Fortunately, serendipitous circumstance involving a friend’s relocation to L.A. with Miramax Films took him to Southern California. After two years living in the rolling hills of Los Feliz he spent the next twelve living three blocks from the heart of the Strand in Venice Beach. Riding a roller coaster of subtle fame behind the scenes in Hollywood, he wrote, produced and directed several short films while working in film finance, contract management and international distribution, most notably with Lakeshore Entertainment and Saturn Software.
His first novel, “The Metaphysics of Nudity” was written in six months while holding down a 50-60 hr/week full-time job. It was published by a small press but unfortunately that company went under shortly after their national distributor stopped carrying fiction titles. The amusing, cross-country road trip was briefly optioned as a film vehicle for a well-known actress, but never got made. Towards the end of his love affair with Hollywood he put together a dynamite business plan and formed Triple B Movies, Inc.. But one month before principal photography was to begin on the first feature, he was stabbed in the back for the final time by a ego-maniacal business partner. Art and commerce can co-exist in Hollywood, but not for actors or con men.
Fortunately, at the end of that long ride to nowhere he met a nice girl also at the end of her Hollywood rope and they moved down the coast to Redondo Beach. Their tranquil apartment had a Pacific Ocean view from the living room and was close to where they both worked. Back in software sales, this time specializing in tax and business management tools, he excelled and quickly attracted the attention of upper management. At the company’s annual retreat in 2005 he was recognized as a team leader with an honorary Lou Holtz football. That was the same year he and Laura found Zazzy,, “the calm one” in a liter of Golden Retriever puppies. About a year later, after a very festive, pirate-themed wedding in Las Vegas (about 2 years before the current pirate craze started), his job was re-locating to Florida yet again. So he and his new wife left the ocean. But not for the land of mosquitoes, heat and constant humidity, but for the mosaic skies and “special beauty” of the Mojave Desert.
Since making the big move away from the over-crowded City of Lost Angels, Mr. Miller has built a reputation as a freelance journalist in the neon desert and is shopping a new novel, an exciting mystery cozy “For Rent: Dangerous Paradise”. Set inside a fictionalized version of his old apartment building in Venice Beach, the story makes living at the beach both a real and a surreal adventure for readers. Sample pages have already attracted interest from agents and publishers and he is busy outlining two sequels.
Poke Eric now on Facebook or check out his blog to drop in on his current thoughts and endeavors. Among other things, he’s a novice painter and wine-maker. If you’re nice to him you might get a free painting or a bottle of an award-winning Barbera blend.
For those interested in life in Las Vegas, check-out some of his freelance articles for e-zine Living-Las-Vegas and travel web-site Las Vegas Getaway.
More adventures coming soon ….
