Visiting Los Angeles on book tour has had a few perks (besides attending the porn convention). For starters, I’ve gotten to see my brother Ash. Without Ash’s help, The Zen of Fish wouldn’t have been possible. During the three months I spent at the California Sushi Academy researching the book, Ash put me up in his guest room and frequently lent me his car, his bicycle, and his ear. Here he is with me after my book talk at Barnes & Noble in Santa Monica last week. He’s a great brother, and has been hugely supportive. He’s now working on a book of his own—a thriller.

I also squeezed in visits with a few friends while I was in L.A. This has nothing to do with sushi, but what the heck, I’ll tell you—the highlight was trying to get coffee with my old buddy Garrett at one of the most unique coffee shops in America, Coffee Bucks. Here I am waiting for the Coffee Bucks shop to open, outside the hospital to which it’s attached. It doesn’t look promising, does it?

That’s because this Coffee Bucks, the only one in existence, won’t be open for another couple of months. Have you figured out where I am yet?

You may remember my blog entry from a while back called “Worms in Your Sushi?”, in which I referenced an impromptu medical diagnosis by a certain Dr. Elliot Reed, of the Sacred Heart Hospital.

So yes, these photos were taken on the set of the NBC sitcom Scrubs. My buddy Garrett is one of the executive producers, and he gave me a tour. The set is actually just an old, defunct hospital, which NBC has occupied for the past seven years to film the show. It was interesting to see.

There were no Zach Braff sightings, since they won’t start shooting the new—and final—season until later in the summer. But Garrett showed me the rooms where he and the other writers work. Possible plot twists for the upcoming last season were scribbled on white boards hanging all over the walls.

Garrett described how collaborative the writing process is for a show like this—ten or fifteen writers all brainstorming and playing off each other for inspiration and critique. It makes my job sound awfully lonely. As someone who writes mostly in solitude—as do most book writers, I think—I was envious of the camaraderie he enjoys.

Garrett said if I came back while they were shooting he could get me a cameo as an extra in the background.

I told him I wanted to be a patient suffering from a tapeworm that I got from eating sushi. And I demanded that Dr. Reed be the one to examine me.