Sketch show
1. Coppertone WaterBabies
This is the sunscreen my mother preferred in the 1980s. It still exists but they changed the packaging, which I always thought was pretty iconic. The Coppertone girl and the dog, and the distinct pink/teal colour combo of ‘WaterBabies’ set it apart from the brown/gold ubiquity of adult sunscreen at the time. It said ‘fun’, ‘sun’, ‘all day at the beach’ and ‘ice pops’. I made this drawing in Florida thinking about those times. Every time I see it, I can smell the unique aroma of WaterBabies sunscreen.
2. Hadrian’s Library
The past few years, I’ve been increasingly splitting my time between Los Angeles and Athens. The literal and physical, beginning and end of western civilisation. Hadrian’s Library is a ruin I find myself passing a lot. It’s in a very touristy area, just below the Acropolis, but there’s something about it that always makes me feel ... off. Maybe because it’s a Roman ruin, in the shadows of a Greek monument. Maybe it’s the tourist shops selling T-shirts that say ‘Oedipus... the original mother fucker’ 10 metres away. Or maybe it’s the structural quality of the ruin, which to me, always stands out in its wabi-sabi beauty.
3. Canal Street Rolex
This feels like the ‘Uptown Girl by Billy Joel version of a drawing – the uptown-downtown divide. The suggested elegance and sophistication of a place like the Ritz Carlton, and the audacity of a bootleg Rolex sold on Canal Street, just as they have been since I was a kid. New York is always changing, but Canal Street Rolexes remain.
4. Musso
My favourite place to dine in LA. Every time I come back from a long journey, The Musso & Frank Grill is where I want to go. Split a prime rib, a wedge salad and a few Martinis with a few friends, chat up the lads in the red tuxes, and try to enjoy the one place in Hollywood that feels like Hollywood.
5. Moonstruck
Probably the movie I watch the most each year. I recently watched it four times (back to back to back to back) on a flight from New York to Paris. It’s really soothing to me, probably because I grew up in 1980s NY, and it reminds me of visiting my grandparents in Queens. I’ve seen it so many times on planes, I don’t even wear headphones. I recite the lines, which might be annoying to my neighbours. It’s Cher! Nic Cage! Olympia Dukakis! John Mahoney! La Boheme! Enough said.
6. Blue Range Rover
I was sitting at a friend’s wine bar just north of London Fields in the UK, and was struck by this sky-blue Range Rover. It was such a unique colour. We stayed at the bar for hours trying to see the owner and get a sense of this car’s life. I went back to my room that night and made this drawing. A few days later, I posted it, and the owner of the car got in touch. He told me he had just left London on a road trip to Italy.
7. Royal with Cheese
I was in Paris and kept thinking about ways of drawing Paris that don’t really have anything to do with the city. I turned on the TV in the hotel, and Pulp Fiction was on, and immediately, I knew. Strangely, for me, McDonald’s is as Parisian as a boulangerie. They are just as ubiquitous.
Room Service by Michael McGregor, published by Paragon Books, £28, paragon-books.com
This feature was taken from our Autumn 2024 issue. Read all about it here...
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