Christmas came early this year in the form of an unexpected gift. Last Saturday I was lying around feeling physically and emotionally drained from a protracted dental procedure I had endured the day before. The phone rang and I decided to let the machine pick up since I lacked sufficient motivation to get up and cross the room to answer it. My message machine chirped on and I heard a voice I haven't heard for about two years, a friend named Peter Huchthausen with whom I have collaborated on two screenplays.
Our first collaboration took place several years ago when I read his book about his experiences in as a Navy Lieutenant in Vietnam and asked him if I could adapt it into a screenplay. He lived on the same small island in Maine as my parents, so I went up to meet with him. He cruised over in his little motorboat and we stood in the driveway and talked about our arrangement. We made a fifty-fifty deal on whatever came out of the screenplay and shook hands. That handshake deal still stands as one of my most valued commitments.
I jumped out of bed and grabbed the phone. Peter was in Paris working on a new book. He'd had a visit from a Canadian producer who wants to make a movie of another of Peter's books. The book, October Fury, reveals the untold story of the role of Russian submarines equipped with nuclear torpedoes menacing American ships during the blockade of Cuba in October of 1962. Peter told me that he had already made a deal for the rights and that he had recommended that I write the screenplay. He said the producer was prepared to offer me $100,000 up front.
I said, "What?"
Now, Peter is a former Naval Intelligence officer who was stationed in Moscow during the cold war. He doesn't usually get his facts wrong. He doesn't ever get his facts wrong. He told me the producer would be sending me an agreement by email.
I said, "Wow."
Then I said, "Thanks, Peter."
He couldn't stay on the phone too long, he just wanted to make sure that I was still at the same email address and was interested in the project.
I said, "Sure."
Then I said, "Thanks, Peter."
After we hung up I went over my notes. Yes, it said "$100,000" and "money up front." Holy shit.
I wasn't sure what to do. I wanted to call everyone I knew. But I didn't. I decided to wait. Instead, I did my laundry. Then I went over to Irv's Burgers to have lunch and work on a crossword puzzle.
On the way over to Irv's, I felt amazing. The post-dental work malaise I'd been suffering from had vanished, along with just about every other care, woe, ache, pain, doubt or fear that had been dragging me down for the past fifteen years. There's this woman I've been kind of hung up on lately who hasn't been too responsive to my attempted romantic incursions. It had been getting me down. No more. Who cares about her? I'm a screenwriter! And my job, which has been sapping my life-forces at an unrelenting pace, leaving me burned-out, disgruntled and humorless. Screw them! I quit! I have $100,000! Hah!
I devoured my grilled chicken sandwich and blazed through my crossword puzzle, basking in the glow of my recent ascension from the ranks of the hopeless loser to the vaunted realm of the working screenwriter. I had made it. My dream had come true.
Then I went home to check my email.
Sure enough, I had received something from the producer Peter told me about. And it had an attachment! That must be the agreement. My ticket to freedom. I read the first few lines of the email and suddenly my precious bubble burst. He wasn't quite prepared to pay any money up front for a screenplay. First, he needed to go convince some big Hollywood studio to pony up some cash. Then he and I would talk about a deal. And he had attached a copy of the treatment he planned to bring with him when he took Hollywood by storm. I took a look at it. There was no way any studio exec was going to fork over any cheddar for a 45 page treatment that began with a list of no fewer than a dozen Russian characters each with a name harder to pronounce than the one before.
This guy didn't know what he was doing. And he didn't have the cash. I was an idiot to think I was going to get $100,000 or even $1000 for writing anything for anyone.
I spent the rest of the day watching TV, trying to summon the energy to go see a movie, but it never came.
The next morning I got another call -- this one from my friend Glen. He works for a hugely successful producer at Sony and has been trying to come up with a project to break out on his own. He's been reading my scripts for a couple of years and a few weeks ago he pitched me an idea. At that point I was willing to say yes to anything. As it turned out his idea was pretty good, and we've been working on an outline for me to write the script. All on "spec" as we say, which means "for free." But it's a cool project and we work together well and this particular morning we were really cooking. We worked out the whole third act and even came up with an ending that we both liked. It was great.
I told Glen the story of the vanishing $100,000 and he just laughed. "I have a dozen stories like that," he said.
But as we talked about it I realized something. Even though I didn't have the money, I still had the feeling that it gave me. I had lost it for a while the night before, but now as I told Glen about how I had been walking on clouds for two hours, I realized that I didn't need the money to feel that way. Because if all of those things that had been bothering me could disappear so quickly and so completely, then they must not have been real in the first place. All I have to do is pretend that I have $100,000 in my pocket and voila -- no more troubles.
It sounds goofy, but it really works. I've been walking around all week with my imaginary $100,000 in my back pocket and it's been working like a charm to ward off negative energy. Besides, if I really want to quit my job, I can. And if this woman doesn't want me, there are thousands of others out there. And a man with an imaginary $100,000 in his pocket is a lot more intriguing than some ordinary schmuck.
I did follow-up with Peter on the actual $100,000 and we are now working out a deal with the producer for writing the screenplay. Assuming he gets financing he will pay me half for writing it and the rest if the screenplay is accepted. I also volunteered to rewrite the treatment to give us a much better shot at actually selling the damn thing. On "spec" of course.
It may never happen. They may choose another writer. It could be a complete waste of time. But I got those two hours of pure joy out of it. And I got my imaginary $100,000. And that, as they say, is priceless.
Once upon a time I went to a lot of rock concerts. It all began back in high school with Jethro Tull -- I sat in the 4th row and wore my concert T-shirt to school the next day. I saw Yes (cool laser light show), Jeff Beck (loudest show ever) and Pink Floyd (giant floating animal balloons). Once I got to college I went to my first of at least a dozen Grateful Dead shows, I saw Springsteen when he used to run up and down the aisles, The Rolling Stones when they still had Bill Wyman on bass, The Who at Madison Square before Keith Moon died, Eric Clapton with Muddy Waters, the original Little Feat, the great late Frank Zappa and the legendary Bob Dylan. I saw Dylan with the Dead, Dylan with Tom Petty, Dylan when he was very good, Dylan when he was not so good and Dylan unplugged. I saw Crosby Stills and Nash without Neil Young. I saw George Harrison and Ringo Starr play 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' with Eric Clapton at Wembley Arena with Princess Di in the audience wearing a Sergeant Pepper outfit. That was pretty cool.
But at some point I stopped going to concerts. There weren't as many acts around that I really wanted to see. I tried to get tickets to U2 a couple of times but was never successful. And the ticket prices got so high, it didn't really seem worth it. I never heard of half the bands out there anyway and the ones I knew had either broken up or died.
So when my niece and nephew announced that they were going to a two-day concert festival in Las Vegas, I thought it might be fun to tag along. I didn't think that I would actually be going to the concert -- I figured I would lounge around the hotel all day and hang out with them after the show. But they went ahead and bought me a ticket and the next thing I knew I was road-tripping to the Vegoose festival with Chris (age 19), Annie (age 24) and Annie's boyfriend Tony (also 24).
We left fairly early Saturday morning, stopping for a ridiculously unhealthy breakfast at a fast food place along the way. People say it is a four hour drive to Vegas but those people are generally liars. Either that or they do not drive 4-cylinder Hondas with three passengers and they do not have bladders. Apparently you have to cross some type of mountain range in order to get to Vegas and in my car that means top speeds of 40-50 mph. Also I was guzzling iced tea the whole way, so pit stops were essential.
We arrived in Vegas around three after fighting some crosstown traffic to get to Sam Boyd stadium where the Vegoose festival was located. It was a pretty big deal -- there was a main stage inside the stadium and two or three other stages set up in a large field next to the stadium. There was also a carnival-like midway with various booths selling everything from vegetarian burritos to tie-dyed underwear.
We went straight to the main stage to see a band called "String Cheese Incident" -- they were pretty good, but the most entertaining part was the crowd. It seems that the hula hoop has made a comeback among the clove-cigarette-and-patchouli set and there were several slinky young girls gyrating quite impressively with their oversized and decorated hoops. Of course there were also plenty of skinny guys playing hacky-sack and frisbee as well. And since it was almost Halloween, about half the people there were wearing wacky costumes. There were a lot of pixies and fairies and other magical creatures flitting about. They all seemed to know each other.
I couldn't help noticing a familiar and rather pungent aroma wafting around the stadium. And this time it wasn't clove cigarettes. I guess concerts haven't changed that much after all.
The next band was former Grateful Dead bass player Phil Lesh and friends playing good old Dead chestnuts, but with a crispness and polish that you didn't always get back in the day. It helped a lot that Joan Osborne was singing vocals -- I swear those old songs never sounded so good. I was actually getting into it, standing up and swaying back and forth, singing along to every word. It was fun.
The last band of the day was Dave Matthews, who was joined by former Phish frontman Trey Anastasio. They played a few of Dave's tunes but the songs that really rocked the house were the oldies. They did Billy Preston's "Will It Go Round In Circles", Sly & the Family Stone's "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)", "Tell Me Something Good" by Chaka Khan, a scorching "Rocky Mountain Way" from Joe Walsh and "Up On Cripple Creek" by The Band. That's my kind of music.
We had a little trouble getting back to the hotel that night. Annie and Tony had dropped Chris and me off at the stadium earlier and gone back to check in at the hotel. They took a taxi to the show, so we had no car. There were supposed to be shuttle buses, but the line for buses was quite long and there were no buses in sight. We stood in a taxi line in the cold night air for about a half hour with no luck and finally ended up paying a limo driver $100 bucks to drive us back. That's Vegas, baby!
The next day I toured around the other venues a little more and checked out the midway. We saw quite a variety of acts including The Flaming Lips, Jack Johnson and Beck. I even shopped for a Grateful Dead T-shirt. I was really getting caught up in the spirit of things. The final two acts of the weekend were Trey Anastasio and Widespread Panic. Trey is accorded demi-godlike status by the post-Phish pseudo-hippie crowd and his every move was lauded and acclaimed. Widespread Panic is a band I've never heard before but they sure did rock the joint.
The drive back was kind of an ordeal as my three young companions conked out on me within minutes of crossing the Clark County line. I drove from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. with only a couple of breaks for iced tea and almonds. It was a challenge, but it also brought me back to the good old days, like the time I had to drive home from the Who concert on the old CT turnpike when they still had tolls in an old VW that kept stalling -- so I had to glide through the tollbooths with the car in neutral and keep the engine revving while rolling down the window and tossing coins into the basket then pop the clutch back in before the engine died.
We had such a good time at the Vegoose festival that we decided to make it an annual event. And I had such a good time that I've started going to concerts again. Last week, on my birthday, I finally got to see U2. And they were amazing. For Thanksgiving weekend I'm going back to Vegas with Annie and Tony and I'm seeing Paul McCartney at the MGM Grand. Paul will be the third Beatle I've seen in concert. Now I just have to see Neil Young and I'll be all set.
Yes, the internet is a wondrous thing -- a place of learning, a forum for the free expression of ideas, a global marketplace, a medium for mass communication, a community without borders, an international town square, and a pick-up joint.
Dating has never been an exact science, it's always been hit or miss, luck of the draw, a numbers game. But on the internet you can increase your chances of success by widening your universe of choices way beyond your circle of friends, co-workers or the regulars at the local bar. In addition you can avail yourself of highly developed selection systems developed by PhDs to help you narrow the field down to those with whom you are most likely to connect. It's like being a card counter at the blackjack table of love.
With this in mind one Saturday morning, I filled out a profile on Match.com and plunged into the brisk waters of internet dating. My interest had been stirred by a photo I saw on the Match teaser page of a nurse who lived right here in my neighborhood. I looked up her profile and found that we were quite compatible -- 82% compatible to be exact. How about that? Here's this attractive single woman living right near me with whom I have all of these things in common and we might never have met. So I wrote her an "anonymous" email, telling her how it was her photo that had encouraged me to sign up in the first place (they recommend a little flattery) and how remarkable it was that we were so compatible. This was very exciting, the possibility of making a connection on my very first day.
After I sent the first email, I instantly received several more suggested profiles of women who were similar to the nurse. One in particular was an adorable painter with a cheerful smile and smoldering eyes. I read her profile and found her utterly charming -- funny, intelligent and romantic. And wouldn't you know, we were also 82% compatible! I sent her an email right away, explaining that I was very new to all of this but I thought she was terrific and I wanted to find out more about here. I shared with her my understanding of the difficulty of reconciling the life of an artist with that of the workaday world. I felt we had the potential to make a real connection. Man, this was awesome. Compatible women virtually falling out of the trees everywhere you looked. I couldn't wait for their responses.
I probably checked my email about two dozen times that day hoping for replies to my earnest and heartfelt emails. None came. That night, however, I was at a restaurant with a friend waiting for our table when a woman walked in who looked strikingly familiar. But who was she? Suddenly I froze with panic -- it was the nurse! Oh my God, will she recognize me? Is she looking at me? Who's that guy she's with? Will we email each other about this and one day laugh about it? But then our table was ready and away we went. I never saw here or heard from her again. But every once in a while I check her profile and, sure enough, she's still out there looking.
The next day I was elated to find that my painter had "winked" back at me! And then she sent a follow-up email asking for my photo. That's when I realized that the photos I had uploaded hadn't been approved yet and there was no way the nurse could have recognized me last night. I explained to the painter that my photos would be online soon and she should check my profile again. Apparently she did because I did not hear back from her. Finally after two weeks I sent her another email in which I gave her my best argument: if someone has been dating for, say, ten years and they keep choosing the same "type" and none of those relationships have ever worked out, maybe their type isn't really their type. That got a response. She said she really liked my profile and I seemed like a great guy, but she'd already met someone and was going to focus on that relationship for now. Apparently she made the right choice, because when I went back to check up on her profile she had taken it offline.
Meanwhile, I had been sent another profile to check out -- a librarian/grad-student from the desert. She was very cute and her description was intelligent and very sensible. I really liked her sincere, no-nonsense approach. I emailed her and told her that I admired what she had written. Sure enough she wrote me back and said she was intrigued by my musical endeavors as she was a big music fan and used to work at a big-time publicity agency. We traded a few emails back and forth and finally I worked up the nerve to suggest a meeting. It took a few more emails to negotiate the appropriate time and place -- Saturday afternoon at a winery out in Santa Clarita -- and the deal was done. Wow. My first internet date and after only three weeks. I was so nervous Saturday morning, I decide not to shave for fear of slitting my own throat. I drove for nearly two hours out to the desert feeling like the people at MapQuest must be playing a sick joke on me, surely there was no winery way the hell out here. But then I saw the vineyards and realized that this was really going to happen.
I must recommend having a first date at a wine tasting. First of all, you're drinking wine. And even though you're only "tasting" it, after a half a dozen "tastes" you actually get a decent mild buzz going. Then there's the talking about the wine, which is very helpful for those potentially awkward pauses in the conversation. And, perhaps best of all, there's the wine steward, who comes by every few minutes to tell you about a new wine and pour some more wine into your glass and generally keep things flowing. We hung out at the winery for about 45 minutes -- after the tasting we walked around the grounds where they kept various animals -- horses, goats, peacocks, etc. I took a picture of her petting a beautiful palomino with a long golden mane that matched her hair.
We had lunch at a quaint little cafe around the corner and talked for about two hours covering every topic from work to cooking to music to family. She was really nice and smart and funny. She did seem a little awkward at times, but who doesn't on a first date. We hugged good-bye and made plans to make more plans. Driving home, I was pretty darn proud of myself. I had really done it, and I owed it all to the internet.
A few days later I got an email from her suggesting a sunset ride in the Hollywood hills complete with Margaritas and view of the Hollywood sign. Unfortunately I had to work that weekend so we had to postpone. I called her the following week to follow up, but had to leave her a message as she worked nights at the library. I waited a couple of days for her to call back, but didn't hear from her until Saturday evening. She sent me an email explaining that we couldn't see each other any more. She felt that she needed to focus on her studies and maybe she had rushed into the dating thing too soon and probably shouldn't have gone on Match.com in the first place. That was very disappointing but also understandable. I knew she was going to grad school and working nights and weekends. I emailed her and wished her luck with her schoolwork and said I understood how it was trying to balance several different pursuits and still maintain a social life. That was the last I heard from her.
Except that I still have her mini-profile saved in my list of women who have viewed my profile. And as it turns out that mini-profile is continually updated. For example, I can see that she is still active on Match.com, pretty much every day. I can also see that she has changed certain criteria in regard to who she is looking for. Originally, she had specified an age bracket that while it didn't actually include me, put me only slightly outside her range. Now however, she has revised it so that I am about ten years outside her range. I have to confess that hurt a little. But that's not what really got me. She also changed her photo. That in itself is no big deal, but it made me curious enough to go check out her full profile again. The new photo was quite flattering and would probably attract a lot of attention. In addition to it there were two others: one apparently taken in the same location but from a slightly different angle, and one of her petting a beautiful palomino with a long golden mane that matched her hair.
So, I think I will give internet dating a rest for a while. I still get the recommended profiles and every so often I check them out. One turned out to be a beautiful Canadian "model" who somehow ended up in Nigeria and desperately wants to come to Los Angeles. Another was a very sexy Russian woman who barely speaks English and is looking for the love of her life. Both of those are classic internet dating scams which end up with the women asking you to send them money for a plane ticket. It did seem odd that two such young, sexy, beautiful women could both be so strongly attracted to me so quickly. But it was fun to think it might be true, even if only for a few days. I'm much more sophisticated now and I don't fall for that sort of thing so easily.
A friend of mine who is a fellow screenwriter is writing a horror movie. Specifically, a teen "slasher" movie about a bunch of sassy-talking, shallow college students who go out to a secluded lakeside cabin to drink alcohol, say rude things to each other, and have sex, but instead end up getting killed in increasingly violent and disgusting ways. Apparently this type of movie is very "hot" right now. He already has a couple of pretty successful production companies showing interest in the project. The horror trend has been going pretty strong for a couple of years now and lately I've been wondering why.
Personally I hate horror movies, partly because they are completely contrived and formulaic and have no actual story or characters to speak of, but also because they are horrifying. To me there is plenty of horror right outside my window and the last thing I want to do with my hard-earned free time is pay $12-$14 of my hard-earned money to expose myself to two hours of gore and mayhem and sadism and violence. And as if that wasn't enough, you can play video games that allow you to pretend that you are the one who is dishing out the sadistic violent gory mayhem. A bunch of guys here at work spend most every evening playing on-line games in which they basically go around killing each other over and over again.
The weird thing is, some of these guys actually live in neighborhoods where drive by shootings and gang warfare are a reality. Not to mention that there's an actual war going on where every day people are being blown to bits by suicide bombers. Or a force five hurricane that almost completely wiped out one of America's oldest and most historic cities, leaving thousands of rotting corpses in its wake. Or the serial killers, child molesters and countless other psychopaths that parade across the seemingly endless succession of news shows on TV. Why do we need more horror movies?
The other day at work, I was passing by the conference room and I saw a group of people looking out the window. Naturally I went over to see what was up. Apparently, someone left a red tool case sitting on the street corner right outside our building. It had been sitting there for about two hours and finally security had called in the bomb squad. The streets were cordoned off and a group of brave men wearing protective vests was now approaching the suspicious case.
Where's the robot I wondered? Surely they're going to bust out the robot!
But no, instead they send one of the guys with the vests over to take a couple of x-rays of the tool case. Then he tied a string to the handle, looped it around the "walk" sign on the corner lamp post and brought the other end back to where his pals were waiting behind a large concrete pillar. One, two, three -- YOINK! They jerked the case up into the air. It flung open, revealing no bomb or even any tools inside, and hung there dangling from the lamp post. Those of us at the window were kind of disappointed. Not that we wanted a bomb to go off, but it did seem a little anti-climactic and totally low-tech. At least the streets would be cleared in time for us to get to lunch.
Maybe the world has gotten so horrifying that we need a jolt of blood-gutting mayhem now and then just to feel alive. The steady, familiar, day-to-day threat of being vaporized by the ubiquitous specter of "terrorism" has become downright comfortable. Last week, on the anniversary of September 11th, Los Angeles was issued a terrorist threat warning. On the 12th we all went to work as usual, nobody seemed particularly nervous or vigilant. Around noon I was talking to my cell phone company about upgrading to a better phone, when those annoying guys from security broke in over the intercom and announced a massive power shutdown. They were so loud I had to hang up the phone. They told us to stay in our offices and await further instruction.
I waited around for about twenty minutes but then I got really hungry so I went to the elevator lobby to see if the elevators were running. Apparently they keep one going in case of emergencies like low blood sugar. I went over to the food court where all the lights were off, but my pal at the sandwich place let me have a bowl of turkey chili. I sat and ate my chili near the window so I could read my book. It was kind of hard to read though, with the alarm beeping all the time and the intercom crackling with incomprehensible announcements about things like "emergency power" and "exits" and "evacuation." I wandered back to my building and found that it had apparently been evacuated. Fortunately the guard let me go upstairs to get my car keys so I could join the thousands of other idiots trying to navigate the hellish maze of L.A. traffic with the added benefit of no traffic lights.
I guess the bowl of turkey chili made me sleepy, because when I got home I took about a two hour nap. When I woke up the crisis was over so I made a sandwich and watched some TV. The next day everyone was talking about the big blackout and how they got home and how sore their legs were from walking down all those stairs (suckers!) By Wednesday it was pretty much forgotten. Just yesterday I was in someone's office when we heard several sharp, echoing POP-POP-POPs, that sounded an awful lot like artillery fire. We craned our necks to see where the sound had come from but couldn't tell. A few minutes later a blizzard of multicolored bits fluttered by the window. Apparently the sound we'd hear had been confetti cannons. Just another false alarm.
Maybe all these false alarms are getting on our nerves and we need to have something happen for catharsis sake. In that case, why not go see a really scary movie and scream your guts out when the killer pops out from behind the shower curtain.
At any rate I don't think it's a healthy sign when people need to be frightened out of their wits just to be entertained. But it's good for the movie industry -- horror movies are cheap and they rake in the cash. With any luck, my buddy's movie will be giving people recurring nightmares and influencing potential homicidal maniacs by next summer.
Way back in the day there was a series on PBS called the Ascent of Man, with Jacob Bronowski traveling all over the globe to present the history of the development of human intelligence. In the episode on the Greeks, Bronowski stood out on a sunny promontory overlooking the crystalline blue Mediterranean and theorized that one of the reasons that human thought evolved so brilliantly in that region was because of the wonderfully crisp clear skies and bright unfiltered light. Everything just seems clearer there, said Bronowski.
I often thought about that observation when I was hanging around Berkeley back in the late seventies. The air was crisp the sky was blue and the sun was bright. Everything just seemed clearer there. John and I awoke to just such a day the morning after our long ordeal. Beautiful, sunny and clear -- a perfect day to tour the Berkeley campus. In all the time I had spent there, I had never really seen most of the campus, so it was cool to actually take a guided tour. John loved it right from the start. Even though they didn't have a journalism major or a very big film department, the two subjects he is interested in, he still wanted to go there. We saw the major attractions, Library, Student Center, oldest building on campus, Nobel Laureate parking places and my favorite, the Campanille. I had always wanted to go up to the top but never did. We decided that after the tour we would go back and check out the Campanille.
At the end of the tour was a presentation on admissions. Boy was that a shocker. The out-of-state requirements are pretty tough. John would have to get all A's this year just to make the minimum GPA. And the tuition! Holy crap. He just wants to go here for a few years, he doesn't want to buy the place. Still, despite the seemingly unsurmountable obstacles, John still wanted to go to Berkeley. How can you blame him? It really is the best.
We grabbed some lunch at the Free Speech cafe and made a quick run down to a Goodwill store in town. John is a big Goodwill fan and has acquired many cool t-shirts there for under $2 each. We didn't see anything worth buying at the Berkeley store, however.
Next stop was the Campanille. We took the elevator to the top and looked across the bay. As sunny and bright as it was in Berkeley, San Francisco was cloaked in fog. We made plans to head across the bay for some quick sightseeing and to grab some dinner. But first a pit stop at the hotel for a much needed shower. In honor of Mitch Hedberg, I announced "I'm gonna go shave, too." Since I assumed that there must be someone else on the planet shaving as well.
Our first stop in San Francisco was the City Lights Bookstore founded by beat-poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and spiritual home to the beat generation and their metaphysical offspring. Since John basically grew up in a bookstore that is a bona-fide cultural desecndant of City Lights, I thought it would be good for him to see the original. I got him a copy of On the Road from the beat section on the second floor and treated myself to a collection of short stories by goofball genius T. Coraghessan Boyle. I snapped a photo of John standing under the sign that says "Jack Kerouac Alley" and we set out for out next landmark.
Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill stood out like a lighthouse in a sea of fog. We grabbed some pictures as the mist rolled past and we caught patches of city views between the clouds. John wanted to find a particular skateboard store called Huf SF, so we were asking people if they'd heard of it. We met a young woman from Canada, she didn't know Huf SF, but she told us about a place back in Berkeley called 510 that sold skateboard gear. She took our picture with the Bay Bridge behind us, standing in the exact same place I'd stood with my friend Ray Sharp when we first came out here 27 years ago.
We stopped off at Lombard Street for a photo op on the way down to the Marina. I wanted to take John to a place I'd found on the internet that seemed like it would be really cool -- it's called the Wave Organ and it's basically an Aeolian Harp for waves. It consists of a series of pipes that run from the water's edge up to this funky all-stone listening theater built on the end of a jetty in the SF Bay. When the water washes up against the pipes, its supposed to make these cool subtle musical sounds that echo off the pipes and the stone. Plus, given its location, it has some of the coolest views of the city imaginable. It seemed like the type of thing you could only find in San Francisco. As it turns out, the musical sounds are a lot more subtle than I expected and all we really heard was some gurgling like a broken toilet and a bunch of fog horns from ships somewhere out in the bay. I could tell John was less than thrilled. Besides, it was so fogged in we couldn't see the Golden Gate Bridge or Alcatraz or pretty much anything. And it was cold, too. And windy. And wet.
After a well-earned dinner, we headed over to the Embarcadero to visit one of John's hallowed shrines. Apparently some of the most important events in the history of skateboarding transpired on the metal railings and concrete steps and embankments of Pier 7. These days, however, the city has tried to curtail such exploits by affixing metal strips to any surfaces that might offer an opportunity for skateborders to "grind" or "ollie" or "split their skulls open" or any of the other activities they consider most holy. Nevertheless, the enterprising youths have chisled away several of these obstacles and continued to ply their art in this their sacred ritual space. I took some cool nighttime shots of John worshipping at his Mecca and we headed back to the hotel. It was nearly eleven and I was once again completely wiped out.
Before we hit the road the next day, we decided to stop and check out that skateboard place we'd heard about, which turned out to be just a few blocks from our hotel. John picked up a cool Tsunami relief t-shirt but couldn't find any shoes in his size. There are only certain shoes that will qualify, known as Nike SB Dunks. But, John wears a size 12 and they are hard to come by. Right next door was the Berkeley Hat Company where I picked up a cool straw pork-pie and a stingy-brim felt fedora. We had breakfast at Ann's Soup Kitchen where John had another excellent french toast meal -- even better than the Silver Spoon back in West Hollywood.
After breakfast we hit the road. John had called some friends to find out where the Huf SF store was located and with some clever mapwork we actually found it. John walked in wearing a Florida Gators T-shirt he'd picked up for 2 bucks at a Goodwill back in Connecticut. One of the guys who worked at Huf offered to trade him any shirt in the store for the Gators shirt. John agreed and picked out a cool T with the poster design from the movie Vertigo on it. While he was in back changing shirts, I asked the Huf dude if he'd ever heard fo the Wave Organ. He had and said it was one of the coolest places in the city, if you go there on the right day. I felt totally vindicated. John was extremely psyched to have scored such a cool shirt.
We left SF on a high note. We took the Great Highway to Route 1 south and drove along the coast to Santa Cruz. We took a quick detour to check out the UC campus there, but neither of us was much impressed. As John put it, "I'm not feeling this." A pit stop at Taco Bell revived our spirits and we drove on towards Big Sur. By this point the cumulative effect of many hours behind the wheel was beginning to burn me out. Winding roads, slow moving RV's and a couple of traffic jams began to get the better of me. But as we neared Big Sur the sheer drama of the landscape brought me back to life: Steep cliffs tumbling into rocky coves. Green hills haloed with ocean mist. Hazy shafts of sunlight slicing through towering redwood groves.
After we checked in at The Fernwood Resort we took a short hike through the redwoods along the banks of the Big Sur river. It was already getting dark and we had to cut short our adventure to order some pizza before the motel restaurant closed for the night. After dinner, John kicked my ass in a game of chess while several other guests watched. You know it wasn't that long ago that I had to let him win. Finally, physically and mentally exhuasted, I flopped into bed. John stayed up to write postcards.
The Fernwood Resort consists of a motel, campgrounds, cabins, general store, tavern, espresso bar and restaurant and is apparently the hotspot in Big Sur. Although if you blink going by it on route 1, you'll miss it. One thing I will say is they do a damn fine breakfast. I had the smoked salmon breakfast burrito, which was probably the best smoked salmon breakfast burrito I've ever had. John had yet another excellent order of french toast, making him three for three for the trip.
Before the long drive back to L.A., we stopped at a small park that features one of the most awesome views on the California Coastline. A short trail from the parking lot leads out to the cliffs overlooking the ocean, where you are treated to a spectacular view of an eighty-foot waterfall that spills from the top of the cliffs right down onto the beach. It's almost too cool to believe. The falls are set back in a small cove with jagged rock formations on either side of a crescent of sand. The water is a gorgeous blue-green and the fir tress seem like they are about to leap from the cliffs. On the morning we were there the whole scene was framed with a light fog that gave everything an air of unreality. The place is called McWay Falls and it really is a gem.
We got back on the road for another winding stretch along the coast. We made one quick stop near San Simeon to check out some elephant seals that had hauled their fat blubbery carcasses onto the beach to soak up some sun on their way up to Canada. After that it wasn't too far to route 101 and the final leg of our trip. By now I was pretty much a zombie having racked up about 24 hours of driving out of the past 4 days with nothing but the L.A. freeways to look forward to. We rolled into town about 8 p.m. and plopped down in front of the TV to zone out for a while before drifting off to dreamland.
The next day I drove John to USC where he began a month-long summer program. He had enrolled in a film class and would spend the next month watching movies and writing papers about them. Once we had him registered, photographed and moved in to his dorm room it was time for me to go. I was really excited for him -- hell I wish I could spend a month studying film at USC. I took his picture in front of the dorm just to prove to his parents that I had really gotten him there and then we said goodbye. It had been quite an adventure we'd just shared but he was about to embark on an even bigger one and he was eager to get started. I drove home and promptly fell asleep for about four hours.
How great to be young and experiencing all of these things for the first time. Moving away from home and meeting new friends and starting out on the path that will take you through the rest of your life. It's got to be one of the most exciting times of your life. I still remember how it felt at that age, like I was running toward the edge of a cliff and when I got there I would jump off and fly away. I don't really get that feeling so much any more. But spending these past few days with John reminded me of all of those hopes and dreams from such a long time ago. I had wanted to impress John by showing him what I could of this part of the world. As it turns out, John is the one who showed me a world I have been overlooking for too long. Because everything is new if you look at it with open eyes and an open mind. And I am still running to the edge of that cliff. I'm just not running quite as fast as I used to.
No matter how cool you think you are, you can never truly impress a teenager. You may have an "Anarchy" tattoo on the back of your neck -- it makes you look old; you may have invented the skateboard -- you're a capitalist sellout; you may have hacked into the NSA mainframe and reconfigured all outgoing transmissions to play only Bob Marley music -- what's the NSA? Face it, you cannot impress a teenager, but that doesn't mean you stop trying.
My nephew John flew out to attend a summer film program at USC this month, and I volunteered to drive him up to Berkeley to take a campus tour and swing through San Francisco. On the way back we would make a stop at Big Sur and check out the amazing California coast. I was pretty psyched; I have wanted to visit San Francisco since I moved out here but never got around to it. When I was in college I took a semester off and worked at an hamburger joint across the street from the Berkeley campus. Later on, when I was paralegaling in Washington D.C., I worked on a big trial that had me spending half a year on and off living and working in downtown San Francisco. I was looking forward to showing John around what has always been one of my favorite places in the world.
But first we had to get there.
I found out the day John was due to arrive that I had a big deposition to prepare my boss for that was taking place in Hawaii in two days. It wasn't until 6:15 p.m. that evening that I learned that you can't overnight anything from L.A. to Hawaii after 6 p.m. And you can't get anything there before 3 p.m. on the following day -- by which time the depo would be half over. John's plane was due at 8 p.m. My boss had already left for the day. I needed a miracle. I hit upon the brilliant solution of having the whole set of exhibits scanned and emailing them to him in Hawaii. Thank God for modern technology.
Then I checked the United website to confirm the status of John's plane -- another miracle of modern technology. But technology is a two-edged sword. John's plane from Hartford to Dulles was late, so they tried to put him on different connecting flight. But that plane was delayed so they took him off that one to put him back on the original flight, which had conveniently been delayed as well. He wouldn't be due in until midnight. I ended up driving home to have some dinner before going out to the airport. When I got home I had an email from John's Dad -- the plane was now due in at 3 a.m. I slept for a few hours and woke up at 2 a.m. to go pick him up. After waiting around at the wrong terminal for a half hour, I finally got where I was supposed to be and met John. He was wearing his "Fuck Bush" t-shirt, which apparently was a big hit on the plane.
We got home around 5 a.m. and I slept for a few more hours. I woke up around 8 to pack and tried to let John sleep in a little. He had been up for 22 hours sitting on planes and in airports. My original plan of leaving town at 9 and shooting up Interstate 5 would have to be slightly altered. At this point I didn't realized exactly how much alteration that would eventually require. We had a hearty brunch at the Silver Spoon. John was quite pleased with the French Toast, the first of several excellent French Toast experiences to come. We hit the road around noon and ran smack into a traffic jam on Sunset. After a hot twenty minutes crawling along the Strip we were finally on our way. Or so we thought.
From Sunset we jumped on the 405 and breezed out of town, hooking up with the 5 going north. At top speed, we'd have about 5 or six hours to San Francisco. Unless, of course, something went wrong. Something did. At about 10 a.m. a tanker truck filled with jet fuel had overturned in the middle of the Tejon Pass and caught fire. The driver was unhurt, but by the time we were on the road, traffic was backed-up about ten miles from the Tejon Pass down to Castaic. John saw the flashing sign that said "Freeway Closed" and I veered across three lanes to catch the last exit into Castaic before we were totally screwed. We congratulated ourselves on our quick thinking as we headed up a side road, passing hundreds of stranded cars as they sat baking in the midday sun out on the interstate.
But our joy was short-lived. About a half hour up the road we were turned back by a State Trooper and forced to get back on the 5 heading south. We had to drive all the way back to Los Angeles, where we cut across the northern San Fernando Valley to Ventura and got on Route 101 north. We were now about three hours into the trip and still had over 350 miles to go.
We followed 101 along the coast through Santa Barbara until it skirts inland, past such exciting places as Buellton, "Home of Split Pea Soup," Solvang, where they filmed much of the movie "Sideways," and Paso Robles "America's Most Boring Town." We stopped off in Paso Robles in search of fine dining but found nothing to our liking. John was holding out for Taco Bell. We pressed on for another 45 miles until we finally found one at a junction just south of Pinnacles National Monument. After a much needed dinner break, we pushed onward into the setting sun, past Salinas and on into San Jose.
For much of the trip, John had been playing music from his Ipod, beamed into my FM radio and coming out my car speakers. Mostly new punk bands like his favorite called "Against Me" but occasionally a few songs I actually recognized. By now I needed a change of pace so John dialed up his Mitch Hedberg CD, downloaded illegally from the internet of course. Mitch Hedberg was a long-haired, slightly spaced-out stand-up comic whose goofy observations were delivered in a halting, weirdly-accented cadence that made him sound like a stoned ESL student. He died a few months ago, probably from a drug overdose, but he definitely made a mark in the annals of comedy. A few of my favorite Mitchisms: "When someone hands you a flier, it's like they're saying, 'Here, you throw this away.'" "I think Bigfoot is blurry, that's the problem. There's a large out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside." "Every time I go and shave, I assume there is somebody else on the planet shaving as well, so I say, 'I'm gonna go shave too.'"
Mitch kept us laughing for about an hour and soon we were within striking distance of Berkeley. I put my new Lucinda Williams CD on for the last leg of the trip. We had been driving for over ten hours with only a few short breaks and I could barely read the highway signs. John had to navigate our way into Berkely to the Hotel Durant.
We pulled in to the hotel around 11 p.m. and dragged our stuff up to the room. I left John watching ESPN and went down to the bar for a pint of ale. A guy and girl were playing music in the bar, they did a nice slow version of "Willin'": "I've been warped by the rain, driven by the snow, I'm drunk and dirty, don't ya' know, but I'm still... willin'." I sipped my ale and enjoyed the harmonies and tried to unwind from the long drive. We'd made it. It was good to be back In Berkeley. Tomorrow should be really cool...
I've been wearing glasses since 11th grade, when I noticed I couldn't see the blackboard in trigonometry class. I thought the improved vision would help improve my grades in math, but apparently there was no correlation. My first glasses were ultra-nerdy looking and I hated wearing them. They did help me see better, though. They probably would have made a difference on the softball field in tenth grade gym class, where I was never a very confident player since I could never tell where the hell the ball was. But I wasn't playing softball anymore and never really did again. I was running track and cross country by this time and I didn't need my glasses for that. Glasses were a necessary evil, used for school, driving and watching movies. They always had to be removed before kissing a girl and they were one more thing to keep track of.
By the time I got to college, I was pretty well used to wearing glasses. I had graduated to a pair of horn-rimmed preppie-style frames that were almost cool. I wore them most of the time, I especially needed them in the larger classrooms where I would sit way in the back. It wasn't as much of a stigma to wear glasses in college since being studious-looking wasn't such a social handicap. There were plenty of smart girls who liked guys with glasses. I still had to take off my glasses to make out with them, though.
Towards the end of college I found a pair of gold Ray-Ban Aviator frames someone had left behind and got them fitted with my prescription and a new feature: "transition" lenses that automatically turn dark in the sunlight. Now I actually had glasses that made me feel cool. They were fairly stylish looking and they became righteous sunglasses when I went outside. I hung on to those babies for years, way past the time when they were still fashionable. (In fact I'm sure I still have them somewhere.) Finally, glasses were something to be proud of.
That is until I moved to Washington D.C. and met my girlfriend Sue Kennedy. By this time the Aviators were pretty much relics of the previous decade and mine were particularly crappy looking. Having been sat on and mangled various times they were crooked and had a broken bridge. Also the "transition" feature caused them to have a constant dullish tint even indoors which made me look fogged-in most of the time. Sue complained that she couldn't see my blue eyes when I wore them, and convinced me to try contact lenses for the first time. I dutifully went along -- anything to make her happy. But I found contacts to be a continuing irritation. My eyes would dry up so bad I had to carry a bottle of saline solution with me everywhere to keep re-wetting my eyes. Also, at the time, they hadn't come up with a way to correct my astigmatism in my left eye using contacts, so I was always a little out of focus. I wore them for about a year, but eventually Sue and I broke up and I went back to the Aviators.
When I moved to New York and was working pretty steadily as a temp paralegal, I decided it was time to up date my eyewear. I went to a Wall Street Optometrist and picked out a pair of classic "Malcolm X" style glasses that I have been wearing ever since and are still my all-time favorites. They are clear glass and I usually only wear them at night or indoors, since I also picked up a pair of new improved "transition" lenses that turned even darker than the old ones and stayed lighter indoors. Those became my everyday glasses and I have grown so accustomed to them that they seem like part of my face.
Or at least they did until a few weeks ago when I got some new contact lenses. I tend to go way more than year between eye exams and lately I've been noticing that I can't see certain things like road markers, walk signals, grocery aisle signs. I also noticed that, apparently due to the improvements in printing technology, they are starting to print things smaller and smaller so that they are impossible to read. I decided to go visit the local eye doc and sure enough, he recommended new specs. And not just for distance. He wanted to give me some "progressive" lenses to help me see street signs, computer screens and instruction labels. They call them "progressive" because they are a symbol of your progression into old age.
Sorry, doc -- I'm way too young for tri-focals, how about some of them fancy new contact lenses?
You see, contact lens technology has made vast improvements in the past 20 years. The lenses are thinner, more breathable and able to accommodate my astigmatism. The only problem is that if I get lenses to correct my long-distance vision, I won't be able to read anything. Ah, but they have a solution for that as well, it's called monovision. What they do is give me one lens (the right) corrected for distance and one (the left) corrected for closer-up. It took a few days for my brain to figure out what the hell was going on, but once I got used to it, it was like I could see for the first time since eight grade.
But here's the best part: now I get to wear really cool sunglasses! I bought myself a pair of Ray Ban "Predator" wrap-arounds and they are mega-badass. I never want to take them off. In fact when I don't need them I just slide them up on top of my head like one of those hip European dudes. And they are so dark I can look right into the sun without blinking, which is useful since I drive home facing west with the sun right in my eyes. It's been a long love-hate relationship with my eyewear, but I think that now I've finally achieved a balance. I can't wait to go outside again so I can slip on my shades and look slick. I even wear them when it's cloudy.
Recently it was starting to look like things were really coming together for the band -- we had a pretty cool gig at a place in Hollywood where we could get a lot of exposure, and we even had an offer to play a club on the Sunset Strip. We've been back in the studio adding the final vocal and guitar tracks and the recordings are sounding pretty good. We've got a guy doing our graphics design for the CD cover and he's coming up with a lot of great ideas, including the cool Buzzards logo, soon to be emblazoned on hats, t-shirts and guitar picks everywhere, I've even met some folks who know a little about the music business and have offered to help out whenever we are ready. And we were almost ready.
Then our lead guitar player, Will Ray, decided to move to North Carolina.
Now, everyone knows that lead guitar players are a dime a dozen. Especially in L.A., where they are the next most pervasive life form after starlets and screenwriters, and every bit as annoying. So how hard could it be to replace Will?
The thing is Will isn't just a guitar player. If I had known exactly who he was when I first suggested to Jimmy that we invite him to join us onstage at Hallenbecks, I would have been way too intimidated. Fortunately we clicked that night and Will actually came up with the idea of putting a band together. I was pretty thrilled even to be included at that point. And I still didn't really know who Will was.
I got my first real clue when we went to Will's house one night to do some recording for a demo that we technically still haven't finished. In addition to a full blown recording studio in the back of the house there was a room filled with vintage guitars, plus about five or six new G&L guitars that I noticed had Will's name inscribed on them and his custom death's-head logo inlaid in the fretboards. Then there were the awards on the wall for 'Guitarist of the Year' and Producer of the Year' and a poster of him with the Yardbirds and the magazine covers and the Hellecaster CDs. Will's "other" band is a guitar supergroup called the Hellecasters that has loyal and hardcore following both here and in Europe.
But Will's stature was confirmed when my old pal David Hamburger, himself an accomplished picker, was in town for the annual "NAMM" music industry convention. David met me for lunch and we got to talking about Will and the Buzzards and in his very diplomatic and understated way he asked me, basically "What the hell is Will Ray doing with you guys?" I had to confess that I did not know.
But actually, after a while I kind of got used to the idea of playing alongside a legend. Occasionally I might catch myself listening to what he was doing instead of concentrating on what I was doing and forget my part. But most of the time it was just a hell of a lot of fun playing with him. And that's the problem.
See, now we have to find a new guy to take his place and it isn't that easy. For one thing, a lot of potential guitarists become intimidated when we tell the that we are trying to replace Will. One guy literally wrote, "Don't make me laugh!" Most of the guys we are hearing from are big fans of Will's and are pretty excited to have the opportunity to step into his shoes. Only thing is they don't quite fill them out. I find myself getting frustrated at the auditions and wanting to say things like, "Is that all you can do? Will could do that in his sleep with one hand tied behind his back!" But I have to restrain myself. They are, after all, mere mortals.
I did get a little dose of humility when I tried to step in as lead guitarist just for kicks on a few songs one rehearsal. Considering I haven't played electric guitar for about ten years I didn't screw up too bad, but it was daunting to realize that I will never even approach Will's level of brilliance. And he Will makes sound as easy as falling off a log.
For example, when we are recording, he is producer, engineer and guitarist all in one. He tells the musicians what to play and listens to their performances to make sure they are coming out right, watches the mixing board to make sure the sound and levels are being recorded properly and at the same time he's playing lead along with the track to give the other musicians something to cue off of. And the whole time he's talking and making jokes and goofing around. And those throwaway leads, called "scratch" tracks, are better than just about any guitar playing you've ever heard.
Later this week we have another series of auditions with another group of Will Ray wannabes trying to impress us with all of their fancy licks and gimmicks and effects. I can only hope that one of them is half as good as he thinks he is. I know there's someone out there who can play well enough to take Will's place without trying to imitate him. But we have this whole CD full of songs coming out that we need to be able to go out and play live without sounding like a completely different band. Having spent so much time playing with the master, my standards have gotten pretty high. So I'll just have to keep looking until the right picker comes along.
It's the price you pay for aiming for the stars, I guess. Anything less just isn't worth the trouble. Anyway, we're still optimistic and the Buzzards will continue one way or another. And I guess if all else fails, we can all move out to North Carolina with Will.
I hope he has a big house.
HWD
[editors note: as luck would have it, the Buzzards found an amazing guitarist to step into Will's shoes -- his name is Jere Mendelsohn and you can check him out for yourself at www.jeremendelsohn.com ]
They say you can't go home again, which means, I guess, that the place you think of as home doesn't exist anymore except in your mind. But some things don't change. Certain friends can seem just the same as they were even though twenty (or more) years have gone by. Even the way you feel can stay the same though the world around you goes to hell and everything you once believed turns out to be just plain wrong. And then there's Pacific Beach.
Pacific Beach, or "PB" as it is known by the locals, was a laid-back beach community just north of San Diego when Bob Sweeney and I arrived there fresh out of college in 1981. Populated by surfers and skaters, waitresses and bartenders, sun-worshipers and stoners -- and two pale guys from back east. We came because a friend of Bob's from Cleveland was managing a store called 'Great News!' and said he could get us jobs there. We would start out as stock boys and work our way up to management in no time. They had already opened two new locations and more were planned. It was a real opportunity.
Bob had no intention of pursuing a career in retail, which was a good thing because he never did get a job at Great News! Bob was only there to take a year off before going to law school. He ended up working at the local Drug King and actually did become manager fairly quickly. I started out working at Jack in the Box making tacos and later became a sales clerk at Great News! But I wasn't there to conquer retail either. I was there to write a novel.
PB was a great place to shed the myopic, pensive, dark and dusty mantel of academia and breath some bright, breezy, empty-headed, healthy ocean air. We ran on the beach, swam in the waves, grilled fish in the alley and soaked up the sun. We drank pitchers of beer at Billy Bones and danced like gangsters to the surf-rock of The Nomads. At high tide under a full moon, we collected bucketloads of grunion that were strewn all over the beach to spawn. We sat in silence under the stars and watched the phosphorescent blue tide streaking through the breakers like lightning in a bottle. We smuggled beer and tuna sandwiches into Jack Murphy stadium to cheer the Tribe as they beat the Padres in a double-header. We believed that everything was possible and nothing could stand in our way.
The days passed by uncounted, differentiated only by the shroud of haze that drifted on and off the shore each morning and evening, framing the sunny afternoons with a misty border that obscured the boundaries of time. Our year on the beach came to an end. Bob went off to Law School and a career. I finished my novel and went back to Connecticut to try and get published. But that, as a friend of mine likes to say, is a whole other 'Oprah'.
I returned to PB recently to see if any of what I remembered is still standing. I met my old pal Dave Todd, whom I've know since high school back in Louisville. He was in San Diego for a conference of Law School Alumni Magazine Editors and extended his stay for a couple of days so we could hang out together for the weekend. I booked us a room right on the boardwalk in the heart of PB, just two blocks from my old apartment. Right away I knew things would be different since there was no hotel on the boardwalk two blocks from my apartment back in '81.
And it wasn't just PB that changed -- Dave and I aren't exactly the young, spry athletic adventurers we once were. On the other hand we have gained certain advantages, such as the ability to enjoy an excellent grilled-fish dinner with amber ales right on the boardwalk and put it all on the Mastercard. We checked out the night life as well -- The Nomads were long gone, but we caught a singer-songwriter at a place called Blind Melon's at the foot of the Crystal Pier who was decent. We stood out like dinosaurs among the twenty-somethings in the audience. At one point, during a Dylan song, Dave remarked, "When we first heard this song, their parents hadn't even met yet."
We wandered the neighborhood searching for remnants of my fabled past. My old apartment building was still intact, just up the alley from the beach. A lot of the surrounding businesses had changed, but not as much as I expected. The basic vibe of PB still felt the same. Tattoo parlors, used record stores, surf shops, bars, fast food joints. The video arcade had been replaced by a shoe store, but the old Jack in the Box was right where I left it. Unfortunately, Billy Bones, the archetypal surfer bar, vanished without a trace -- replaced by a mini-mall.
The people, however, seemed pretty much the same. Kids just out of college in their first apartments, holding down stop-gap jobs. Hanging out, cruising the strip, checking each other out. That was a big adjustment when I first got to PB -- everyone checks everyone else out. Back east nobody every looked at anybody, but here they look you up and down and back again. Sadly, there weren't too many babes checking out Dave and me. We were clearly out of our demographic, constantly being referred to as "sir" by cute young waitresses, surly desk clerks and the like.
We hiked up to the plaza where Great News! and Bob's old Drug King had been. The Drug King was replaced by a super-sized Long's Drug, but Great News! is still thriving. The plaza hasn't changed that much either -- smoothie bar, grocery store, bank, pita shop. Lots of young folks everywhere you look. They have no idea what lies in store for them. How plans don't work out. People change. Dreams get put aside or forgotten.
But as we walked back towards Crystal Pier watching the evening haze paint a broad purple band across the orange horizon, I realized that it wasn't just PB that felt the same, it was me. Despite the years and the miles and the losses and the gains, I still felt the same way I did when Bob and I first hit the boardwalk that late September afternoon a million years ago. I still have my good friends, I still have my crazy dreams, I still believe that anything is possible.
Maybe you can't go home again. But you can go back to PB.
Here's what not to do if you find out that your mom is going in for open-heart surgery in 18 hours: go on the hospital's web site to look up the procedure and see graphic full-color illustrations of exactly how they will hack her chest open, jam in a rib spreader to yank her rib cage apart, and clamp off her aorta to stop her heart while they cut out the existing arteries to replace them with a vein they pulled out of her leg.
They're going to do that to my Mommy?!
We found out on a Friday evening that she was having coronary bypass surgery on Saturday morning. The surgery actually took the better part of Saturday as they found four blocked arteries and had to replace them all. She was in intensive care that night, but on Sunday afternoon I was able to speak to her on the phone. And she sounded great.
Sure she was a little weak and out of breath, but damn -- she was alive and talking! I was pretty amazed. Not only by the fact that medical science has reached the point where they can cut somebody open, repair their heart and sew them up again, but also by the fact that the human body can withstand such an incredible trauma and be sitting up in bed, eating solid food and talking on the phone the very next day.
Mom stayed in the hospital for the rest of the week. Dad was there with her most of the time. Apparently they really enjoyed the hospital food. That's all I heard about when I called, "we're having roast beef with potatoes and vegetables -- it's so good." My Dad basically ate all of his meals at the hospital.
My sister Cindy flew down to Florida be with them for the first week home from the hospital. They came home on Cindy's birthday, which I guess is a pretty nice present. Being so far away, I was really glad to know that Cindy was there to lend a hand. Mom was already well on the road to recovery: up and walking for a few minutes two or three times a day, breathing exercises six times a day, eating lots of protein and getting plenty of rest. She has a nurse that comes by every few days to check up on her progress. Everyone said she was doing remarkably well.
Still, it was hard be unable to see her.
My younger sister Susan took the second shift with Mom. She brought special foot-massage socks that show you where all of the pressure points are. Susan's foot massages were a big hit with Mom. Her recovery was proceeding extremely well and she was up and walking about a half-hour each day. That's more than I usually walk. People from Mom & Dad's church came by with casseroles and hams and Mom was amassing a pretty sizeable collection of cards and flowers. One of the most difficult aspects of the recovery is maintaining a positive spirit. After suffering such a major injury, it can be difficult to summon up the energy each day to keep up with the regimen of eating, exercise, medicine etc. But my Mom is a real trooper and when the going gets tough, she rises to the occasion.
Finally it was my turn to visit. I packed up a load of organic grains and protein powder and the SuperFood blend of algae, seaweed, alfalfa and wheat grass that I swear by and flew out for a week with Mom & Dad. What a great relief to see her at last. She looked fantastic. Despite having spoken to her many times since the operation and hearing the glowing reports from my sisters, it was a pretty big deal to be able to see her and give her a hug -- but not too hard.
I started right in the next morning preparing her my special SuperFood fruit smoothies. As it turns out they have a health food store called "Richard's Whole Foods" within walking distance of their house. I fixed them my favorite whole grain pasta with veggies and ground turkey for dinner one night, which they seemed to enjoy. We took several long walks -- Mom was up to 45 minutes at this point. One night we walked down to a fish house on the nearby inland waterway. But instead of fish, Mom ordered a beer-battered hot dog with fries. She said the Doctor told her to eat whatever she wants, and that's what she wanted. Who am I to argue with medical science?
Even though she was doing quite well, Mom was still having a little trouble catching her breath. When her nurse stopped by she learned that she needed to have some excess fluid drained from her lungs, a normal by-product of the healing process. The nurse told her to take it easy and not to worry, but for the next couple of days she seemed to lose a little of her energy. On Monday, we took her to the hospital for the procedure, it doesn't take that long, but they like you to rest for a while afterwards. Dad and I sat in the waiting room for a couple of hours -- I actually fell asleep. Suddenly, I felt someone touching my arm -- it was Mom, she was done with the procedure and didn't feel like waiting around there anymore, so she told them she was ready to go. We stopped and picked up a chicken salad sandwich for her from the hospital cafeteria -- "the food is so good here!" -- and we were on our way.
I had to leave the next day, I really wish I could have stayed longer, but that's another story. Fortunately, Cindy's husband Angelo picked up the fourth leg of our relay and is spending another week or so with my parents. They've been keeping him busy with plenty of little chores around the house, plus he's and excellent cook, so I'm sure they're being well fed.
It was good to feel like I was able to help take care of my parents when they needed a little help, after all they took pretty good care of me for twenty-odd years. And still do. In fact, my trip to Florida did a lot more for me in some ways than it did for them. I'm sure they could have gotten along without me, they have tons of friends who would be willing to pitch in and help them with whatever they needed. But I needed to make sure they were OK for my own peace of mind. And they were. They're doing fine. And the fact that they are doing fine is just another way that they are still taking care of me.
About a week ago I was in my office packing up all of my personal stuff. I'd had enough, and I was getting ready to walk out for good. For the past six months, I've been working on a case that is on a fast track to trial in Federal Court against a law firm that will stoop to any level in order to win. In the midst of that, our firm has been remodeling and we had to pack up everything on our floor and move to a temporary location for two months and then pack it all up again and move back. Meanwhile, my boss has been made the managing partner of the firm -- which is like the boss of all bosses -- and the added pressure has been making him act like a real dickhead. So the other night when I was staying late to prepare him for an out-of-town deposition, and he basically told me that I was no help at all and I might as well go home, I came damn close to taking him at his word.
But I didn't. What I did do, however, was decide to take a couple of "personal" days off in order to try and restore my mental health. So the next morning I emailed them (that's what we do these days instead of calling in sick) and told them I would be out due to "illness." The thing about "Personal Time Off" is that you generally have to ask for it in advance, unless of course you're sick, then you just call in (or in my case send an email). But if you're sick for more than three days, you have to bring a doctor's note. Since I got "sick" on a Thursday, I didn't have to worry about the note.
There were other factors influencing my mental condition, besides the overwhelming amount of work and my boss's rude behavior. There was my back, which has been aching ever since I had to pack up and move about three hundred boxes worth of files when we changed floors. There's the fact that I'm trying to play in a band and write screenplays and never really feeling like I'm getting anywhere with either. And then there's the fact that my Mom had open heart surgery two weeks ago. Fortunately, she got through it very well and is recuperating nicely. My sister Cindy went down to see her last week and my other sister Susan is going next week. I will be heading down in early March. Even though I've spoken to her on the phone a lot since the operation, I don't think I'll feel quite right until I see her. An essential step in my recovery was to catch up on some movie watching, especially with the Oscars coming up. So on Thursday I went see Million Dollar Baby, which is the best film so far by one of the best directors ever. It was truly cathartic and while I wouldn't say it made me feel "better," it definitely changed the way I felt. I also had a long talk with my Mom who was home from the hospital, well not too long, she still gets a little out of breath. She was completely supportive of my mental health vacation. I talked to Cindy too, it was a good to know she was there with Mom.
The next day was for errands -- I bought new underwear at Target. Why do they never have plain old size medium all-cotton boxers? I mean they carry them, sure, but every time I go there they are sold out -- except for one or two pair which I have to dig through all of the other sizes to find. I swear this is true every single time I shop for boxers and every single place I go, Kmart, Old Navy, you name it, they are always sold out of size medium all-cotton boxers. They have all the other sizes in abundance. They have boxer-briefs by the truckload. What the hell are boxer briefs anyway? Either it's a boxer or it's a brief. You can't have both. You can't. Who the hell is buying boxer briefs? Make a goddamn choice guys. Boxers or briefs, one or the other. And why can't the store figure out to carry more size mediums, since that's the size that always sells out? Do the math!
Clearly I was still a little stressed-out on Friday.
On Saturday I did a little work on my new screenplay and met up with Jimmy the lead singer in the band. We had dinner and then came back here and worked on a new song he is writing. Now this is how life should be. Work on the screenplay, dinner with a friend, play a little music. No boxes of documents, no annoying lawyers, nobody in the hospital.
By Sunday I was feeling almost human again. I worked all day on the screenplay and cooked myself a nice healthy meal with lots of fresh vegetables and brown rice. I watched the Grammys and fell in love with Alicia Keyes. I was ready to go back. Not looking forward to it, but ready.
When I got to work on Monday I heard all about the two huge last-minute crises I had missed on Thursday and Friday. I also found out the boss was out of town all week. All week! It was like another four days off. And unlike most of the time when he's away, this week I had no voice mails, no emails from his Blackberry, no last minute faxes -- not a peep. Maybe my sudden vacation had some effect on him as well.
Yesterday, the boss came back. And we were embroiled in another crisis -- some deal we had made with the other side had fallen through as they always do since those guys are a bunch of lying bastards. Plus we were in the middle of packing up everything to move back into our old offices. Naturally the crisis demanded that we come in to work this weekend, but we couldn't come in today since the offices wouldn't be ready for us. So it looks like the boss and I will be in the office tomorrow, shoulder to shoulder once again. Yesterday, he seemed a little reluctant to talk to me at first, but after a few awkward minutes we were back to the old routine. We've got two more months to trial, with any luck we'll make it without killing each other.
Wait until he finds out I'm going to Florida in two weeks to see my Mom.
So I still haven't quit my job. But I did bring home all of my personal stuff that I had packed up the other night. The only control I have in my job is the ability to leave it. This time it was enough just to leave for a couple of days. Next time it may be a lot longer.
I've often said that you never really appreciate where you live until someone comes to visit you. That's when you actually take the time to go out and see all of the wonderful things that you always say you're going to take advantage of but never really do. And even though spotting celebrities has become something I take for granted, I like to try and make sure that when a visitor comes to town they get to see at least one "star." I know they're just people and they don't deserve to be worshipped or admired any more than teachers or firefighters -- but the thing of it is when you do see a really big star, first of all it's cool, and second of all it gives you a good story to go home and tell all your loser friends who had to suffer through another bitterly cold east coast winter week while you were sipping mimosas on Sunset Boulevard and rubbing elbows with the beautiful people.
This past weekend was my niece Annie's birthday and her mom, my sister Cindy, came out to visit. I picked Cindy up at LAX on Saturday and took her straight to the Sky Bar, a prime star-gazing location. We sat and sipped our drinks in the balmy afternoon breeze watching the surgically enhanced and mentally impoverished and feeling superior to all. But alas, no stars.
After drinks we headed up Sunset to pick up Annie from work and get ready for her birthday party that night, at the apartment of her new boyfriend Tony. We sat at an outdoor cafe on Sunset while waiting for Annie to get off work, watching the ultra-blonde, wobbly-legged, pouty-lipped women and their tiny rat-like dogs. Still no celebs.
At Annie's birthday party, which was actually being held two days early, we met Tony's mother and her four friends who were in town for the week. I had actually met them on Friday night at a Buzzards gig. Not that they flew all they way to Los Angeles from Buffalo just to see the Buzzards, but then again, two of them were here in October for the last Buzzards gig, so you do the math.
Anyway, the "Buffalo Gals" were psyched to see some celebs. This weekend was the Golden Globes and the town was filled with stars. Earlier, the Buffalo Gals had been hanging out at the Four Seasons bar and got into a heavy conversation with Liam Neeson. But Liam was just an appetizer -- they were out for big game. The kept talking about ditching the birthday party to go try and crash the HBO pre-Globes soiree. These women were real pros. They had a plan for the night of the Globes that would guarantee success, and with any luck we would be able to coat-tail our way along with them.
The next afternoon Cindy and Annie and I did a little shopping along trendy Melrose Ave. Cindy picked up some knockoff 'Dolce Garbonzo' sunglasses that made her look just like a studio exec at Cannes. Annie got a pair of wide-screen shades that gave her that "I don't want you to recognize me, but you better not ignore me" look that all the stars go for.
We stopped for dinner and a hip Chinese place and finally saw our first celeb. Actually a two-fer, raspy-voiced former Newhart wife Suzanne Pleshette and her real-life husband, and also former Newhart co-star, Tom Poston. Tom currently appears as the "clown in the closet" on the soon-to-be-forgotten NBC sitcom "Committed." While they aren't exactly A-list, or even B-list, they were bona-fide celebrities and rated a quick cell phone call to the folks back in Florida.
But the best was yet to come.
We got the call from Tony and learned that the Buffalo Gals had staked out a couple of couches in the lobby of the luxurious Peninsula Hotel across the street from the Golden Globes. We rushed home to change and then headed over to join them. When we got there we immediately became aware of the cunning genius behind their plan. Many of the big stars had booked rooms at the Peninsula to get ready for their big night. After the awards, they scooted back to the hotel to change out of their gowns and tuxedos and kick back. And when they did, they'd fall right into our trap.
Within fifteen minutes of our arrival we were rewarded with a genuine celebrity sighting as super-tall activist/actor/director Tim Robbins ducked his way into the lobby, sporting a scruffy beard and mustache. He knew he was in the presence of serious star-gazers as we locked him in our sights and followed his progress across the lobby and over to the elevators. He smiled and nodded somewhat sheepishly, acknowledging our prowess.
Sex in the City's ghostly pale Cynthia Nixon made several appearances, apparently having lost track of her room. She failed to acknowledge our group to her continuing discredit.
Chazz Palminteri looked about as cool as you'd imagine wearing his black leather jacket -- he skulked around the entrance to the bar for a while before eventually daring to run our gauntlet. Nobody was going to mess with Chazz and we let him pass unfazed.
Handsome couple Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy made several passes in front of our reviewing stand, until Macy, looking characteristically flustered, confessed "we're just getting some exercise."
At one point I noticed an elfin-looking man wearing silver-tipped cowboy boots. It took a moment to realize that he was manic attention-hound Robin Williams, escorting his wife and kids over to the elevator. Robin earned a round of applause from our group, which he clearly enjoyed. In fact he returned later on for repeat performance, poking his head through a potted plant and saying "thank-you so much!"
Gap-toothed director Ron Howard came by, but I must have been in the men's room. He reportedly received a round of applause as well.
As I was coming back from the men's room, I tried to catch the eye of a stunning brunette chatting with a friend in the lobby. She turned out to be the adorable Kristin Davis. I think she was interested in me, but trying to play coy.
I may be forgetting one or two -- some guy from the Sopranos, one of the Queer Eyes -- but all in all I'd say we had a pretty good night of it. On the way out we ran into Miramax mogul Harvey Weinstein, not exactly one of the beautiful people but a real heavyweight. Certainly we had seen enough stars to make the folks back home sit up and take notice. The Buffalo Gals really taught us a thing or two. How to stalk with style and and how to have a pretty fun evening without getting up off the couch. I'll have to remember that place.
The next night was Annie's actual birthday and we celebrated at a cozy little restaurant nestled in the heart of Laurel Canyon. Courtney, Annie's friend from the University of Vermont joined us there. She had recently moved to L.A. and after hearing of our amazing night of star sightings, complained that she had yet to see a celeb. She was in luck -- we still had the magic of the Buffalo Gals on our side. A few minutes later, leggy cover-girl-turned actress Molly Sims came in and sat just a few tables away. Courtney was thrilled. Now she really was an Angeleno. Eventually, of course, she'll have seen a bunch of stars and she'll become jaded like the rest of us. That is, until some friends come out to visit her and she gets to relive the wonder all over again.
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
