Blood on the Tracks

I saw a movie the other day called I'm Not There in which six actors portray different incarnations of Bob Dylan representing various stages in his life. By far, the best of the bunch was Cate Blanchett who plays Bob circa 1966 when he toured England with The Band -- outraging his old die hard fans with loud electric performances and confounding journalists with cryptic interviews.

Cate is one of those actors who seems to be able to absorb another soul and render the truth of a character in brilliant detail. There is a moment in the movie when she is onstage (as Bob) playing the piano and singing Ballad of a Thin Man -- her left hand goes flying up in an almost palsied manner as she sings a particular phrase, then lands back on the keys rhythmically hammering out the bass line. It is weird and quirky and beautiful. And it is pure Dylan.

After the movie I came home and pulled out my copy of No Direction Home, the Martin Scorsese documentary that follows Dylan from his youth in Hibbing, Minnesota through his formative years in Greenwich Village and culminates with his transformation from folk messiah into enigmatic rock star. Footage from the 1966 tour is interspersed throughout as a kind of backdrop to the creation myth. I watched the '66 clips to compare Cate's performance to the original. And it wasn't just that she nailed it so completely -- she actually managed to do Dylan better than Dylan. If that's possible.

The idea of using six actors to portray Dylan makes sense. Throughout his career, Dylan has continually reinvented himself, often to the point of alienating his audience. Yet somehow he has endured, always somewhere on the scene -- sometimes in the foreground, sometimes in the shadows. And his influence is so pervasive and indelible that it has become an intrinsic element of the culture. Certainly it has become part of my own DNA. Dylan has always been part of my life, even before I knew who he was.

It ain't me, Babe...

When I was a kid, my parents were leaders of our church's 'Youth Group', which meant that my sisters and I got to spend a lot of time hanging around with a bunch of teenagers. And it was the sixties, so teenagers, even in Louisville, Kentucky, were very cool. We used to go on weekend 'retreats' at a rustic campground where my parents would engage the teens in discussions about the world, their lives and their faith. Music was often a big part of the program. I think the first time I heard Blowin' in the Wind was sitting in a circle in front of a huge stone fireplace while a few members of the group played acoustic guitars and sang harmony.

Dylan's music was already legendary, but Dylan himself was conspicuously absent. He had reportedly gone into hiding after a motorcycle accident. Or so the story went. In fact, Dylan was still writing and recording, but typically he had rejected the role that had been ascribed to him. He had no interest in being the 'spokesman of a generation' or the leader of a musical revolution. He was spending most of his time raising his family and trying to avoid stalkers and parasites.

Of course we did have Dylan's 'Greatest Hits' collections to keep us going during these fallow times. But where was Bob? Finally, I got my first glimpse of him at a midnight showing of George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh film. Towards the end of the concert, George steps up to the mike and says "I'd like to bring out a friend of us all... Bob Dylan." And this gangly little dude ambles up to the mike, his frizzed-out 'jew-fro' haloed in the bright lights. He was indeed Saint Bob, a friend to us all. He sang the classics, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, Blowin' in the Wind, Mr. Tambourine Man, Just Like a Woman. And then he was gone.

But his influence remained. I noted with particular interest that while most of the other performers wore the traditional faded blue jeans (except for George, who wore a white suit) Bob sported what appeared to be beige corduroys. Even in that odd detail, Dylan seemed to be making a statement (probably unintentionally) of his individuality. From that point on, the beige corduroy became my pant of choice. I, too, would distinguish myself from the hordes of jocks and stoners in their flared Levis and the cliquish preppies with their khaki chinos.

Years later, I saw an outtake from the Bangladesh film showing Bob at a sound check the afternoon before the concert. He was wearing faded blue jeans. Oh well.

'Twas in another lifetime...

Perhaps the most influential event in my history with Dylan came with the release of his album Blood on the Tracks. From the moment I first dropped the needle onto the opening grooves of Tangled up in Blue to the final notes of Buckets of Rain, the album became a blueprint for my life. Dylan had reappeared in full force, conjuring imagery that crossed the boundaries of time and experience. The past was entwined with the present, the real with the imagined, the mythic with the mundane. He had seen it all and done it all and come back to tell the tales. Heartbreak and desire. Redemption and regret. Adoration and contempt.

At first, these songs were like movies to me. I lived them, lived through them. I saw what he saw and felt what he felt. Most of the things he sang about were unknown to me, but a door had been opened that would lead me to a larger world, painted in rich textures and deep hues and filled with romance, adventure, mystery and pain. I knew now what I would be -- a vagabond in the landscape of experience, a poet of the soul, a storyteller.

The ultimate expression of this vision was the song Shelter from the Storm. That song, which speaks so desperately of lost love and inescapable destiny, things I could only dimly comprehend at the time, got deep inside my blood and infected me with an icy fever that I have never been able to shake. I felt like Dylan was showing me the history of my future. And in a way, he was -- far more accurately than I possibly could have imagined.

It was about a year later that Bob Dylan came to my house. He had followed up Blood on the Tracks with another album called Desire and then went out on the road with a kind of traveling carnival called the Rolling Thunder Revue. A live album was recorded at one of the Rolling Thunder shows as well as a television special. The special aired on NBC to coincide with the release of the live album.

I can still remember my excitement as I sat in front of the TV set in our family room. The show began with no introduction whatsoever, the camera simply focused on a microphone. Then Bob leaned into frame singing the opening lines to A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall. I was glued to the set for the entire hour. In those days we had no VCRs and there would be no rebroadcasts on cable later in the week. You got one shot and that was it. I have never seen it again, but the impression was indelible. Despite whatever misery he had suffered during his divorce which led to the creation of Blood on the Tracks, he was moving forward, transforming once again. In fact he was soon to make one of his most extreme transformations of all.

You gotta serve somebody...

When I was in college, Dylan was practically part of the curriculum. I lived on a hall with several accomplished musicians and one thing we all seemed to share was a knowledge of Dylan's music. Likewise in my English classes, amid the references to Ovid, Wordsworth or Eliot, it was not surprising for someone to toss in a Dylan quote here and there. Actually it was quite common.

Once again, however, Bob had left us all behind. While we were looking to him for inspiration, he was looking somewhere else altogether. Somewhere we never would have expected. Somewhere many of us thought was completely uncool. Bob was looking to Jesus.

I'll never forget the night we were all sitting around the dorm when one of our hallmates, George, returned from New Haven having just seen Dylan in concert. George was one of the original, dyed-in-the-wool, hardcore Dylan fans. He had been with Dylan from the get-go. He was a true believer. But when he walked into the room that night, George was a broken man. His faith had been shattered, his loyalty betrayed. He had gone to the show having heard the rumors, but he just couldn't believe what he had witnessed. Dylan had gone GOSPEL! It was an unforgivable sin. A travesty. An outrage. George was inconsolable.

Personally I thought it was pretty funny. And it made sense. Gospel was always a huge influence on rock music, not to mention folk music. And Dylan was always searching for new sources of inspiration, why not turn to gospel music? Besides, I knew it wouldn't last. By the time everyone got all up in arms about Dylan going gospel he would probably be off doing something else. Years later I heard a bootleg tape of one of those infamous gospel shows and the truth is, I thought it was pretty damn good. Dylan is a great songwriter no matter what he is writing about. Some of those songs stand up among his best. And the band was tight and funky.

To live outside the law you must be honest...

In the 80's, Dylan seemed to drop out of sight again, but he never really drops out of sight. He is almost constantly touring and recording, putting out new material on a regular basis. I saw him live for the first time with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in Washington D.C. It was a good show, the Heartbreakers being especially impressive. It also served as my introduction to the inner sanctum of "unofficial" Dylan recordings.

I attended the show with one of my housemates, Dave, who was a big fan of the Grateful Dead and an avid "taper". Through Dave I met Doug, who was also a taper but of a different ilk: Doug was a Dylan taper. The difference between being a Dylan taper and a Dead taper is that the Dead don't mind people taping their shows -- they encourage it. But at a Dylan show, taping is expressly forbidden. So we had to smuggle in a pair of 18-inch-long shotgun microphones, plus stands, plus a state-of-the-art (at the time) DAT tape recorder. My complicity in these shenanigans gained me entry into the world of Dylan bootlegs, which are never sold, only traded. And since I now had a first generation copy of the Dylan-Petty show, I had something to trade with.

One of my early acquisitions was a tape of the legendary '65 Newport Folk concert where Dylan "went electric." I had heard about this event, read about it, imagined it -- but to finally hear it was like being handed a tape of the Sermon on the Mount. First of all I was surprised how short it was -- only three songs in the electric set, plus two more with Dylan playing solo. I was also surprised at how completely un-radical it sounded. It was just some good old blues-based rockin'. I couldn't understand why people had gotten so upset. I had a recording of Muddy Waters from the very same festival and he was playing electric. Nobody tried to boo Muddy off the stage. But for Bob to do it was a sacrilege. Just like going gospel was in '78. I guess there's always going to be somebody bothered about something.

Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me...

It was about this same time that the band I was in, called The Charismatics, decided to break up. The Charismatics was a decent little rock band that never really got off the ground. But we had an excellent lead singer named Jay who was also a very good songwriter. I learned a lot from Jay about writing songs. The Charismatics played one of my very first compositions, called Baby Never Cries. After we broke up, I wanted to keep on writing and playing. I had just read the Robert Shelton biography of Dylan and learned that Dylan's life had been changed forever when he read Bound For Glory by Woody Guthrie. I got a copy of Woody's book and read it in one sitting. Then I read it again.

Bound For Glory is part autobiography, part mythology, part parable and part how-to book. Once again a door had opened and I was introduced to a world of folk musicians, ramblers, gamblers, prophets, peddlers, thieves, beggars, saints and sinners. I began seeking out recordings of Woody's music and learning his songs. Then I found the music of his contemporaries and learned that too. I became an amateur folk musicologist, putting together my own little archive of folk, blues, country and gospel.

I started writing more songs, many of them directly influenced by Woody's words and imagery. I played at open mike nights three or four times a week, introducing at least one new song each week. I even had a semi-paid gig at a vegetarian restaurant called Food For Thought where I played my original songs along with Woody's and Bob's. Between sets I'd pass the basket for tips. Just like Bob used to do. Just like Woody used to do.

At one point I was so immersed in the folk music scene I was offered a job at the Smithsonian Institute overseeing the digital conversion of the entire catalog of Folkways Records -- perhaps the greatest archive of folk music ever collected. I interviewed for the job with Tony Seeger, nephew of Pete Seeger -- who was a good friend of Woody and Bob. I felt like I was very nearly in touch with my mentors. I would have loved that job. I would have done it for free. But the Republican Administration slashed the Smithsonian's budget and the job was cut.

Perhaps the culmination of this period was when I played onstage at The Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village. The very stage where Bob had played at the beginning of his career. I stood where he stood playing the songs I had written which he had inspired. It was overwhelming. The fact that it was only an open mike, very late on a Sunday night, and there was hardly anybody in the audience made little difference to me. I was in heaven.

It's all over now, Baby Blue...

I decided to leave Washington after the Smithsonian job failed to pan out. But not just because of that. I was also heartbroken. My girlfriend of the past four years had left me and I couldn't stand being in the city that reminded me so much of her.

It was during this very low point that the songs of Blood on the Tracks came back to me. I had been playing and singing them for several years, but now when I sang them, the voice came from a much deeper place than before. The pain was real to me now -- the sadness, the longing and the emptiness were tangible. But singing these songs also helped me weather the storm of my emotions. They gave me an outlet. They helped me to distinguish between the many conflicting feelings that were threatening to steal my sanity. I learned that buried within my despair, there was redemption. Beneath my anger was forgiveness. Beyond my death was rebirth.

I had gotten hold of a copy of the so-called 'New York Acetates' -- a recording of the original sessions for Blood on the Tracks. According to the story, Bob recorded the entire album over the course of two days with studio musicians in New York. In those days, artists were sometimes given demo versions of the records called 'acetates' to take home and listen to on their own. Supposedly Bob brought the acetates back to Minnesota and played them for his brother who apparently made a few suggestions. As a result Bob re-recorded half the songs in Minnesota with a completely different band.

Hearing those original recordings was fascinating. The whole record has a subdued, plaintive tone. It's almost like one long song with ten movements. Like a sonata with lyrics. In the state I was in, this more somber, moody recording seemed fitting. It was as if Bob were speaking to me from the past to remind me of where we had been and how he had warned me of what was to come. Not in a chiding way. Just as a matter of fact. We knew this would happen, and now it has, so let's just keep moving forward.

It took a while, but I did manage to move forward. And for my progress, I was rewarded. In November of '94 I was sitting front row center for the taping of Bob Dylan's MTV Unplugged concert in New York City. For this best of all birthday presents I have the lovely Lauren Lazin to thank. The concert was incredible, Bob was at his very best, and to be sitting so near to my longtime idol was like a dream come true.

If you look very closely at the DVD, you can catch a glimpse of me sitting in the front row in a state of pure euphoria. I'm easy to locate, just look for the woman in the front row with the long shapely legs (that's Lauren) -- I'm the lucky guy sitting next to her. I can't prove this, but I'm pretty sure that you can catch Dylan stealing glances at Lauren's legs during the concert. Quite a distraction to be sure, but somehow he kept his cool. It's just another testament to his masterful powers of concentration.

But me I'm still on the road...

A few years later, I saw another Dylan show at the Beacon Theater. I went with my sister Susan who has been a Dylan fan even longer than I have. The show started off a little shaky -- it didn't seem like Bob was all that interested in being there. He was just kind of punching the clock. 'Here's a song. Here's another.' Then about midway through the first set, something odd happened. Bob started out one of his old chestnuts, but he wasn't doing it the same way we'd all heard it on the record. This is not unusual, Bob often rearranges old songs, sometimes changing the tempo, the chords, even the lyrics. But this time it felt like even Bob wasn't sure where he was going. The tempo was slow, he may have changed the key, and he seemed to be singing the melody inside out. He struggled his way through the first verse and plowed on.

Then, in the middle of the second verse, something sparked. It was like Bob had been searching for another melody that was hidden inside the original one and all of a sudden he'd grabbed hold of it. His voice filled with confidence and the rhythm started to flow. The band picked up on it and got into the groove. The song took off in a totally new direction, fresh and alive like it had never sounded before. Bob was into it. The band was into it. The crowd was into it. The rest of the show really cooked. By infusing that one song with new blood, Bob had rediscovered his purpose for being onstage. It was inspiring.

After the third encore, as the band played a coda, Dylan stepped off the front of the stage and walked up the aisle, right past the cheering audience, and out the front doors. I later found out that he walked out onto Broadway, hailed cab and went home. I guess he figured he'd done his job that night and there was nothing further to be said.

Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again...

Ever since I saw I'm Not There, I've been revisiting a lot of Dylan's music. Especially Blood on the Tracks. I don't have my bootleg tape of the New York Acetates, but that's OK, because I love the 'official' version just as much.

I did a little research on the acetates and found out exactly what happened between September and December in 1974 -- musically that is. There is a very good reason that the acetates sound the way they do. They are in fact ten songs all written in the same key and played, on Dylan's guitar at least, in the same 'open E' tuning. Supposedly, Dylan was influenced by Joni Mitchell's use of open tunings and decided to try one out. He ended up composing ten masterpieces in a row, then went into the studio and laid them down. Upon hearing them later, he may have concluded that ten songs in a row using the same tuning and the same four or five chords might get a little tiresome to the ear. So he re-recorded some of them using different keys, different tunings, and different musicians. And in most cases, I happen to think he improved on the originals.

I think it's interesting that Joni comes into the picture at this point. Something she said once in an interview has always struck me as one of the wisest comments I have ever heard concerning interpersonal relationships. At least the wisest comment I ever read in a magazine. What she said was something like 'As soon as you think you know the other person, that's when you stop knowing them.' I have found this to be true time and time again and yet I keep falling into the same trap.

I believe the same thing applies to knowing yourself. As soon as you think you know yourself, that's when you stop knowing yourself. I think of Dylan, constantly reinventing himself, even right there onstage in front of my eyes. He's playing a song everybody knows, but he's hearing something different in it. And he wrestles a new song out of the old one, allowing us all to witness the rebirth. And when the miracle is complete, he hops in a cab and goes home.

Dylan has never traveled the well-paved road. His career is full of hits and misses. But he is always on the lookout for the 'next' Dylan. Who is that guy gonna be? Who am I going to be next? Never standing still. Always moving forward.

So I'm sitting here with my guitar tuned to 'open E' trying to go back and relearn those ten amazing songs from Blood on the Tracks the way they were originally written. To see how that felt. To hear new things in familiar places. To rediscover my future in my past. To pay tribute to a songwriter and a storyteller. Bob and I have come a long way together.

I wonder who we are going to be next?

On Strike

The other day I was walking down Fairfax Avenue on my way to catch a bargain matinée showing of American Gangster. The "bargain", by the way is $8.75, but that's life in the big city. Anyway as I crossed Beverly and headed past the gates of CBS's Television City complex, I noticed a large group of people congregating on the sidewalk. Not an unusual sight, since I often see people lined up along the sidewalk there, hoping to get a shot as contestants on The Price Is Right. But instead of the typically middle-aged, overweight and mostly female demographic hunkered in their lawn chairs, this group was decidedly more, shall we say, 'upscale.' They looked to be in their mid-thirties and early forties, mostly white, about half men and half women, with nice haircuts and comfortable yet stylish "walking shoes." And they all wore red t-shirts. For a moment I thought that a group of photogenic Target employees was being given a tour of CBS. But I quickly realized my error: they were writers on strike. I guess maybe the protest signs should have tipped me off.

Now of course I was fully aware that there was a writer's strike -- it was the biggest news story in town since last month's fires. And I was fully on the side of the writers, for one thing because I hope to become one of them, but also because they are right. And yet when suddenly confronted with this contingent of until recently well-paid Hollywood elite, I was struck by a quite unexpected emotion. Instead of feeling a bond of kinship and camaraderie with the red-shirted mob, I felt instead quite unsympathetic, and perhaps even a little angry.

I realize my feelings were totally irrational -- none of these writers was doing anything to harm or injure me in any way. In fact what they were doing might well benefit me someday. At least I hope it will. What they were doing was quite noble, in fact -- exercising their rights to collectively bargain for a reasonable share of the profits generated by their creative endeavors. It's no secret that without writers, the entertainment industry wouldn't even exist. There would be no movies, no TV shows, no sequels, no spin offs, no ancillary revenue streams... Likewise, it is well known that the writer has long been considered the least important member of the "creative team." So it is only natural and necessary for the writers to band together to try and carve out their fair share of the juicy Hollywood Pie.

So why was I so pissed off at them? Simple, because they have (or had) jobs and I don't. As I watched the picketers with their mass-produced placards and bottles of Evian, marching in an orderly fashion along the sidewalk, all I could think was that every one of them has achieved something that I have wanted most of my life and still don't have. They had made it. They were in the inner circle. They were friends with others in the inner circle. And here they were clearly demonstrating the strength and unity of that inner circle. With their red shirts and fancy signs, it was almost as if they were saying "we're cool, you're not -- we're at the party and you aren't invited -- keep walking, loser..."

Of course, that is not what they were doing at all. They weren't thinking about how lucky they were or how cool their jobs were or how great it is to have such a large support system behind you when you decide to stand up for your rights and increase your earning power. They weren't thinking about that stuff at all. And they certainly weren't thinking about me as I passed them on the sidewalk feeling jealous and outcast. They were probably thinking about their mortgages and car payments and kid's college funds. They were probably hoping the strike ends soon. They were probably worried about all their co-workers and how the strike is affecting their jobs. They were probably scared.

I know what that's like. I know what it means to walk away from a well-paying job to do something you believe in. I know how it feels to wonder how long you can hold out without a steady paycheck. I know what it is to put everything on the line and not know if the gamble will pay off.

On the way home from the movie I passed the writers again. They were still going strong. I felt less angry this time. You can't blame the lucky for being lucky. You can't fault people for trying to improve their lives. Sure they may have a better deal than I do, but there's a whole lot of people who don't. Like the folks who lost everything in the fire.

It will be interesting to see how the strike affects the industry. How long can people live on reruns? Will we realize that television isn't really that important? Will people start reading books? Or having conversations? I doubt it. We still have YouTube and Halo 3 and DVDs. Thank God. We'll never run out of entertainment.

I hope the writers get what they want and I hope they get it soon. And I hope if I ever make it into the inner circle, I won't forget what it felt like to be on the outside.

But I also hope that someday I have a bunch of compatriots dressed in red shirts who all feel as passionately as I do about what we are doing. And I hope we are passionate enough to stand up for our rights and even risk our jobs when we feel we are being disrespected.

Maybe then I will feel like one of the cool people.

HWD-TV Logo

This Won't Hurt

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

I recently saw a documentary on the life of Hunter S. Thompson called Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride, and it occurred to me that Thompson's death two years ago had somehow gotten by me. Not that I had been completely unaware -- the story of Thompson's suicide was big news and I certainly remember hearing about it. But considering what a huge influence Thompson once was, I was surprised that I hadn't been more affected by his death. As it turns out, when Thompson blew his brains out, I was in the midst of a major crisis at work as well as trying to arrange to visit my Mom, who had just undergone open heart surgery. I guess my thoughts and priorities were elsewhere at the time.

Watching the documentary, though, reminded me of how much of an impact Thompson had on me as a young writer. It also highlighted how far I have strayed from following in his footsteps. And I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.

My first exposure to Hunter S. Thompson happened in the cafeteria in a place called West College when I was a freshman at Wesleyan University. The Head Resident of West College (whose name escapes me, but who was often referred to as the Resident Head) also worked in the cafeteria serving lunch. He liked to stage impromptu readings of various works of counter-culture literature that were both enlightening and entertaining. One of the first such readings was from Thompson's book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream. I still remember him reading the opening words: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."

I immediately got hold of a copy of Fear and Loathing and devoured every word. Thompson's style was visceral, sharp and hilarious. But the best part was his portrayal of himself as the main character Raoul Duke: a drug-crazed gonzo journalist whose relentless pursuit of some vaguely defined and ultimately inconsequential story leaves in its wake a debris field littered with the twisted corpses of Nixonian Middle America. He was one of the most interesting characters ever created. Except that he was real.

I soon learned that, like me, Thompson grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. In fact he lived on a street just off Grinstead Drive between Cave Hill Cemetery and Cherokee Park, one of my favorite parts of town. He was notorious even then. My pal Dave Todd's mother once told us Thompson used to sneak into her all-girl prep school and blow up the toilets with cherry bombs. Years later, when Thompson appeared as a speaker at the University of Illinois, my friend Ray Sharp stood up in the audience and confronted him with this tale of early pranksterism. The normally unflappable Thompson stopped dead in his tracks. He removed his trademark Aviator sunglasses, blinked a few times into the lights and then shouted "Security! Have this freak removed!" Fortunately for Ray, there were no security guards present at the time.

I began to adopt some of Thompson's affectations as my own, including the Aviator glasses, the headgear, the Wild Turkey, the grapefruits. West College even held a celebration in his honor known as Uncle Duke Night -- named for the Uncle Duke character in Doonesbury based on Thompson. The night became a kind of rite of passage for some of us, involving loud rock music, a tank of nitrous oxide, strobe lights and certain little round purple pills. I began to think of myself as a gonzo-journalist-in-training. Instead of reporting the story, I would become the story. My life would be my art. I would immerse myself in whatever experiences I could, and live to tell the tales. And Thompson would be my guide.

At one point, I decided to leave school and drive to California with my friend Ray. We were on a mission of greatest importance -- surely no less important than disemboweling the American Dream. We were off to track down one of our own who had gone missing somewhere along the way. I kept a journal of our experiences which later became my first unpublished novel. The specter of Thompson lurks throughout its pages. I became the story, and the story became me.

I was so caught up in the legend of Hunter S. Thompson that I even came up with a way to write myself into it. I decided that I should travel to Woody Creek, Colorado, find Thompson, spend several days with him drinking Wild Turkey and discussing politics, writing, music, Louisville women, etc. And then, together, we would fake his death and I would take his place. He would finally be free from trying to live up to the mythology that he had created and which was now choking the life out of him. And I would be able to fulfill my dream of becoming the great writer I had always been destined to be.

That delusional fantasy eventually worked its way into my second unpublished novel. It's about a famous writer from the sixties who meets a young woman whom he believes to be the daughter of a Jim Morrison-like rock star who faked his death and escaped to Africa. Meanwhile, a young man who idolizes the writer comes to his home in Texas to meet him and ends up falling in love with the rock star's daughter. Thompson, of course was the basis for the famous writer. In the end of the book the writer kills himself. I wrote that over twenty years ago.

When I lived in New York, Thompson's aura continued to affect me, though indirectly, through the lives of a couple of women I knew. The first was a free-lance reporter who had landed an interview with Thompson which she had pitched to the Wall Street Journal. But when Thompson discovered that she didn't actually work for the Journal, he declined to go through with the interview. She was crushed. She turned off her tape recorder and stashed it in her purse. Somehow, the tape recorder kept running. She later played the tape back for me and I got my first glimpse of the "real" Hunter Thompson. Not that the real Thompson was all that different from the legend.

Most of the tape consisted of a continuous, largely incoherent, monologue, peppered with phrases like, "I am after all, a professional..." and "triple, triple, triple off the record..." The gist of the monologue was, of course, that Thompson was trying to get the attractive young reporter to have sex with him. The entire conversation was underscored by a constant 'rat-a-tat-tat' sound, such as would be made by a credit card tapping on the surface of a glass table as line after line after line of cocaine was being chopped up and apportioned. This sound was only interrupted by loud and prodigious snorting noises as Thompson inhaled enough coke to choke a rhino.

And no, she didn't sleep with him.

This virtual encounter with my longtime hero did color my admiration for him somewhat. Not that I blamed him for wanting to have sex with my reporter friend. Nor did I mind the staggering consumption of cocaine. Rather it was the overall picture of Thompson as a lonely old creep on the make trying to lure some chick into bed with worn-out tales of derring-do and heaps of blow. He sounded a bit like the monster he had once set out to destroy.

In yet another encounter with yet another young attractive blonde, Thompson revealed further depths of old-guy creepiness. This time it was a pert lass with a PhD from Princeton who had snagged a gig as Thompson's assistant through a literary agent (i.e., pimp) she'd met while writing for the soaps. Thompson flew her out to Colorado in the middle of winter. He met her at the airport at midnight in his jeep with a bowl of cherries and a bottle of champagne. He proceeded to drive her up long dangerously winding roads to a mountaintop retreat that featured a domed swimming pool and spa. Once inside the dome, Thompson got buck naked, slipped into the spa and beckoned her to join him. Not wanting to piss off the boss on her first day, she stripped down to bra and panties and dangled her legs in the water.

She spent the next week or so being chased around Thompson's house trying to keep from being molested. Eventually she sought the relative safety of the housekeeper's cabin across the compound. As soon as she arrived, however, the housekeeper began filling pots of water and bringing in firewood. When the PhD from Princeton asked the housekeeper why she was doing this, the housekeeper replied, "whenever this happens, he usually turns off the electricity and the water..."

When my friend the PhD came back from Colorado and regaled me with these tales of lechery and felonious misconduct, I was horrified. Naturally I understood Thompson's lust for this woman. I myself had lusted after her for years. But for him to resort to such crude and barbaric measures just to get laid seemed unforgivable. He started leaving long rambling incoherent messages on her answering machine, begging her to return. The messages made him seem sad, pathetic and lost. No doubt, my desire for her made his behavior seem all the more heinous. Yet, inexplicably, she eventually succumbed to his entreaties and returned to work for him. I'll never be sure what transpired between them that second time around. But I would never see Thompson the same way again. Her I gave up on altogether.

I suppose the death knell in my spiritual apprenticeship with Thompson came when I went with Dave Todd to see the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Johnny Depp's uncanny portrayal of the man I had long admired drowning in a whirlpool of excess and insanity left me feeling sick and weary. I no longer wanted to be like him. I couldn't imagine how he continued to be like him.

I guess ultimately, neither could he.

But looking back, there was a crazy, drug-fueled genius at work underneath the Las Vegas sun visor and the Aviator shades. There was a trajectory. There was a purpose. It was exciting to try and be like Thompson. And I did learn more about myself and about writing in my feeble attempt to toddle in his wake. He was an American original and we shall not see his like again.

So maybe one of these days I'll get up to the Woody Creek Tavern and throw back a shot of Wild Turkey in honor of Thompson. Perhaps it's best not to learn too much about your heroes. Better to let them live on as legends in Valhalla.

"When I Die" Preview of Hunter S. Thompson Film

Pattie & Warren 1956-2006

Chapter One, "Sardines"
Pattie and Warren tell the story of how they met.


Chapter Two, "Mount Vernon" (part 1 of 2)
Pattie visits the neighborhood in Mt Vernon, New York where she grew up.


Chapter Two, "Mount Vernon" (part 2 of 2)
Pattie visits the neighborhood in Mt Vernon, New York where she grew up.


Chapter Three, "Cromwell"
Warren visits Cromwell, Connecticut where he grew up.


Chapter Four, "Northampton" (part 1 of 2)
Pattie tours the former site of The Mary A. Burnham School in Northampton, Massachusetts.


Chapter Four, "Northampton" (part 2 of 2)
Pattie tours the former site of The Mary A. Burnham School in Northampton, Massachusetts.


Chapter Five, "Middletown" (part 1 of 2)
Warren explores Middletown, Connecticut home of Middletown High School and Wesleyan University.


Chapter Five, "Middletown" (part 2 of 2)
Warren explores Middletown, Connecticut home of Middletown High School and Wesleyan University.


Chapter Six, "New York"
Pattie talks about living and working in New York City.


Chapter Seven, "Bronxville"
Pattie and Warren visit the church in Bronxville, New York where they were married.


Chapter Eight, "Skytop"
Pattie and Warren talk about their honeymoon at Skytop Lodge in the Poconos.


Chapter Nine, "Bridgeport"
Pattie and Warren visit their first apartment in Bridgeport Connecticut and the old General Electric plant where they both worked.


Chapter Ten, "Derby" (part 1 of 2)
Pattie and Warren take a tour of their first house in Derby, Connecticut.


Chapter Ten, "Derby" (part 2 of 2)
Pattie and Warren talk about the births of their three children while living in Derby, Connecticut.


Pattie & Warren 1956-2006, Photo Gallery

Somewhere In America

When I was a kid in elementary school, we had music class every day where we would sing songs from a book called Making Music Your Own, which I constantly misread as Making Your Own Music. There were a lot of classic American folk songs in the book, like Erie Canal, Big Rock Candy Mountain, John Henry, and Go Tell It On The Mountain. It was the early seventies and we were still caught up in the big folk music revival that had begun in the sixties. Plus none of the songs were copyrighted and so the textbook publishers didn't have to pay any royalties.

My favorite song in the book, in fact everyone's favorite song in the book -- in fact just about everyone's favorite folk song of all time, was of course, This Land Is Your Land by Woody Guthrie. In that song, Woody shared with us all his anarchic/neo-socialist ideal vision of America as a land that truly belongs to everyone. I always thought it was funny that they would put such a subversive song in a public school text book. Of course they did manage to leave out a couple of verses:

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tresspassin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

I guess they weren't ready to start filling our impressionable little minds with thoughts of civil disobedience or disillusionment. Who knows where that would lead?

I recently saw a documentary called Butterfly about a young woman named Julia Butterfly Hill, who spent two years living in a 180 foot tall redwood tree named Luna. Julia, and her team of supporters from a group called Earth First, were trying to prevent a big lumber company from cutting down the 600 year old tree. Julia lived in a 4 by 6 foot platform and withstood high winds, hailstorms, hostile loggers and bad press during her vigil. Some thought she was crazy, others thought she was a saint. In the end, the tree was saved.

Apparently, Julia and her friends at Earth First got hold of an unabridged version of Woody's famous anthem. Either that or they were just a bunch of troublemakers from the get-go.

I was truly inspired by this wacky chick who decided to forgo all logic and propriety, not to mention personal comfort and safety, because she had found something that she deeply believed in. I felt a little like the cynical shrink in the play Equus who envies his patient, a crazy kid who worships horses as gods, because at least the kid something to believe in, while the shrink has nothing. Maybe Julia is just a tree-huggin nutjob. But boy does she have passion and commitment.

I guess I used to be that passionate and committed. I've lived my whole life with the idea of becoming a great writer. Everything I did was part of my journey as an artist. There have been moments when I felt like I was completely on track. But there have been other moments when I felt like I am just going around in circles. Sometimes it seems like the circles are getting smaller and smaller.

How do you know if you are headed toward your goal, or if it is just an illusion? What if you are just some crazy kid riding naked on horses in the moonlight? Or a kooky old man tilting at windmills?

I saw another documentary recently (I seem to be watching more documentaries these days) this one was about Eugene O'Neill. Like me, O'Neill started out in Connecticut, spent some time wandering around, underwent a transformative realization while living in New York City, and eventually came to California.

Unlike me, O'Neill enjoyed a fairly successful career as a writer and was awarded a Pulitzer and a Nobel Prize. But despite his success, for most of his career O'Neill felt that he had failed to live up to his potential. He felt that he had greatness in him and wasn't sure if he would ever achieve it. By the time he came to California, his health was failing and he knew that his days as a writer were numbered. And yet he still had not produced the kind of work he had always hoped to create.

O'Neill and his wife moved into a house in northern California, called Tao House in a secluded setting surrounded by woods and views of the mountains. For a man who grew up on the Connecticut shoreline and spent most of his life near water, this new residence was as landlocked as he had ever been. He withdrew into a library on the second floor and began work on a massive cycle comprising 11 plays chronicling the history of an Irish American family over 100 years. But after completing only two of them, he must have realized that he would never be able to finish the entire cycle.

O'Neill abandoned the cycle and started anew. Over the next five years, he wrote five new plays, three of which, The Iceman Cometh, A Long Days Journey Into Night and A Moon for the Misbegotten, are considered among the best American plays ever written. Long Days Journey Into Night stands among the best works of literature of all time.

He knew he had it in him and he finally let it out. And it nearly killed him. For the final ten years of his life, he was physically unable to write at all. But he achieved greatness.

Sometimes I wish I had a room like O'Neill's library, secluded, surrounded by trees, with a view of the mountains, where I could achieve the greatness I feel is within me. Or even a platform way up in a redwood tree, clinging for dear life to the branches while the wind rips my tarps to shreds -- but at least I know I am doing something worthwhile.

Instead I have this tiny sweatbox in the middle of a city filled with people just like me, who think they are destined for something special, but maybe they aren't.

I guess it doesn't really matter where I am. As long as I am somewhere. As long as I am doing something. As long as I have my illusions, or delusions, or dreams, or whatever they are.

Woody Guthrie never gave up. He wrote a song nearly every day until he couldn't write no more. Julia Butterfly Hill never gave up. Even when the sky pelted her with hailstones for ten days in a row. Eugene O'Neill never gave up. Even when his hands were shaking so bad that he could barely hold the pen.

So maybe this room is my redwood tree, my library, my America. And I'm gonna stay right here. I'm not giving up.

Reunions

I missed my high school reunion again this year. So far, I've missed them all. For the first one, which was after five years, I was in New York City at the White Horse Tavern with my good friend and high school classmate Dave Todd. After a few pints of Guinness, we got on the pay-phone and called the restaurant in Louisville where our class was holding its reunion. Surprisingly, we got through and ended up talking to several old friends. I remember talking to the woman who was my first true love, and the first girl to break my heart. She was now happily married, but not to the guy she left me for. It was good to hear her voice. I wished I could be there in person.

This year, thanks to cell phone technology, I was able to call my old buddy Gary while he was attending a big reunion party. Gary was one of my closest pals in high school and it was great to talk with him again. We had been exchanging emails in the weeks before reunion and had been able to catch up a little. When I called him at the party, he passed his cell phone around so I could catch up with some of the other folks there, including the girl who broke my heart. It was such a treat to hear that honeysuckle-and-magnolia Louisville accent once again. There are no women quite as sweet as Louisville women.

My 'Ex' passed the phone to another Louisville lovely named Jane Halliday who I've seen a few times since high school. Dave Todd and I used to take road trips to visit Jane at Smith when we were both at Wesleyan. And a couple of times, when passing through Louisville on road trips with Bob Sweeney and Dan Haar, we made it a point to stop and see Jane. The last time I saw her was at Dave Todd's wedding in Apalachicola, Florida. Jane is a very talented violinist who makes her living as a musician and still calls Louisville her home.

Ray Sharp was one of the people I really wanted to see. I hadn't seen him since I watched him set the world record in the one mile race-walk at Madison Square Gardens. But thanks to the flurry of pre-reunion emails that were burning up the internet last month, Ray and I got in touch again. He was coming west to visit his parents in Tucson and I decide to drive over and see them. I had driven to Phoenix last fall and it wasn't so bad. Of course driving to Phoenix in the fall is not quite the same as driving to Tucson in the summer. Turns out it gets quite hot in the desert in the summer. Even at night.

But the long hot drive was well worth it. It was really good seeing Ray again. We seemed to take up right were we left off. Ray and I shared many adventures in those early days. Perhaps the biggest one was when we both decided to leave college and drive from Louisville to San Francisco in the middle of one of the biggest ice storms in history. We were going out to try and track down our friend Mark Bush who had mysteriously disappeared a few months earlier. We weren't sure where to look for him, we just knew he was in San Francisco. By some odd combination of miracles and dumb luck, we actually found him out there. I stayed around for a couple of months living with Ray in a small apartment in Oakland. Eventually I went back to school. Ray stayed in California to devote his life to race-walking.

While in Tucson, Ray and I visited my old college buddy Mitch at the Santa Cruz River Park 'disc' golf course. (That's Frisbee golf to you and me.) Apparently 'disc' golf involves drinking a lot of beer (perhaps to combat the stifling heat) and sitting around listening to bootleg Grateful Dead tapes on the car stereo. At least that's what we did.

I stayed at Mitch's bungalow that night amidst his collection of neo-modernist furniture, all of which are rare originals. In fact every time you sit down in Mitch's house he whips out a catalogue from an auction house and shows you a picture of a chair just like the one you're sitting in and shows you how much it's worth. Makes you think twice about spilling your beer.

The next day I left Tucson at about 4 p.m., when the temperature inside my car had reached about 300 degrees, and drove nonstop back to Los Angeles where it was a merciful 85 degrees at 2 a.m.

It's been kind of strange reconnecting with all these ghosts from the past. When I got off the phone after talking to the people at the reunion, I was a little overwhelmed. I had wanted to go back and see them all, but after talking for just a few minutes I felt like I'd had enough nostalgia for a while. Or maybe it was just harder because they were so far away and we couldn't really hang-out together.

The next week it was sweltering here. (But not nearly as hot as Tucson.) I was busy trying to make some things happen in my screenwriting career but I wasn't getting much action. I had been sending out emails and making calls trying to attract some attention, but hadn't gotten any bites. I was sure that something was wrong with my email. I wasn't even getting any spam!

About the only person who did call me was my friend Ellen. We ran into each other at a party a few years back that was thrown in honor of Lauren Lazin's Oscar nomination. I walked into the kitchen and saw this girl from my high school standing there. But it couldn't be. Ellen? It was. Turns out Ellen is in the movie business and was friends with Lauren. Ellen came to L.A. right out of college and has been here ever since. I hadn't seen her since we graduated from high school, and she hasn't changed a bit. I know everyone says that, but it's true. O.K., she's changed a little, she owns a really nice house and is a senior VP at major movie studio, but other than that she's just like I remember her.

Ellen and I had talked about going back to the reunion together, but Ellen's job tends to take her all over the world and she wasn't sure of her schedule. I, on the other hand, have virtually no schedule at all. I did however have several important meetings with a bunch of producers the week of reunion. (One of them finally did call back, by the way.)

Anyway, after Ellen called, I realized that I'd already had my high school reunion when I ran into her at Lauren's party. But instead of seeing a bunch of people you barely remember for five minutes at a cocktail party, I got to reconnect with one person and get to know her all over again. And it's been great. We have a lot in common since we literally grew up together. But we also seem to share a similar perspective that we have dubbed 'being from Louisville.' It has to do with honesty and sincerity and courtesy and integrity, and generally being nice. We never realized how rare such qualities were until we started comparing notes. Sometimes it's a relief just to have someone else to talk to who was raised properly.

I'm lucky to have friends from high school that I still consider friends today. There's something about knowing someone from that time period that gives you a real perspective on who they are. Only your parents and siblings can know you better. In fact, considering how long it's been and how far we've all come, it's amazing how many of us are still in touch and still remain friends. My friend Mark Bush moved out here a few of years ago and I got the chance to visit him and his family several times before they moved back east. It just felt good to see him. We went through a lot of ups and downs together and after all that wears away, what's left is just the good stuff.

I guess I prefer to have my reunions on a one-on-one basis. It's a little more time-consuming, but way more satisfying.

I wonder when the next one will be?

Breakfast at Disneyland

My good friend Dan Haar was in town a couple of weeks ago. Dan Haar is the business editor of America's oldest newspaper and was here to attend a convention of business editors at the Disneyland Hotel. Dan Haar has been a prominent and successful journalist for over twenty years, but for some reason, Dan Haar still gets a kick out of seeing his name ("Dan Haar") in my blog.

Dan Haar and I spent the first morning of his visit at the legendary Getty Center where we enjoyed the sculpted gardens and viewed a couple of photography exhibits. I particularly appreciated the exhibition featuring modern portraits of Los Angeles by Richard Humble while Dan Haar preferred English turn-of-the-century photographer P. H. Emerson. It was actually my first visit to the Getty Center, which just goes to prove that you never really appreciate your own city until someone comes to visit.

After the Getty we headed down Sunset to one of my favorite spots in Los Angeles, the Lake Shrine. We made a fairly quick circuit, just to give Dan Haar an overview of the place. Dan Haar was quite impressed with the memorial containing a portion of the ashes of the Mahatma Gandhi.

From the Lake Shrine we continued down to the beach where we watched several dolphins frolicking in the surf and then feasted on a couple of fish dinners at Gladstone's.

After a quick stop at my apartment, we proceeded to Disneyland.

Resourceful and clever man that he is, Dan Haar had managed to procure us a couple of passes to Disneyland from a friend who works there. We arrived at 9:30 pm, just as the fireworks were going off. It was pretty packed for being so late, I guess a lot of people go to Disneyland on Friday night. We were swept along with the human tide down Main Street until we found an eddy near the entrance to Tomorrowland.

Dan Haar decided we should check out the Star Wars ride, so we got in line. It wasn't too long a wait, but for some reason Dan Haar failed to read the many signs along the way warning those who are susceptible to motion sickness. It was not until we were actually boarding the ride itself that Dan Haar thought to ask, "does this ride move around a lot?" Then the doors closed.

As it turns out the ride is a recreation of a rather wild and bumpy space flight, and while technically we didn't actually go anywhere, it sure does feel and look like you are flying through space at very high speeds. Fortunately the ride was short enough so that just about the time Dan Haar started feeling nauseous, it was over.

One of the reasons that Main Street had been so crowded was because they were preparing for the next day's World Premier of the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. For the same reason, many of the attractions were closed and there was limited access to certain areas of the park. One ride that was open, however, and surprisingly uncrowded was the Pirates of the Caribbean ride itself. Dan Haar had never been on it before and so we jumped aboard.

There had been a few changes to the ride since my last voyage. Captain Jack Sparrow makes several appearances now as does Captain Barbossa. I didn't see an animatronic Keira Knightley, but I wouldn't mind having one of those of my own.

Dan Haar enjoyed the ride thoroughly as it was much less frantic that the Star Wars ride and thus did not induce dizziness or vomiting. I explained to Dan Haar how the writers of the movie used a lot of the imagery from the ride in crafting the story of the movie. Dan Haar wondered how it was that I could know so much about a movie that hadn't come out yet. Apparently Dan Haar was unaware that there had been two previous Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Some journalist.

The next day, Dan Haar was busy with his business editor's conference and so I was on my own. I went back to Disneyland again. Unfortunately, due to the premier, there were even more closed attractions and even less access to certain areas of the park. One of my favorite spots in Disneyland is the Tom Sawyer Island, which was closed as it is currently being updated to include Captain Jack Sparrow's Pirates Cove.

I ended up having breakfast across the street from the giant outdoor movie theater where the big premier would be held. Breakfast at Disneyland was excellent, just what I needed.

I spent the rest of the day at the California Adventure Park riding the California Screamin' roller coaster, the Grizzly River Run whitewater rapids and the Soarin' Over California "flight" ride.

That night we met Dan Haar's friend Dave at the bar at the Grand Californian Hotel. Dave is one of those brilliant, talented, good-natured types that seem to have been built in a laboratory especially for Disneyland. But the fact is, he used to work with Dan Haar at The Hartford Courant (America's oldest newspaper) and is now in charge of the Disneyland website.

On the way out of the bar we ran into three Oscar winners: Jon Voight, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Captain Barbossa himself, Geoffrey Rush. Quite the Hollywood hat trick. Even Dan Haar was impressed.

I went home the next day while Dan Haar attended a couple more days of the conference. On his way back out of town, Dan Haar and I had dinner with another old schoolmate, Fred Bodner, who is working on a movie about my former Wesleyan cross-country teammate Gordon Cooney. Cooney is a lawyer who won a long-fought death row case at the eleventh hour. Word has it Matt Damon will play him in the movie.

About a week later, I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. I was well primed for it due to my weekend at Disneyland. Plus, they had left a lot of loose ends at the end of the second movie and I was very curious to see how they all got tied up.

But they pulled a fast one. Yeah, they tied up some loose ends, but for every one they tied, they left two more hanging. Until, by the end of the movie, we were left with a whole new set of loose ends. I guess they weren't really trying to tie up the story so much as drag it out for another sequel. And that kind of pissed me off.

Sure Star Wars left us hanging at the end of Empire Strikes Back, but they totally wrapped things up in Return of the Jedi. Then they waited twenty years before giving us three more. Lord of the Rings gave us three movies, with cliffhangers at the ends of the first and second, but the third installment had enough endings in it for five movies. Indiana Jones didn't leave us hanging at the end of every movie. They told one story, finished it and then started a new one. And what about James Bond? The longest running and most successful movie franchise in history. Did they leave Bond stranded on a desert island at the end of Dr. No, wondering how he will ever get back to civilization? Hells no -- they left him drifting in a boat with Ursula Andress. Now that's an ending.

All I'm saying is, a story has three basic components: 1) beginning, 2) middle, and 3) end. Not 1) beginning, 2) middle, and 3) more beginning. It just doesn't make any sense that way.

But that's what we are getting from Hollywood these days. Not stories. Just franchises. Not characters, but potential action figures. Not plot, but a concept for a video game. Not dramatic action, but amazing spectacles and lavish sequences whose only purpose is to "top" the amazing spectacles and lavish sequences we saw last summer. Geez, there are more special effects in the trailer for Die Hard 4 than there were in all of Ben Hur.

Don't get me wrong. I love Captain Jack Sparrow. But, yes, I can get enough of him. And I think I just did. You can have too much of a good thing. A good storyteller knows that. And that's why two of the most important words in storytelling are:

THE END

Dan's Visit - Gallery

Dan soaks up a little culture.


The Getty garden.


A "Humble" homage.


Frolicking dolphins.


Dan being admired by some california gulls.


Cinderella's Castle.


The red carpet.


Paradise Pier.

Pitching Tarantino

A few years back, I was eating breakfast at Barney's Beanery when I noticed that sitting right across from me was famous geek/hipster Quentin Tarantino. He was busily scribbling in a spiral notebook, which he left sitting on the table during a visit to the men's room. Though tempted, I restrained myself from peeking at his work in progress on the grounds that it would have been "uncool."

A year or so later, after watching the latest of Tarantino's excessively violent and pointlessly referential movies, I came to regret that I hadn't stolen the spiral notebook and destroyed it. I wrote about my encounter and the ensuing feelings of remorse in my monthly newsletter to share my experience with the Hollywood Dick community. I received an astute reply from David Hamburger, who said, in effect "Dude, you should make that your next screenplay!"

So I did.

Thus was born "Stealing Tarantino", my screenplay about a hapless screenwriter (all of my main characters are hapless, by the way) named RICHARD who steals a notebook from a famous filmmaker, known only as THE DIRECTOR. The notebook contains the only handwritten copy of THE DIRECTOR's latest screenplay and is therefore invaluable. RICHARD thinks he can use the notebook as a bargaining chip to get THE DIRECTOR to read one of his (RICHARD's) screenplays. He believes that if he could only hurdle past the army of hacks and wannabes that stand between him and the true artists of the industry, he will finally be recognized as the talented writer he believes himself to be.

Of course, THE DIRECTOR is in a panic and hires an investigator named MAX to hunt RICHARD down and get the notebook back. Meanwhile, an unscrupulous studio head (redundant?), who gets wind of the situation, hires an enforcer named MR. BLACK to get hold of the notebook for himself. He plans to hold onto it and force THE DIRECTOR into breaking their deal so he won't have to pay him what he owes him.

It all ends up in a three-way Mexican standoff in front of a local movie theater. The third party in the standoff arrives in the form of a jaded former actress who holds a grudge against the studio head and wants some payback. She forces RICHARD to give the notebook back, but not before THE DIRECTOR tells him what he thought of his screenplay. Turns out he didn't think it was all that great. Not exactly what RICHARD was hoping for.

But then of course, there's a twist.

In preparation for writing the screenplay, I watched all of Tarantino's movies and read all of his scripts. I also read several books about him and numerous articles and interviews. I watched various movies known to have influenced Tarantino, such as Bande à part and Die xue cheng shi. I watched as many of Tarantino's TV appearances as I could get my hands on as well as movies where he appears as an actor. I immersed myself in Tarantino's world. I visited places that loom large in his legend, such as 1822 S. Sepulveda, where he worked as a clerk at the Video World (which is no longer there, by the way.) I tried to think like Tarantino and, most of all to write like Tarantino.

The screenplay is filled with Tarantino references. Many scenes are parodies of scenes in Tarantino movies. Characters are named after characters in his movies. Dialogue is often lifted from his movies. At one point, THE DIRECTOR goes to see his buddy BOB at the Silver Spoon cafe, which happens to be across the street from my apartment. BOB is based on the actor Robert Forster whom Tarantino first approached to appear in the movie Jackie Brown while the two were having breakfast at the Silver Spoon. Forster's character in Jackie Brown is a bail bondsman named "Max."

There are numerous other references to Tarantino's movies and his life in the screenplay. How better to satirize the work of a director who is so well known for his references to other films? But a funny thing happened as I was working on the screenplay. I had intended to write a parody basically to make fun of all of the "borrowed" ideas, inside-out cliches, pop-culture references and flaky dialogue for which Tarantino movies are famous. But I soon became very impressed with the way Tarantino takes all of these bizarre ingredients and blends them into something wholly original, extremely well-crafted and highly entertaining. I became a fan.

When I finished the screenplay, I was convinced it was the best thing I had ever written. I had broken out of the restrictive set of habits that had limited my writing in past efforts. And I had Tarantino to thank for that. Whenever I was stuck on a scene or a particular line of dialogue, instead of following my own instincts, I thought, "what would Tarantino do?" In most cases it was the opposite of what I would have done.

I showed the screenplay to a few friends and they agreed that it was a breakthrough. I was confident that this was the screenplay that would finally get me noticed. I decide to try and show it to a succesful Hollywood Agent I had met recently at a party. She happens to be the person who "discovered" and helped develop one of my favorite screenplays, The Usual Suspects.

I met with The Agent one evening at the Writer's Bar at L'Hermitage Hotel in Beverly Hills. She was there to hear me pitch a series of screenplay ideas and help me decide which one to focus on. While we were there, a beautiful dark-haired woman in a cream-colored suit came in and sat down at the table directly across from me. It was Angelina Jolie. She sat there all by herself eating chocolate-covered strawberries and sipping champagne while I tried desperately to concentrate on my movies. As if I wasn't already nervous enough. The Agent thought it was all very funny and even told me a pretty crazy story about Angelina, after she was gone of course. But that is a whole other Oprah.

I pitched The Agent six ideas and she shot down all but one -- including "Stealing Tarantino". She said it was a very clever idea, but if Tarantino decided he didn't want it made for some reason then nobody in Hollywood would dare touch it. It was best to stay clear of ideas about Hollywood because you never know whose toes your stepping on. She did encourage me to continue working on another screenplay called "April Fools" and gave me some very helpful advice. But for the time being "Stealing Tarantino" was back on the shelf.

Every once in a while, however, something happens that sparks my interest again. Like the time I was at the Silver Spoon and saw Robert Forster sitting alone at his usual back corner table. I took a deep breath and marched over, introduced myself and pitched him the movie. I started with the scene that takes place at the same table where he was sitting. He got a kick out of that. He was very cool about it, too. He let me know that there was no way he would ever get around to reading it, but if I got some financing, I should give him a call.

So, cool -- Forster's on board.

A little while later I knew a guy who had a connection to Michael Madsen and told him about the script. Madsen asked to see it and we sent it over. I never did hear back from him, though, and I kind of forgot about it for a while.

Until the other day, when I ran into a guy who gave me some real encouragement: Quentin Tarantino.

I was at the movies with my friend Quan, and just before the feature started, the usher seated a guy in the fifth row, right in the middle. Even from the silhouette I knew it was him. Quan said, "is that...?" I said "definitely."

Afterwards he was just hanging around the lobby, probably waiting for another movie to start and Quan decided to ask him for his autograph. I lurked in the background. Tarantino actually told her he'd rather not give his autograph but agreed to shake her hand instead. Quan looked a little disappointed and slightly embarrassed. I decided to join them. We talked about the movie we'd just seen and some historical and cultural references. Then, during a lull I said, "I have to tell you this story..."

I proceeded to tell him the entire saga, beginning with the first time I saw him at Barney's Beanery. I pitched him the movie, making sure to include some of the references to him and his work. I swear I couldn't have had a better audience. He laughed in all the right places, totally appreciated the nods to his movies and even got a little disappointed when THE DIRECTOR tells RICHARD that his screenplay wasn't that good. But then when I told him the twist ending he brightened right up. "That's really clever!" He was totally into it.

So I told him about the 'warning' I'd gotten from The Agent and he said, "no problem -- you have my blessing. I definitely think you should make this movie." At this point I was completely flipping out. This was even a better ending to the story than the one I'd written. He was so cool and so supportive and encouraging. I shook his hand and thanked him and then quickly went outside to hyperventilate. I looked at Quan and she must have read my mind, because she said, "Yes, that really happened!"

As it happened, I was going to see The Agent again that very next week. I couldn't wait to tell her the news. I wasn't sure if she'd even remember me, but she seemed like she did. I reminded her about our meeting and the Tarantino script, then told her I'd met him and he'd given me his blessing. She didn't seem at all surprised. But she did seem very happy for me.

It's funny how one person's opinion can have so much effect on you. Because of what The Agent said, I had all but given up on "Stealing Tarantino". And if I hadn't run into Tarantino, who knows if I ever would have tried to do anything with it. On the other hand, just because he likes the idea doesn't mean I will ever get the movie made. It's just one person's opinion.

But I'll take it.