I had lunch at an ultra-chic restaurant called The Ivy on Sunday. I had a salad. This is how far I've come since I moved out here. I didn't think it could happen to me, but the fact is I drive an SUV, I have regular appointments with a woman who calls herself a "Synergistic Healing Practitioner" and I'm on the weirdest diet in the world that includes drinking a concoction made with coconut oil, grapefruit seed extract, almond milk and a mixture of alfalfa, kelp, wheatgrass and algae. What the hell have I turned into?
It all started last year when I got sick and couldn't seem to get better. After a few months of feeling terrible, I was willing to try anything. My friend Patti, whom I met when she acted in my short movie, suggested that I try Cranial Sacral Release Therapy. In addition to acting, Patti is also a certified massage therapist, and Cranial Sacral Therapy or CST is the latest thing. She said it might help with my low energy, and as a matter of fact it did. The first few sessions were pretty amazing -- that's when I experienced a tremendous release of tension and energy just from having her apply a little pressure to certain spots on the back of my head. And I definitely felt better afterwards. More energy, less tension.
Patti also suggested I start taking acidophilus for my stomach. I'd been having trouble digesting food and that was wearing me down even more. The acidophilus helped a lot. I got to the point where I could almost get through a whole day without feeling exhausted. Patti went out of town for several months and during that time I actually did start to get worse. I went back to my regular doctor again and he told me I was perfectly healthy.
Meanwhile I was trying to relearn guitar since one of the guys in the band decided to quit and I moved from being harmonica player to harmonica and rhythm guitar. One night after practice, when I was particularly worn-out, I pulled into traffic and got sideswiped by a guy making an unannounced lane change. This made about the third time my front bumper had been knocked off. I'd already spent a thousand bucks fixing the front and this just added insult to injury. I got a Russian mechanic to bolt it back on for me after several other body shops refused to work on it.
Finally Patti came back and I started the therapy again. My car was in decent shape and the band was really coming together. I was back on track. But then one of the cases I was working on went to trial and I was plunged into an overtime nightmare. I had been doing all right handling regular workdays, but the added stress of preparing for trial and working 60-70 hour weeks was making me feel exhausted, angry and muddled.
I couldn't seem to shake this damn thing, whatever is was. The doctor had already ruled out all the serious stuff as well as mono. I asked him about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome but he just scoffed. I started looking up things on the internet and found that there are a lot of people out there who seem to be struggling with the same problem. Only no one seems to know what it is or how to get rid of it.
Patti came to the rescue once again, suggesting I undergo an herbal intestinal cleansing program. I agreed to give it a try and for a week I was drinking a mixture of charcoal, clay, flax seed and pectin to help clean out my gut. Afterwards I felt a little better, but I still wasn't back to normal. But in reading the catalogue from the American Botanical Pharmacy (where I got the gut cleanser) I came across something called Candida Albicans, which is a form of yeast that lives inside our body and sometimes can become overgrown. The symptoms of the overgrowth were identical to all of the problems I'd been having for the past year. And one of the causes of the overgrowth is taking antibiotics. I had been given antibiotics by both my dentist and my doctor about four times in a three month period right before all this began. Before that I hadn't taken any since the eighties.
So now maybe I knew what was wrong, but how to get rid of it? One way is by going on a strict diet and eliminating sugar, starch, yeast and gluten from your diet. Sounds simple enough, but what does that leave you with? Salad. No dressing, though, because vinegar is fermented. And no croutons! Hell for most of my life the only reason I ate salad was for the croutons. Anyway I decided to try the diet and see if would help. Plus I got something called Superfood from the herb doc to supplement my diet. And I'm eating lots of garlic.
Meanwhile, some jerk smashed into my bumper again. This time I just tied it back on. To hell with it. Then I got a leak in my power steering system that caused big clouds of smoke to come billowing out from under my hood every time I stopped the car. I decided it was time for a new ride. After trying out several different models, I settled on the Honda CRV. I'm just getting sick of being stuck behind all those other SUVs and not being able to see anything. I found a real nice one owned by a couple who live in Pasadena and are in a rock band. They were very cool and I think I got a great deal. Only one little problem -- they owned a dog.
I didn't notice at first, but the day after I bought the car the dog smell really hit me. I really wanted to get rid of it before my niece Annie and her boyfriend Nate came up to visit, because I was planning to give them a tour of Hollywood in my new car and I didn't want them to suffocate. I took the car to a car wash on Sunset where they charged my a hundred bucks to "detail" the inside. Afterwards, when I got it home, I found a clump of dog hair in the back seat! I'm not sure what "detail" means, but I guess it doesn't include "vacuuming." I took the car back and this time they really went at it. When I got it home it smelled like cleaning fluid. At least it was an improvement over the dog smell.
But the next day when I went out to the car the damn dog smell was back! I ran to the grocery store and bought a can of air freshener and fumigated the inside. Annie and her boyfriend were due in a half hour. The air freshener seemed to help, but I noticed when they got in the car the first thing Annie and Nate did was roll down their windows.
We began our tour of Hollywood with a fancy lunch at The Ivy, pretty much the place to see and be seen. Just like Danny DeVito's character in "Get Shorty" does in the scene filmed at The Ivy, I had to order off the menu to accommodate my bizzarre diet. But the waiter took it all in stride. I'm sure it happens all the time. The rest of the day we visited some of my favorite spots like the Chateau Marmont and the Greystone Mansion. But I think Annie and Nate were most impressed when we went by Ozzie's house in Beverly Hills and Ashton Kutcher's restaurant Dolce where they filmed one of the episodes of his MTV show "Punk'd." I'm astonished that I'm hip enough to know what the hell that means.
Anyway, that's more or less how I evolved from a normal, everyday ex-Brooklynite to an avocado eating, SUV driving, MTV watching Hollywood flake who gets cranial massages and has his car "detailed."
Don't judge me too harshly. I've been out here for almost five years -- a man can only hold out for so long. Don't laugh. It could happen to you.
"Hollywood" Dick
One of the classic Dad stories my Mom used to repeat to us when we were kids was the one about the hammock in the hurricane.
Back in the sixties, my folks were the leaders of our church's "Youth Group." That made them about the coolest parents around. We'd have these parties with coke in the little bottles and popcorn and Simon & Garfunkle and Beatles records playing on the stereo. And the teens from the youth group would hang out and talk about important issues like civil rights and Vietnam and stuff.
That's definitely where my concept of the ideal woman was born. All those cute youth group chicks with the bell-bottom jeans and the long straight hair. No makeup. No pretense. Idealistic, political, but still a lot of fun. Swaying to Creedence or shimmying to the Doors. Captured indelibly in time-lapse perfection by the flash of the strobe light...
But I digress.
Each summer the youth group would leave the suburbs of Louisville to spend a few weeks engaging in volunteer work in places like an indian reservation in Hugo, Oklahoma or a depressed rural community on Edisto Island South Carolina. My parents, of course, would go with them.
Now, as luck would have it, Edisto Island South Carolina is smack dab in the path of just about every hurricane that comes up the Atlantic coast. And summer, as you know, is hurricane season.
The kids were camped out at some kind of run-down community center or something when the word came in the that a hurricane was blowing its way north and would soon be upon them. They began packing up their belongings and carrying everything into the nearest shelter. By the time the rain started, they had just about everything stowed away except on thing: the hammock. People were now running for cover as the rain began lashing down. The wind became a furious howl. Everyone was huddled together praying for the storm to blow over quickly. Except my Dad. He was taking down the hammock.
Now it wasn't like anyone was going to use the hammock that night, but leaving it to be ripped apart by the hurricane just wasn't practical. So Dad decided to take it down and bring it in. Problem was, whoever put it up was clearly not the Boy Scout my Dad was and had tied about two-hundred granny-knots in each end. The rain is now coming down in buckets, the wind is whipping the hammock around like crazy. People are calling for my Dad to come inside -- forget the damn hammock for God's sake Warren! But Dad just kept on untying each one of those four-hundred granny knots, deliberately and methodically, one by one.
Another man might have simply taken a knife and cut through those four-hundred knots. But not my Dad. Patience. No need to panic. One thing at a time. Everything has its place. Who tied all of these Goddamn knots anyway?
He stood his ground, my Dad, hurricane be damned, and he untied that hammock and brought it in to safety. The storm indeed blew over without major damage and the hammock was put back up to provide comfort and solace to many a weary teen.
My Mom loved telling us this story, partly I think to make fun of Dad, but also to show us how he was cut from a different cloth than the rest of us. He was of the old school -- the real old school not the MTV kind. The school where you learned to do things right because any other way is just a waste of time. The school where you stick to your guns and shoot straight. The school where your word is your bond. And truth is not an abstract concept, it's a way of life. I haven't met too many other people from that school, and that's too bad.
The other story I love to tell is the one about the guy in the tollbooth. Years later after my parents moved back to Connecticut, Dad used to drive almost an hour each way to Bridgeport and back to get to work at GE. At the time they still had the toll booths along I-95. Dad always had his tokens at the ready and could never understand those people who would pull up to the booth and begin searching their pockets, ashtray, seat cushions, floorboards, etc. for loose change to pay the toll. Why can't they have their money ready? It's the same amount every day at every booth. Same as it was yesterday. Same as the last booth. They even have signs along the road telling you that the toll is up ahead and what the amount is. But invariably, my Dad would get behind the one idiot who got into the exact change lane without the exact change and would hold up a long line of angry, horn-honking commuters while he searched for pennies under the floormats of his car.
One day my Dad was waiting behind one of these morons and he just couldn't bear the agony any more. So he got out of his car, walked up to the toll booth, tossed in a token, turned to the hapless driver and said "Go." Then Dad got back in his car and continued his commute.
He wasn't quite the same guy who stood in the rain untying granny-knots, but I still love the way he addressed the situation. He didn't honk his horn. He didn't raise a fuss. He just paid the man's toll and sent him on his way. God knows there would be plenty of other idiots to contend with further down the road. But at least for now there's one less. We'll deal with the others in turn. One at a time. No need to rush.
Be patient.
Use your head.
The car is not a toy.
Think!
Sometimes it seems like having a job is more trouble than it's worth. What really is the purpose of having a job? Isn't it supposed to improve the quality of your life and allow you to accomplish the objectives you have set out for yourself? And yet in reality it just sucks your lifeblood and leaves you with no time and no energy to pursue your dreams. Instead of working for yourself, you give your heart and soul to the pursuit of abstractions and solving other people's problems and you end up sidetracked from your true path. Then again, every once in a while you catch a break.
I've been working on a case that was fast-tracked to trial and the past month has been pretty grueling. There are a thousand things to prepare before trial and a thousand things for which you can't prepare. And just when things were getting heated, I had an East Coast wedding to attend. I had already asked for the time off, but when the actual day came to remind my boss that I leaving for a long weekend, he said "I'm not going to tell you not to go. But I'm not going to forget this either." Sounded like a threat to me.
Threat or no threat, nothing was going to keep me from seeing Brian Nesin marry Romy Smith. Brian was my roommate back in Brooklyn before going off to Harvard to become an architect. After Harvard, Brian moved to L.A. where some architects actually find jobs. When I decide to move out here, Brian was one of the people who made it feel like I wasn't so far from home. Our weekly hikes together grew into the legendary "Hike Club," a dedicated group of adventurers who roamed the canyons of L.A. county in search of the perfect trail.
Brian met Romy through the Continental Network of Jewish Mothers (Romy's mom knew someone who knew Brian's mom) and soon Romy and her dog Sasha were Hike Club regulars too. Even after the once mighty Hike Club faded into misty memory, Romy, Brian, Sasha and I carried on the proud tradition on our own. In fact it was on a hiking trip that Brian proposed to Romy (I wasn't along for that one.) After they got engaged, they moved to Brooklyn, back to the same neighborhood where Brian and I once lived.
The wedding was in Washington D.C., another of my old haunts. Most of the wedding guests stayed in a lovely old hotel downtown and were treated to an excellent dinner on Friday night. I sat with a group of architects from LA whom I'd met when Brian was in town. The ceremony itself was held at the Ronald Reagan Building in the heart of Federal Triangle. It was very moving, with the Rabbi recounting nearly the whole story of Brian and Romy's courtship. The bride looked stunning and surprised everyone a the reception by serenading the groom with a beautiful love song. Brian, never the most effusive guy in the world, wore the biggest smile I've ever seen and truly looked like the happiest man on earth. He's a lucky guy.
Being in D.C. provided me with a bonus opportunity to stop in and visit with the incomparably hospitable David and Shellie Todd, their amazing son Avery, and their weekend houseguests Dan and Rachael Haar. Rachael is Dan's seven-year-old daughter and she completely stole my heart. Hard to believe that a stubborn, cantankerous grouch like Dan Haar could have produced such wonderfully charming offspring, even when taking in to account the many fine qualities of Rachael's mother. Nevertheless, everything that is good and honorable in Dan has been magnified and highlighted in his daughter and it she does him nothing but credit by sheer association. We spent a glorious day touring the sights of our nation's capital which was the perfect corollary to the wedding celebration.
When I got back I walked right into a shitstorm. For the next three weeks I dealt with crisis after crisis, worked late every night and through the weekends. Everything was urgent, last minute and problematic. People kept repeating the phrase "Someone needs to..." or the variation "Someone should have..." and every time that poor someone would turn out to be me.
The night before trial I was told I needed to prepare a set of exhibit notebooks for opposing counsel. Unfortunately we had only just designated the exhibits that day and there were no copies. I stayed until 1:30 a.m. putting the damn notebooks together, drove home for four hours sleep and then drove back to be ready for trial at 8:30 the next morning. I was running around preparing the judge's and witnesses notebooks when the call came in from my boss. The case had settled.
That was just the break I needed, because I was scheduled to fly the red-eye to Burlington Vermont that weekend to see my niece Annie graduate from UVM. Instead I was able to fly standby and arrive in Burlington Friday evening. I spent the next two days with my family enjoying one of the most beautiful weekends in the history of Vermont. Annie was totally cool and gets more beautiful every time I see her. We lunched attended receptions, and had a fancy dinner party with Annie's roommate's family. It was so great to be rid of the burden of trial and have the chance to just hang out and relax.
On Sunday we all went to the big graduation ceremony together and then another smaller ceremony just for Annie's college. I had to cut out early to make my flight home, but I'll get to see Annie again very soon. She's coming out to LA for the summer. I'm really looking forward to spending some time with her while she's here. It makes all the work and stress and other people's problems seem pretty unimportant. As long as you can stay connected to the people you love, all the other stuff doesn't really matter. It was good to be reminded of that.
No plans right now for any more trips, but there are lots of people here in town I need to catch up with. Maybe this weekend I'll go visit some of them.
Hope everyone is doing well. I miss you.
Love, Rich
