Notes From A Burning House

Further Chronicles of Hollywood Heights, an independent film currently being produced by a few friends of mine.  I have been volunteering on the film crew and my jobs have been varied.  Last night I was slate boy, car driver, and drunk-wrangler at our edgiest location yet.

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The first shock of the evening was the director’s hair. 

Mr. Nelson is preparing to go to Burning Man, the annual blossom of anarchic wonderfulness in the Reno desert.  As part of his costume for the festival, he has dyed his hair green.  Hereafter, he will be referred to in this blog as Verdilocks, or El Verde.

Among L.A.’s neighborhoods, Highland Park does not have a grand reputation.  When people talk about Highland Park, they usually don’t mention the Southwest Museum or the Audubon Center or the historic architecture.  Maybe you remember Jackson Browne’s song about the chicano gang called The Avenues.  Well, this is where they live.  But then again, so does Jackson Browne. 

The cast and crew of Hollywood Heights came here after sundown Sunday night to shoot a few scenes outside of a somewhat-frightening-yet-very-personable hole in the wall: Mr. T.’s Bowl.  Overall, the place feels like it has a lot of exposed nails, but the folks running it couldnt have been nicer to us. 

The place is a former bowling alley with large areas roped off or hidden behind curtains, leaving a cozy dive bar where Paulina waits to pour you a Guinness or perhaps something stronger.  We were greeted by a quiet guy with named Arlo.  Arlo is the sound engineer and D.J. here.   The man is as gentle and unassuming as a soybean farmer yet he doesnt miss much of anything that goes on inside the bar or out in the parking lot.  By the way, Arlo is good at what he does.  It was a little slow at Mr. T.’s last night, and as midnight approached I found him going through all of the free weekly papers that were stacked up near the sound booth, looking for a crossword puzzle.  When I asked him if he liked sudoku, he twitched his salt and pepper moustache and said, "God, if I wanted to get into those I’d have to stop drinking." 

For extra lighting, our cinematography guru had cliplights powered by his truck’s battery.  Quietly, we went about our business while the neighborhood did its thing around us.  I was more or less adopted by a drunk Vietnam vet who still wore his cap from the service and could not, simply could not believe I didn’t smoke. 

We had other onlookers as well, oh yes we did.  There was an encampment of homeless people on the opposite side of the parking lot, sitting in abandoned chairs and drinking cans of beer.  At one point, their celebration of moonlight and song grew so joyous we had to take a break and wait for their discussion to subside:

"You know what’s a great song?  Here’s my favorite song!!  RROooooWWWWRRR!!!   ARRRROUUURRRRR!!!!!  GRAAAAARRRR!!!!!"

"GRRROOOWWWRRRR!!!!  ARRRRRGGGGHH!!!"

When a car from the Sheriffs Department rolled through the parking lot to check things out, El Verde whispered to Richard: "We are making a student film!"

There was also a tribe of young jerks who were more than slightly smashed, conversing amongst themselves in the parking lot at a volume level one notch below "Ungodly Scream."  They paraded back and forth into the bar, taking notice of the ladies in the cast, and attempting to lure a black passerby into a fight with them.  The black man didnt help things by shouting sentiments such as, "I hate white boys!" Perhaps he had consumed a cordial or two himself.  He went off about his business, leaving his white van parked there. 

Those "white boys" evidently bore him a grudge.  At about 11:30, they piled into their pickup truck to leave, and backed straight into his white van.  Bang.  To our amazement, they moved their truck forward, straightened the wheels, and did it again, ramming the van as hard as they could for a second time before speeding away. 

Through it all, we looked at one another with wide eyes and simply continued with our business as meekly as possible, doing our best to go unnoticed as we drank beer and shot our little movie.  At midnight, the battery powering one of the cameras gave up its ghost and brought the night to a close.

Night has fallen and the fog is beginning to roll up into the Hollywood Hills.  The cast and crew have returned to our Sunset Plaza Drive location, and we are filming scenes involving cars: arrivals and a few departures from the climactic Hollywood party. 

Richard’s HDV camera is a thing of miracles, enough to make a neanderthal like me fall to my knees and grunt in fear and awe.  "Unnggg.  Magic box take pictures.  AND don’t need heavy lighting equipment.  Ug!"   There follow many takes of people pulling up and walking into the house, strategically placing the cars so as to take advantage of security lights on the neighbor’s garage.

Halie is worried about the gas in her car, so Mr. Nelson and Richard send her down to get gas with Amber and her camera in the car, to film them on Sunset Boulevard and driving the car up, up, up into the fog.  Chris shoots Mark stumbling down the street and tumbling over trash cans.  Thankfully, the neighbors do not sic the LAPD on us. 

Gradually, actors are released to find their way down the hill in the dark, to Sunset and their paths homeward.  Meanwhile, the fog is rolling in thicker and faster by the minute, seriously messing with our view. 

There is still an important duet scene to film: in which a loyal brother visiting L.A. from Iowa, played by Mr. Schark, meets a woman with whom he makes a nice connection before getting hauled off by his sister.

This film is being ’scripted’ via actor improvisation, and this scene has not been rehearsed with the director.  While Mr. Nelson is off taking pictures of people in cars, the actors improvise with me watching and for a glorious few minutes or so I feel useful in a way that I’ve been missing for a long, long time. 

The director is improvising, as well, woe betide.  He decides he needs a short scene where Schark interacts with another party-goer, to help him make a transition from an angry mood to something more lighthearted.  Nelson explains this to me and says, "This means you.  Go over there and do a scene with Andrew."

"But Chris, I’m not in this movie."

"That’s just not true."

Richard grins at me, his camera on his shoulder like a pirate’s macaw.  Arrrr, me hearties, I have been shanghai’d.  Submitting, I remove my sweatshirt and  get in front of the camera.  No makeup, just five o’clock shadow and improvised lighting.  Yep, everything is improv around here.

Scene goes something like this, I can’t quite remember: Alg at the balcony, with a drink.  Andrew approaches. 

Alg: Are you enjoying this party?

Andrew: No, I am not.

Alg: Sorry to hear it. 

Andrew: You?

Alg: Well. Actually, I used to live here.  I had to sell the house about three years ago.  (drinks)  Gotta say, I hate what they did to the place.  Come on!  Would you hang that painting there?? 

Andrew: No, no I wouldn’t.  That brass pole is pretty ugly, too.

Alg: Yeah!  I hate that!  (sighs)  You need a beer?

Andrew: Yes I do.

Alg:  I’ll be back.

Thus ends my cameo.

We do a single take of THAT magic and move quickly to get two more scenes on tape before the fog completely covers the city lights, and before we are quite finished it is time to stop. 

Driving down the hill in the fog, suddenly I wonder: Where’s my contract?  What are my perks?  Any swag?  A personal assistant?  Where’s my trailer?  Where’s my coke?  This is ridiculous!  These people don’t appreciate me!  What kind of mickey-mouse enterprise is this?!  Get my agent on the phone!

Oh, right.  Don’t.  Have. One.

People’s reactions to bow ties are as individual and unique as the ties themselves. 

The proprietor of a hat store in Santa Monica commended me and asked for a demo, on the same day that someone else confessed to a “suspicion” of bow tie wearers.  Meeting a high school friend for coffee after being out of touch for 20 years, right after I finished work one day, I was told I looked like a lounge singer.  Men my grandfather’s age strike up lively conversations about the choice, younger men cringe.  Women tend to respond more affectionately to the choice but some snicker and ask me if I’m parking cars.  (To which I do not hesitate to respond, “Give me your keys.”) 

MSNBC talking head Tucker Carlson used to be known for wearing bow ties until he abruptly announced he was tired of them and, as he put it, “untied.”  Some time before he made the change, he had been quoted in an interview about bow ties commenting on how much hostility they attract.  He likened a bow tie to wearing an upraised middle finger.  Indeed, many of Tucker’s detractors found the bow tie an easy target for caricature and derision. 

To this, I rub my sleepy eyes in wonder.  Do people really care that much? 

All I want is a tie that looks nice and doesn’t fall into my soup.  Besides which, the conventional necktie looks to me like a thin bib that comes to a point, and for some reason it’s pointing straight at the cock.  I go into men’s lavatories and see guys peeing with their ties flipped over their shoulders and it just looks silly to me. 

It started as a bit of rebellion.  I went to a prep school with a dress code.  Bow ties were not expressly forbidden by the dress code, yet they seemed, somehow, impertinent.  That worked for me.  A Providence artist by the name of Madolin Maxey had been a teacher at my school, and she was married to an Englishman who grew up wearing these ties every day.  He showed me how to tie them.  (They aren’t difficult to tie: that’s a myth.)  A couple of times in my senior year, I sported a bow tie on campus and stirred up a teenage-sized kerfluffle. 

Somehow I developed a taste for them.  I don’t get comments on them every day, but among the comments I do get, more are positive than not.  Guys make faces at me, but every now and then something surprising happens – like the Goth chick in an airport terminal who broke into a huge smile and straightened my tie – and I get a hilarious dose of “don’t know mind.” 

This dog I saw this morning on Burton Way, this dog should teach acting.  This dog demonstrates how attention brings you to life.  He was watching another dog intently, who was all the way on the south side of Burton at a distance of two roads and a median between.  This dog was on alert yet he was calm, relaxed yet ready to move, watching intently.  Watching with his tendons, with his bone marrow. 

Full-body listening - this is how the actor should listen.  Scenes go wrong because actors worry too much about themselves.  Am I doing the right thing?  Do I look interesting?  Do I look like I’m feeling the right emotion?  An actor by the name of Ed Shea, who is also a great teacher, has been known for saying, "The scene is not about you.  If it’s about you, you’re dead.  When it’s about the other person, you’re alive."

Attention encompasses the tips of our toes all the way up through the crown of our head.  Sitting Zen is a practice that concentrates attention to such an extent that mind, breath, and body are perceived not as three related things, but one event. Breathing does itself and we become attention.  (I shy away from using words like concentration because it tempts people to make some extraneous effort, knitting the brows and constricting their muscles and trying to be strong.)  Although it is not an aggressive activity, it is very active and even athletic.  Try it for a while and you’ll see what I mean.

Sitting Zen helps but it is not special.  This beautiful dog never sits Zen; he is just alive.  Zen is a beautiful pointing finger but Zen is not the point.  Joju famously speculated as to whether a dog has Buddha nature.  A better question would be, who thinks the dog needs it?

The scene is not about you.  If it’s about you, you’re dead. 

In the union of mind, body, and breath, it feels as though all ones strength is gathered and consolidated, and there is that lift of freedom.  And to lose it, all we have to do is attach to a thought.  In a second, the truth is converted into suffering.

The punch line is there is nothing to which we can attach, so the desire to attach to things becomes a dark comedy.   We think we can attach to things and thus we fall into chasing shadows and wondering when the happiness begins…

…even as we abandon ourselves.

Just seeing this dog was like another alarm clock this morning - the real alarm clock.  Catching his energy, I lit up.  It spreads like that.   The world explodes with true love, and on the walk between a car and the office, one flower is enough to draw tears of joy.

Here is something beautiful written by someone I don’t know on a similar subject.

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As you may know, I recently began writing for a new online magathing called The Blue Doodle.  My column, "Letters To The Moon," appears under "Regular Writers."  Each week, it brings you a different letter addressed to the man in the moon.  The first piece (currently on the page) was inspired by the music of the great Charles Mingus.  The second installment, which should appear sometime this Saturday, has a little more of a story behind it.  A tale of family life, insomnia, and teeth.  Enjoy. 

"Mr. D’Ammassa, we are casting for the role of a socially-retarded homicidal pervert, and naturally we thought of you."

Thus arrives my first audition in a year, and the first time I will have read for a lead role in a film.  How does one prepare oneself for such a role?  Herman is your garden-variety homicidal maniac character.  He kidnaps the female lead, keeps her in a box, and does vile things to her in his quest to be loved and understood.  It ends unpleasantly for him. 

My mother wouldn’t watch the movie.  She told me years ago she was sick to death of seeing me get beaten up or killed in plays.  When I was a child actor, even then there were directors working out their frustrations on me as when I appeared in Roberto Athayde’s Miss Margarida’s Way.  (Miss Margarida beat me up; then the local critics tore her apart, and they gave the director a few blows while they were at it.  The show soon closed.)

My poor mother has watched me get murdered in swordfights (King Lear and Richard III), beaten up and stabbed to death on Cyprus (as Roderigo in Othello), electrocuted (in an avant-garde comedy called December 3^rd: Worms), killed and resurrected as a zombie on a battlefield (Bury The Dead), and more in that vain. 

"Can’t you land a nice romantic comedy where you end up with the nice beautiful girl?" she says.  "No, it’s your nose.  You have that lethal blade of a nose.  You get the villains."  And by a large measure, she is right. 

From time to time I have gotten feedback from casting professionals.  The first was when I auditioned for an industrial at the age of sixteen, and I was told: "You are the best actor we’ve seen all week.  But we need boy-next-door types and you, well, you don’t look like you live next door to anybody." 

Another casting director told me years later: "You’re the guy who does the talking while your henchmen do the roughing-up."

And another: "I’m scanning you as a young Al Pacino."

Or, perhaps, a serial killer.  Sometime after Saturday, we’ll see. My father, a professional horror writer, would be proud.  In a strange way.  I think. 

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One of my favorite bloggers, the Rocketman, has paid me an enormous compliment.  As he is going on vacation for a few days, he has asked me to be a guest blogger on his space.  One day next week his blog will feature an exclusive piece I have written and dedicated to him.  The invitation is a great honor.  His own blog is a delight and I hope you will enjoy it. 

On Saturday, there will be another letter to the man in the moon at The Blue Doodle, and I hope you will check that out. 

The film shoot continues to move along.  The other day, I was ordered to stay away from the set and to spend my evening scripting a scene for the  film, which will be a 30-second spoof commercial for environmentally-friendly tampons.  After five years being the only person in L.A. not working on a screenplay, somebody ordered me to do one!

Then it’s back to the radio play I’ve been working on for a competition at the insistence of an old  conservatory mate who started an audio theatre company. 

And at some point, there is still this musical theatre piece banging around, based on the life and amazing story of Cagliostro, on which I hope to collaborate with adear friend from long ago. 

And when I have to explode with obscene and socially reprehensible madness, there is a demented fantasy I have been sharing with Mr. Nelson, a feverish scherzo of singing dung beetles, Greek gods, and Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi.  In Hollywood-talk, think of it as "Aristophanes meets French surrealism." 

A lot of projects, this may sound like, yet what is the grand scheme?  Nothing less than driving the English-speaking world to distraction.

People, like cats, sometimes need to be confused. 

As instructed, I took a number.  I held the green slip of paper prominently, to indicate I was waiting for service.  For my lunch, to get right to it.  I was very hungry.  I gazed through the glass at the deli counter admiring soups, casseroles, hams, sliced roast beef, breasts of chicken looking moist and fat, hummus, salads.  Even the lettuce trimming looked good. 

As I waited and waited, a boy in a cap approached me.  His gait was awkward, weighed down as he was on one side by a canvas bag full of papers. 

"Paper, mistah?"

"No thanks, lad."

"No, I’m not Lad.  He’s off this week.  I’m Boy."

"Uh, sorry.  Boy."

"We got a special on week-long subs.  We’ll bring you the paper for one week, right here, including the Sunday edition, for three dollars.  How about it?"

"No way.  The news has stunk lately.  Why would I pay for it?"

"Hadn’t thought about it that way," said Boy.  "Anyway, see ya later."  And off he went. 

The deli counter at Ralphs is a place where time moves at its own pace.  My body, however, had not adjusted accordingly, and as my hunger worsened and the clock hands spun ’round and ’round, I began to feel dizzy. 

A mailman arrived.  "Thornton?"  he barked, and another man at the deli counter raised his hand.  The postman nodded a greeting and handed Mr. Thornton a packet of letters and magazines.  "Here’s your mail." 

That’s when the picture began to get fuzzy around the edges.  I felt a cool hand clasp my shoulder just as my knees were beginning to give, and its kindness gave me a little boost. 

"You don’t have to stand there all week.  Come on over here and have some lemonade."  The voice, male, had the feel of mother’s home-made macaroni and cheese.  How could I resist?  I allowed myself to be led over one aisle to a tent village. 

By a large green tent that had been assembled near the shaving products, I was helped into a lawn chair and handed a glass of lemonade.  "This is ‘Santa Cruz’ organic lemonade," said my host through a kindly moustache.  "It’s on sale this week if you like it.  Aisle three."

I gazed around and found that I was sitting in a camp.  About a dozen tents were arranged, with people reclining inside or on lawn chairs, empty rice buckets, and the like.  Children played with balls found on aisle seven.  Magazines and paperback novels were passed around. Families browsed a display of back-to-school items.  Somewhere, somebody was playing harmonica.

"You came here for lunch, didn’t you?"

I nodded, suddenly feeling like I might cry.

"You aren’t alone, friend.  We all came here looking for lunch.  And we are still waiting for it."  My new and only friend in the world showed me his crinkly green tooth-shaped slip of paper with a number on it, a number far lower than mine.  "There’s room for everyone here.  Welcome to the community." 

Other voices chimed in.  "Welcome, friend," they said.

After several fruitless attempts to update this blog, with the craven Friendster blog editor automatically inserting hard returns in nonsensical places, erasing my punctuation, and making general mayhem, and refusing to accept my corrections, I have decided to give up on the worthless thing and simply post a link to another blog where I was able to post it:

Click here and enjoy.

The day is coming when we will show up at the airport wearing bra tops and G-strings, purchasing new clothing at the gate or at our destinations. 

The terrorists will respond by developing subdermal explosive devices that go under the skin, or eating explosives timed to go off when they come in contact with digestive acids.  The FAA will be obligated to respond to this by requiring that we doff our skins and check them with our baggage.   

We will then be a bunch of skeletons sitting on the airplane. 

You know what this means.  You know perfectly well the airlines will screw it all up and start misplacing our skins, matching them with the wrong people, and similar mayhem. 

"My vacation was ruined.  I am a tall black man and Continental gave me the skin of a short balding Armenian man.  What was I supposed to do?  I had a business meeting to go to!" 

This problem would compromise the integrity of our photo I.D.s:

"I could not even claim my proper skin when they found it, because I didn’t look like the picture on my passport anymore.  For heaven’s sake, they gave me the skin of a woman!  But you know, I’m sort of taking to it…"

And here is another disappointed traveler: "They unloaded everything from the plane, and my skin wasn’t anywhere.  I told  them, ‘I can’t go to my brother’s wedding like this!’ but they said all they could do was check other flights for it.  I was afraid to go out and get a taxi looking like that, and the airport security guy said, ‘Hey, show some back bone.’  I didn’t find that funny at all."

We are at Mr. Nelson’s house filming Scene 4 of Hollywood Heights.  The crew doesn’t know me and assumes I am some pervy onlooker as I set down my things.  Having no job description, my responsibility is to pay attention, stay out of the way, and be useful.  There are two cameras, shotgun mikes and lavaliers, five actors, and dwindling daylight.   

Since I know what the actors are concerned about, I get to watch and learn what the photographers are concerned about.  I watch the sound man experiment with burying mikes in bushes, taping mikes on people’s bodies, in exterior locations with cars honking, dogs barking, and people taking their rubbish bins down the concrete steps of their houses (bang, bangbang, bang, bangbangbangbangbang).  I watch the photographer count the repeat takes anxiously as the sunlight disappears, examining shadows, the play of bodies and negative space in his frame. 

Everyone sustains themselves on bottled water and red licorice candy. 

Scene 5 takes us to Myra Avenue, where they set up a Steadicam shot following the characters as they turn a corner and walk through a Silverlake neighborhood.  Richard straps on the apparatus that keeps the camera steady as he walks backwards in front of the actors.  Mr. Nelson and I keep him from walking into cars and tripping over garden walls.

During one take, a neighborhood dog runs through the group of actors and says hello.  Bloody Los Angeles!  Everybody is trying to get discovered! 

We spend most of the night in a parking lot in Echo Park, capturing footage of our intrepid band paying a visit to the Hi Ho liquor store, which shares a parking lot with a bicycle repair shop and a McDonalds.  We also shoot a scene in which a woman is ejected from an automobile (Plot Complication!  Screeching tires!  Broken hearts!  Intrigue!) and joins our cast of characters.

In this scene, my hat makes it into the picture: the unseen boyfriend who dumps the lady from his sleek grey Toyota Spyder has my hat pulled low over his face.  This is to cover up the fact that the driver is Mark Antani, who plays one of the other characters in the scene.  ("How can you be in two places at once when you’re not anywhere at all?") 

Mr. Schark, in his capacity as producer, sends me to the supermarket across the street to purchase a six-pack of beer in a brown paper bag, for use as a prop (and, presumably, to drink when the day’s shooting is done). 

Scurry, scurry, scurry, I enter the market and select a six-pack of Heineken, reasoning, "Low budget shouldn’t mean having to drink Miller."  I approach the cashier, a friendly-looking African-American woman perhaps a little bit shy of 40 years.  She asks me how I’m doing and I tell her I’m doing just fine.  Then, a plot complication.

"You know what, can I see your I.D.?"

Zounds!  My wallet is locked in Mr. Nelson’s car.  What am I gonna do? 

I bat my eyes.  "Oh, you.  Go on, now.  How old do you think I am?"

She laughs.  "I don’t know, now, I’m guessing over thirty."

"Thirty!?  Thirty?!?  Look at my baby-smooth skin!"

"Oh ho!  Look at that grey hair you got!"

"This is not grey hair!  That’s a trick of the light!  I am a babe of twenty-one." 

"Mmmm-hmmm.  You’re a babe of thirty-four."

"Thirty-f–??  I can’t believe this!  Here, check my I.D.!" 

"I checked your temples, darlin’.  You want paper or plastic?"

In the course of the evening, I guard equipment, I shepherd onlookers (including a very gregarious homeless man whom I lure away using red licorice candy), learn a lot, and try to be of service.

Approaching a vehicle where two women are taking refuge from onlookers, I ask if anyone needs anything.  I am met with languorous yet disdainful stares and am sent drooping back to the parking lot where I make the acquaintance of a frizzy, purple street cat with brilliant yellow eyes and the most expressive ears.  He takes everything in, sitting behind one of the camera people and chatting at her.  He watches the actors for several takes (yet we cannot tell what he thinks of the performances).  Yes, the cat seems very experienced at this, like he has seen film shoots before.

And likely, he has.  This is L.A.  Even the two men camping out to pass the night on the stoop of Hi Ho’s take the film shoot in stride - it’s part of the territory, and as we do our job, they do theirs.

What do you see when you look at the moon? 

Today I have been applying spit polish to a strange little piece that will launch my new weekly column for The Blue Doodle.  They were nice enough to invite me to write for them, and after scratching my head and pacing around a little bit, I thought it might be fun to write a column called Letters To The Man In The Moon or maybe just Letters To The Moon. 

So we’re giving it a go.  Like my bloglodyte weirdness, it is likely to be a mix of humor, fantasy, prose poetry, occasional straight talk and preposterous flummery you’ve gotten used to on this page.  You may get the feeling that every week a different character is writing their letter to the moon; or it might be the same character week after week; it might be the moon talking to itself out of boredom.  Or it might all be you. 

Whatever you make of it, I hope you have fun.  The column should appear this Saturday, and be updated every Saturday after that.