"Producer"

When I first moved to L.A. last year I could imagine a lot of possibilities. I'm not star struck very easily and I really don't care about "the scene". I came here to work. But, I never imagined that my first time going to the famous and heavily trafficked Ivy restaurant it would be in a cheap caveman costume on a busy Saturday afternoon. Good thing I was wearing that wig.

I was recently asked to help with some promotional videos by a friend of mine who directed a caveman movie that was recently picked up for distribution. In return for some organizational work on a two day shoot, I would get the equivalent of lunch money, and even more important: credit as a "producer" for an actual film studio (albeit not for a feature).

There were a handful of segments that we needed from several locations. The director/star of the movie was to do man-on-the-street interviews in full caveman costume with movie-goers outside of several theaters . We also had to shoot a segment inside of a theater with absurd jokes concerning audiences watching the movie, plus, one of the actors from the film would be jaunting around various Los Angeles locations in costume.

The actor playing the caveman was late on the first day and I had to don the costume to join the director for the man-on-the-street stuff. Though the temperature reached about 98 degrees -- not easy to bear in animal fur and wig -- it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the reactions of the people we ambushed. Many of them were great - very game, funny and clever.

The second day inside the theater was even more fun. We had several extras participating - also very game and clever - and I had to don several costumes for many of the gags. I especially enjoyed playing the luchador, but damn, I couldn't see a thing in the mask when I got to flailing around. I don't know how they do it.

After lunch we planned the rest of the day. We had hoped to get our caveman actor out in public places - the LaBrea Tarpits (haha), the beach, Santa Monica pier, a bar, etc. - "clubbing" a bunch of women, reflecting an ongoing gag from the film. No, I don't mean the "dance-til-I-puke" variety of clubbing, but the caveman courtship activity of hitting women over the head. Yep...We had one problem though: none of our extras stuck around. We had no women to club and we weren't going to go after unwitting civilians. The solution? Riffing off another gag in the film - a play on the term "homo erectus" - we would chronicle the meeting and subsequent love of two cavemen. Which meant I got to put on the costume again.

During most of the rest of the day me and my fellow Neanderthal walked hand-in-hand around West Hollywood, a renowned gay neighborhood, carrying clubs and spears, window shopping, sightseeing, arguing, going to art galleries, crashing kitchen design showrooms, and - as I mentioned - trying to get a table at the Ivy. Which was incredibly crowded.

This was guerilla filmmaking too. No permits were solicited. Needless to say, I and my fellow faux caveman were bounced from almost every location. No one was pissed about it. Most people laughed. Some were game to play along. As my partner and I browsed inside of a high-end modern furniture store, discussing the merits of post-modernism, one of the salespeople generously asked if we wanted to look at more samples. "We have that sofa in purple upstairs," she said pleasantly, "would you like to see it?"

A lot of people thought we were shooting a Geico promo. A gorgeous couple from France enthusiastically asked to take our picture and we immediately got them involved, getting footage of them snapping pics. The manager of an art gallery invited us inside to shoot us looking at art, which got us out of the heat for a bit and gave us another good gag.

At the end of the day I found myself outside of Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood with the director shooting some lead-ins for the movie theater gags. We fit in pretty well with all the costumed goofs who entertain the tourists (my god, it was crowded). People got excited however when they learned we weren't there just to pretend to be Jack Sparrow, but that we were promoting an actual movie with actual stars.

All in all, I had a blast, despite the brutal heat. I wish I was more brave though. I have to admit that I couldn't quite get myself to recline on the fur-blanketed bed in the window of that showroom, and I got cold feet for a minute before we went to the Ivy. But the director and D.P. said we got what we needed and it was fine. The director also said very nicely "It's okay. You just became a chicken-shit for a minute." He then told me how, for one of his movies, he and an actor actually sneaked into the Academy Awards. He got all the way backstage carrying an Oscar and wearing a top hat and a t-shirt with a tuxedo printed on it.

The Oscar thing took a lot of balls. And all I had to do was ask for a table...chicken-shit. No wait: that's Producer Chicken-Shit.

Are You Ready for Some F-f-f-football...?Super Bowl XVI, Part Two

"After 15 games in warm weather climates, Super Bowl XVI was played in the Pontiac, Michigan. Pontiac Silverdome, 25 miles from Detroit. While surrounding areas shivered in below zero chill factors, 81,270 fans enjoyed 72 degree comfort in the huge, 5-year-old stadium." - www.superbowl-history.com/1982.php

Yeah, "comfort"...

A steamy haze of sweat and cigarette smoke quickly filled the dome. It was as if the entire crowd was thawing out. After our long wait in the frigid cold we all began to sweat immediately in the warm air inside with our many layers on, peeling them off slowly as we became warmer, but I can't say I was ever comfortable. Also, the shot of warm air made we want to fall asleep. But, hell, I was at the Super Bowl.

There was a special connection to the Super Bowl for my father. Super Bowl I was played on my first birthday, January 15, 1967, with the Green Bay Packers playing. I was born in Green Bay. My father was a journalist there and had known several of the players, even reputedly having had some over to the house for barbecues and such, so it was exciting for him that the Packers were to play in the Very First Super Bowl. (Football championships had been played for decades of course, but not until the National Football League merged with its rival American Football League did these games become Super.) To this day, my father tries to go to every Packers vs. Bears game whether played in Green Bay or Chicago. It was a big deal for him to be able to take his sons to a Super Bowl, and my brothers and I are still grateful that we went.

We were spectators, however, not fans. None of us had any emotional stake in either of the teams playing - the San Francisco 49ers nor the Cincinnati Bengals - but it was just so cool to be there. My oldest brother had chosen to root for the 49ers because he had followed the exciting rise of a young Joe Montana. Knowing nothing of either team, I brushed off the San Francisco team with ignorant male adolescent and mid-western bigotry by determining that they were from California and therefore freaks, and furthermore they were from San Francisco and must be gay. I chose the Bengals largely because of the aesthetics of their uniforms. The irony of my decision-making completely escaped me at the time.

I joined in the newly minted chant "Who Dey?! Who Dey?! Who Dey tink gonna beat dem Bengals?!!" and marveled at the players' super-cool helmets, which boldly sported not a logo but tiger stripes! Hell yeah! And not gay at all...

One of the most grueling aspects of the entire event was half-time. The entertainment was by Up With People. Remember them? You MUST, they also played for Super Bowls X, XIV and XX. Now, I know the organization has done a lot of good things, and I've even known a few people who have been in their touring shows, but really...Up with People? They danced around with hyper positivism in stripey jumpsuits to clappy, kicky choreography. The music was insipid, uninspiring, and downright annoying, like twenty year olds singing stuff from Sesame Street with unwaivering seriousness. The fans in the stadium looked around, puzzled, and many booed. And it went on ENDLESSLY. This was not entertainment for the football fans. It was entertainment for the football broadcast, live muzak carefully chosen for it's complete lack of controversy, long before the days of wardrobe malfunctions and Prince. Entertainment that allowed a viewer out there in televisionland to get up, take a piss and get more beer. We, however, were locked inside the dome with them. Ugh.

The Bengals lost 26-21 despite passing San Francisco in total scrimmage yards, 356 to 275. Joe Montana was named the MVP with 14 of 22 completed passes for 157 yards. I was disappointed by the loss but I don't know if I cared that much. "Who Dey?" got old really fast. It was time to go home. The whole thing had been supremely anti-climactic. I was exhausted.

We had planned to drive back home immediately after the game. It would be another brutal, cramped trip, but the whole thing was almost over. I couldn't wait. When we left the Silverdome it was dark and even more frigid than at the beginning of the day. Everything was covered with that dirty frost that shows up only in the coldest weather when every drop of moisture is squeezed out of the air. We looked out on a sea of gray, frost-covered cars and trudged hurriedly to ours. When we got in it was like sitting in a freezer. The little Accord started right up however and my father gave himself a pat on the back for deciding to take it instead of the Cougar. As we sat there waiting for the engine and the interior to warm up, we noticed several stranded drivers around us, their cars frozen and not starting. Suckers, we thought. Ours had fired up...

The car in front of us was one of the frozen ones and needed a jump. Sure, why not. My dad was ready to oblige quickly and then hit the road. We couldn't get the other car started however because the Honda didn't have enough power. My father went to help the other driver find someone else able to jump his big car. But as my dad looked around he saw row after row of stranded cars. Grabbing my oldest brother, he set out out to help whomever he could. It was another hour before we left the parking lot.

The snow started right away. This was the big winter storm that my father had been expecting. The winds were furious and the snow blinding. It piled up into massive drifts before our eyes. We crawled slowly westward toward Chicago with almost no visibility, our front-wheel drive pulling us through the tracks of whatever car was ahead of us. Through the blowing, falling snow we saw the shadows of dozen of cars and trucks off the side of the highway, either having pulled over intentionally or slid off, out of control. Certain stretches of the interstate looked like a parking lot. Still, we chugged along.

It was an eight hour, white-knuckle ride. My cramped legs were secondary to my worry. We all studied the road ahead and around us with great intensity, and my father reminded us of what a good decision he had made in taking the Accord and not the Cougar. "Look at all those big cars sliding around the road" he'd say. We all gratefully conceded.

There was nothing easy about that trip. And though there were a lot of great things about that game, it was not very satisfying to me because I had no connection to the teams playing. But I appreciated how important this was to my father and that he had gone through so much just to give us that experience, and how great it was that I had actually been to a Super Bowl. It was cool to show the program to my friends and brag about how I had been there, where they had only been in the record-breaking 85 million or so that had watched it on TV. Pfft...yeah...And, later, that little Accord that pulled us through the snowstorm would even become a pivotal prop in one of the most life-changing events I've ever experienced.

I don't care about sports at all anymore. I don't know why. They just don't interest me, even though I've played a lot: football, baseball, track, gymnastics. But, yep, my dad was right. I'm still talking about that frigid, exhausting, but cool Super Bowl XVI experience.

PS- Just a few hours before I wrote this the Green Bay Packers lost the NFC Championship game to the New York Giants at their home field, Lambeau. The temperature at kick-off was minus 1 and the wind-chill dipped to 24 below. My father, having high hopes for another Packers Super Bowl, is very disappointed. A friend back home in Chicago just sent me a text message out of the blue: "It's 4 degrees".

Brrrr...I live in Southern California now...

Are You Ready for Some F-F-F-Football...?Super Bowl XVI, Part One

January 24, nineteen-hundred and eighty-two. A bitter, blood-freezing wind blows across the Michigan plains, as two titans of the gridiron square off in the ultimate battle: Superbowl XVI. Or something like that...

At the time my father worked 6 or 7 days a week. So when he planned vacations or special events, he liked to plan them well. Real quality time. This usually meant long drives somewhere - Disneyland, Arkansas... One thing he wanted to do, before his boys grew too old and moved away, was take my brothers and I to a Super Bowl. We had gone on men-only vacations before, including an adventurous fishing trip, but this would be the biggie. Something to remember. Something to talk about years from now. Neither of "our" teams, the Chicago (where we lived) Bears nor the Green Bay (where I was born) Packers were in the championship that year, but my father wanted to treat us to what was possibly a once-in-a-lifetime event.

I was excited. I watched football...some. I played football...some (I was very fast, playing both offensive running back and defensive back; but my heart was never in it). I may not ever get (want) the chance again, so it was pretty cool.

We had decided to drive. It was only a 4 to 5 hour drive to Detroit from Chicago. My oldest brother had a comfy, roomy Lincoln Cougar that he had proudly restored and was offering for the trip . With me being the smallest guy in the family at the time, at 6 feet and 190 athletic pounds (uh-huh, oh yeah) comfort was a pretty important component to a long drive.

The day came to for us to leave, it was a partly sunny, crisp winter day. My brothers and I gathered outside with our luggage, and my father pulled up in the car: his 1981 Honda Accord hatchback.

Where was the Cougar? Not taking the Cougar, my dad explained. There was a big winter storm coming, and he wanted a car with front wheel drive.

What? Front what? Storm? Hatchback? What the...? Where is the...? Where am I gonna...? I was panicking. The hierarchical dictates of a family full of men stated that I, the youngest, got the shittiest seat in the car. Which was behind my dad. Who weighed 250 pounds. And had to fit in the drivers seat of a HONDA ACCORD HATCHBACK. The hierarchical dictates - and the fact that I was only 15 and didn't drive legally yet - also stated that I had no say in the matter.

We hit the road. Crammed behind the driver's seat, pushed all the way back, my legs were on fire from the start. I was extremely active at the time, with football and track. My large sprinter's legs could not be confined or immobile for long periods of time without serious cramping or pain. This was going to be a loooong trip.

I felt like a clown in a car. We were four large men, layered against the cold and crammed together. Our heads all brushed the roof. Mine, as I sat in the back seat, also bounced against the top of the sloping hatch, just behind me.

We must not have looked that imposing when my father chugged the Accord into Michigan, as we were set upon by some shithead in a tricked-out Charger with tinted windows. Threatening us with dangerous braking at high speed or side-swiping, and riding our rear bumper, the driver must have thought us an easy mark in our little four-cylinder with Illinois plates. This went on for some time. The car would disappear for awhile, ahead of or behind us, only to reappear and threaten us again. My father kept a level head, despite my brother's insistence we pull over and teach them a lesson. No, no, we had a schedule to keep, said my dad. But it went on too long and my father's patience was chipped away. Frustrated, anxious and angry, he gave in, and pulled the Honda over to the shoulder in a cloud of dust. The Charger pulled up right behind, ready for a fight, revving his engine. The four of us piled out of the car, out teeth gnashing, our fists clenched, and we began marching toward the Charger. Apparently underestimating the size of the occupants in that little Honda with Illinois plates, the driver of the Charger immediately floored it. Kicking up gravel, he sped back onto the interstate and disappeared far ahead, not to be seen again.

At least I got to stretch my legs.

Detroit. Finally. My father was anxious to get to there. He was picking up the tickets for the game from a friend of his and didn't want to be an inconvenience and make him wait. I don't remember it quite the way my brothers do, but I believe we waited for some time outside of a hotel or office building as my dad retrieved the tickets. I was so cramped up that I thought I would go crazy, and no one else thought it was any consequence if I said anything. I was the kid, so I should just suck it up. Them's the breaks.

Tickets in hand, we hit the road again toward Windsor. We were staying across the river in Canada because all the hotels in the Detroit area were filled up. It was getting dark. We hadn't eaten yet because my dad wanted to meet his friend on time, so he only then, many hours into the trip, decided to stop at a diner outside of Detroit. Again, I got to stretch my legs. This time, inside the restaurant, I pleaded for my brothers and father to switch up the seating arrangement just for the brief remainder of the trip. To my surprise they agreed, with a catch. I sat in the front passenger seat, but - unlike when I was in back - I had to push the seat all the way up, jamming my legs against the dash. I was practically leaning forward. Another battle lost by the youngest boy.

We finally reached the motel, tired, cramped and cold. The temperature had been dropping steeply all day. It would be nice to settle into a warm bed and rest well for the next day's excitement. I had to share a room - and in fact, a bed - with my dad. It was a large bed, but this is something no one past the age of two would ever want to do. Oh, well. This was a once-in-a-lifetime event. I guess I had to pay my dues a bit more. Sleep came uneasily, but eventually it did come. The weirdness of actually being in bed with my dad subsided enough to let me nod off.

Until the Hartford Whalers came into town. The Whalers - a hockey team, for those of you don't know - had played against the Detroit Red Wings that night, and, I'm told they won so they were especially exuberant that night. They also could not find a hotel to accommodate them in Detroit with all the Super Bowl ferver, so they chose the very same motel we were at there in Windsor, Ontario. And they were loud. One of my brothers doesn't remember them being too distracting, but my father and I do. Perhaps it was my already strained nerves, but at about 3am it sounded like they were tearing the place apart. So much for a good sleep.

I don't remember waking up, or eating breakfast or the drive to the Silverdome in Pontiac. But I do remember discovering that the temperature had plummeted overnight to sub-zero levels, and I remember what it was like as we approached the stadium. We were in the middle of nowhere it seemed, far from the bustling cityscapes of Detroit and Windsor. The stadium loomed up out of the plains like a strange rock formation, surrounded by vast fields of empty concrete that were its parking lots. It felt like we parked a mile away in some remote lot, and had to take a long overhead walkway to the dome. Overhead of what, I can't recall. More concrete, it seemed. Nothing, it seemed. The wind was ferocious and my eyes burned. Tears froze on my eyelashes and cheeks. I tried to cover every tiny spot of bare skin but it didn't seemed to work. We trudged on quickly. We would be in the dome soon, warm and excited.

We walked all around outside the stadium's perimeter until we finally found our gate entrance, and...we waited. The doors were not open yet. People crowded around us. Game time approached. And we waited some more. The temperature was deathly cold, and everyone - football fans, strangers - huddled together against the side of the building for warmth. Some people were so cold they cried, but choked back their tears so their cheeks wouldn't freeze. Closer and closer to game time and still no open doors. Ambulances arrived to treat some unfortunate fans overcome by the cold. People banged on the doors. Nothing seemed to be happening. The ultimate football championship was becoming a nightmare.

The doors finally opened, as I remember, very close to game time. There were some logistical problems - who knows what - that prevented them from opening up, but now we were all inside and thawing out. The air inside the dome quickly became a steamy, sweaty fog. All of our winter layers hung limply off our bodies. But we were finally there.

The Fires

I woke up very early on that Sunday morning and turned on the television to watch the news prior to leaving for work. 6:30am: there was a report of a "small fire" that had started near Pepperdine University sometime in the early hours. Firefighters had it under control. Welcome to Southern California, I thought, shrugged, and left for the day.

Sometime mid-afternoon, a friend in San Diego sent me a text message. There was a fire near her community and smoke was in the air, but nothing to worry about. She was waiting in a bookstore cafe for her youngest daughter as she spent a couple of hours with her aunt. Haha, we said to each other, wasn't that a coincidence. My friend had just recently told me about experiencing the last big fire and even drove me past the scene. Less than an hour later, she messaged again saying that they were closing the bookstore. Smoke was rapidly filling the building and everyone had to leave. Another hour and her oldest daughter was evacuated with her husband and kids from their home farther north near Escondido. The fire lines had cut them off from each other and my friend worried. My poor daughter, she said. I wish she could be with me. The next morning another message came from her: I have to start packing...

That next day, Monday, seven counties in Southern California were on fire, spread over a massive area with astounding rapidity. The news coverage was constant here, and on some channels you could watch - via the television news helicopters - the fire spreading faster than a man could run. (One reporter watched his home of 25 years burn while on the air.) One report played often on the news, local and national, about a fire truck that was engulfed with flames. Four firefighters were injured. Another call from my friend revealed that one of them, a volunteer, was a very close friend of her daughter. She had been hurt badly, the doctors inducing coma until they could treat some of the burns. Everyone was sick about it.

Where I'm staying, Hancock Park, there was only a slight smell of smoke. As I left for the day it reminded me of autumn fires back home, leaves and fireplaces. Driving north toward Burbank I began to see the smoke in the distance. The sky northwest of the Valley was covered in a gray-brown haze. To the West, an enormous column of smoke snaked out of the hills near the ocean, filling the sky over the water and making the setting sun an incredible red disc inside of a brown smear of soot for many days after.

All around us there were fires. San Bernardino, Malibu, Ventura, Rice Canyon, Santiago...In San Diego, the fires came within 2 miles of my friend's home, stopped only by highway 15. The line on the map was striking. It gave me chills to see it so close to her neighborhood, which was also the neighborhood of the first college I attended. Throughout the week, the smoke settled heavily on the Valley. At the Burbank Airport, near the theater where I was working, the planes were still taking off. I'd watch them eerily break through the brown clouds like something out of a sci-fi movie, all sepia-toned cinematography. It was a week of headaches and lethargy and low visibilty. And smoke EVERYWHERE. Early during the week the authorities announced that an historic number of people - 250,000 - had been evacuated. By the end of the week it was close to a million.

My friend didn't have to evacuate. Her home was spared, her daughter's home was spared, her sister's brand new business, a half-million dollar investment not even completely opened and only one mile from my friend's house, was spared, though thieves broke in and stole several pieces of new equipment while the businesses were closed. One of the best pieces of news was that the injured firefighter was much better than reported. Though she was indeed burned, it wasn't as bad as the media made it. She's recovering well. You all know the rest, I'm sure. The firefighters worked themselves to the bone while FEMA held fake news conferences. Governor Schwarzenegger petted dogs and said he wanted to "pump up" those who lost their homes. President Bush swooped in for one of his worthless photo ops. Fingers were pointed on all sides. Too many lost everything.

It's hard to relate what all this looked like. I only experienced the fallout and saw the smoke from a distance. I wasn't near the fires, so I didn't have first hand experience with the center of this overwhelming event. But it was my first experience as a new resident of L.A. with the vitriol this town gets. Too many people on the outside of this disaster shrugged it as another problem of the overpriveleged. So what that Malibu burned. So what if all that high-priced real estate was leveled. And, of course, there are those who believe Southern California deserves such things for being a haven of sin. Say what you will about over-development of southwestern desert areas, or of depletion of the water-table, or poor forestry practices, or natural burn cycles conflicting with human populations. I understand all that and more. Enough of my midwestern, outsider smugness comes out time and time again. But I'm certain there weren't 950,000 celebrities evacuated from their homes. And I'm certain no one deserved any of the fear and devastation.

Whaddaya think?

Woman: "I have a tattoo of a rose on my hip. I got it because my maiden name is Rose."

My Mother: "My maiden name is Johnson, what should I get?"