It's quite simple. Went to Scotland in March, walked where my ancestors walked, lived, died. Took great pictures. Got measured for a kilt. Returned home.

But it's not that simple, for now I feel like a foreigner in my own country, my own state. This feeling began as I flew into Burbank. It was a beautiful, sunny, coolish spring day and I should have felt glad to be home. But instead I wanted to go home, I wanted to go back to Scotland.

I watch how people go ga-ga and wriggle with delight over impending trips to Vegas. They are bewildered by my mild enthusiasm in their ventures. But when you've been to a place that really matters, a place layered with history and family and centuries, Vegas becomes Legoland.

I'm not casting aspersions on the glee they get from gambling and drinking, because flying to the UK is a gamble and all one does in Scotland is drink, but I think you see my meaning.

Since we were little boys, my older brother and I had said aloud, "Wouldn't it be wonderful to some day have Castle Menzies all to ourselves??" And here we are in our early forties and that's just what we got. The castle is a museum now and didn't open until April 1st, but the castle warden, Mr. John Jack, let us have it for a day. No other tourists. No other traffic. Just us, just ours. We were like kids in a candy shop... until I clocked my head against the immovable stone lintel of a lower level doorway.

In the momentary white flash caused by my large noggin smacking against a five hundred year old lintel, I saw everything that I'd clung to over the past several years go rattling out of my head. All the baggage, the anger and disappointment, in myself and in others, was knocked off my shoulders. I'm sure it began before that and continued to die out long after, but it peaked then. Sniveling twits I'd let get to me, things I'd wished I'd changed or altered, none of it seemed to matter after I left the castle and then Scotland. Finally, I had perspective, and it took centuries to do it.

Rather than this trip having been a once in a lifetime event, it is a new beginning, an opening into regular trips to visit family and home country, possibly to even live there one day. The warmer the world gets and the thicker and dumber the traffic here gets, I really wouldn't mind being warden of Castle Menzies myself, to walk through it's quiet stone halls in the evenings, or build roaring fires in the kitchen hearth, to clean and care for it. Something in my ancestral memory calls me. And I may just go.

By the way, the kilt looks great.

...I shall not live in vain

If I can ease one Life the Aching

Or cool one Pain

Or help one Robin

Unto his Nest again

I shall not live in vain

 

I suddenly remembered something today; long ago, in a galaxy far, far away called the Beverly Center Cineplex, I was an usher. I made $4.25 an hour. I was broke, the only money I had went to gas and maintenance for my car, or to rent the Gower Street dump I dwelt in, or to slowly pay off the short film I'd made at Los Angeles City College's Cinema Department. I was feeling very, very low those days.

An elderly lady used to come in to grab a matinee with her slightly younger caretaker. The lady's name was Kate, that's all I knew about her, and she was very feeble, maybe in her eighties; but her smile was bright and seemed to levitate her failing, fragile body. I saw her all the time, we all did, and I said "Hi" and had my usual little chat with her as I tore her ticket and her caretaker helped her to her show.

One day, I stood there feeling absolutely low, utterly lost, no money, no hope of ever being a writer, or paying off my short film, feeling sorry for myself and thinking only of a way to survive; in short, I was despairing. I must have slipped into that daze, that protective daze that happens during such times, which makes you look at your life as though through a view finder, as if watching someone else live it, wondering how they will get out of it and if a light will finally illuminate a path towards all of their dreams. I just wanted to go home and sleep, if sleep was possible in the hole I lived in, and wake up to some good news.

Kate was being helped up the steps towards my ticket box. I wasn't even looking at her and she never really knew my name, but she touched my arm and said, "What are you going to be when you get out of here?"

I was so startled I said, "I'm sorry -?" "What are you going to be, going to do when you leave this theatre?" she repeated.

"I.. I... want to write and direct films," came my pedestrian reply.

She smiled, patted my arm and said, "I knew it! You're going to do great things!" I looked at her, took a moment to absorb her words, and said, "Thank you." She smiled and tapped her temple and said, "No, I'm a little bit psychic, you're going to do great things."

She was directed to her theatre by her caretaker and I was left dizzy, as if real life had suddenly come into focus, as if I'd finally got my head into the game. I was still broke and hungry and frightened, but somebody else knew it and what was more, they knew that it wouldn't last long. It is shocking to have someone else be able to see into you.

So, this many years later - seventeen, in fact - I am still only an assistant editor, ordering cashews and digibetas for people younger than I, with not a single feature film under my belt, but a lot of editing and writing experience. I don't know what "great things" meant to Kate, but she saved me that day.

Shortly after that, we none of us ever saw her again. I've often wondered a couple of times over the past seventeen years what happened to her or where her loved ones set up a memorial to her existence in this world.

I have tried to impart some of her glow to others, whenever I've encountered someone younger, someone struggling against all odds to make a better life, or to just get through the day. I can see in such peoples' eyes that sad, determined look, searching for something greater for themselves, something they've always wanted to be or do, usually to make the world a better place, and I've tried to encourage them in it, hopefully without being too superficial. Because I do mean it. I'm here, too, and know what it's like.

I guess I imagined Kate's prophecy to be the attainment of fame and wealth through my extraordinary talent as a writer and director of fresh new ideas, making people laugh and cry and love with my images and words, raking in the box office and eventually living in some beautiful, remote location where I would be at peace and liberty to dream up more meaningful motion picture experiences for my radiant fans.

But that hasn't happened. Though I've got five scripts written, and a stageplay, I've never made it as far as I'd like and am sure that I've only myself to blame for holding back. But then I wonder, is that what Kate really meant by "great things?" Perhaps, as I justify my lack of success to myself, perhaps she meant something more, something real. I saved a cat from starving to death, a beautiful calico now called Special K who sleeps at the foot of my bed. Perhaps it was something that simple, to help one Robin unto his Nest again.

I still prefer the other idea, that of finally selling a script and more, directing it for the screen. I owe it to Kate to keep trying. I owe it to myself. And I owe it to my fans (HA!).

Thanks Kate, whatever celestial meeting or tea you're in now. Thank You.

I've just read a marvelous book, HERO by Perry Moore.

Part Harry Potter, part Incredibles, a touch of Sky High, the novel ultimately stands on its own originality, so much so that it's as if those other titles were merely working towards this one.

The characters are so well drawn that I feel as if I've known them all my life. Each has his or her own dark secrets and this is the universal level upon which Perry's novel speaks to all of us. We have all felt, one way or another, regardless of race or sexual preference, as if we were different from everyone else in the room, and that is in fact true, no two human beings are alike, even twins; and we must each learn to embrace our originality and perhaps turn it to good use. It also addresses honestly, for once, the many-faceted human desire for hero worship.

Not a long diatribe on the sufferings of a misunderstood gay superhero in the making, but instead a surprisingly funny (sometimes downright hysterical) and deeply poignant study of a young boy growing into a good man, HERO is a gift for future generations. It is one many people will find comfort in reading, especially if they are carrying on their young shoulders the heavy burden of who they really are.

It is my firm belief that Perry Moore may have saved lives with this one.

We've come a long way since Mesopotamia, and yet we still can't look each other in the eye.

 

If one joins Facebook or MySpace, taps into the lives of people one has never met and sends them a friend request, it's called "networking." If one were to seek people out in person, follow them for a bit to see if they were worth knowing, then go up to them and say, "I'd like you to be my friend" it's called stalking.

 

The Internet, like the gun, has depersonalized contacting people in the flesh. You can shoot someone with a friend request, thus allowing them to check out your profile and decide if they want to know you or not, and remain untouched physically. All personal interaction is gone and one still remains safe and sound in one's own home or apartment. The Internet acts as a buffer, a waiting room, for actual eye contact. 

 

The greatest mystery is when people set their profiles to "private," as if they had Top Secret information that was actually useful and could be sold to, I don't know, somebody who really cared. This is in direct contradiction to joining a site that connects you to the entire world in the first place. Again, the Internet has allowed for a mental disconnect.

 

So all of this impersonal contacting and networking is going on, a list of "friends" is compiled, and one feels good collecting an army of souls, like fireflies in a jar, to set on the window sill at the end of the day. Strangely, none of this is called stalking.

 

I am not afraid of speaking to anyone. I used to be; I used to nearly have a heart attack whenever I'd have to meet someone or ask anyone for anything. Now I could walk right up to God and ask him where the restroom is, and if he wants to be on my MySpace…

 

"Well… um… I don't know… I've heard that you sorta stalk people on the Internet, um, kinda keep emailing them, commenting on their blogs, I really don't know, I mean, uh, my blogs are really, really Old, some kinda New, but I haven't written any in a while, and I keep changing my mind, but I've heard that you're pretty harsh when you disagree… I really would rather you never contacted me…"

 

"Oh, that's fine, God. No problem.You've lost my vote, dumbass, if you publish your own opinion but don't want to hear what I have to say in return. I was wrong, you are not worth talking to."

 

So, in my post-"stalker" life, I've decided to leave some of this Internet business behind. The only real thing is real life. A friend is helping me build my own website, for my scripts and short films and posters and contact info, and perhaps for future blogs. It will link to my Facebook and MySpace, until I finally decide to destroy both and send their particles whirling into cyber space like motes in a sunbeam.  And only the people I know, my real friends and family, will still be there with me. In real time. In real space. In real life.

 

Amen.

I've coined a term: Visual Poetry. It was the only way I could explain what I feel is the only way to make a movie. Films are primarily visual, and the clever use of images within the photographed frame is the very reason I got into this business to begin with.

 

Example: The famous "match cut" in Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence holds up the match and blows it out, the picture cuts instantly to the pre-dawn desert even before the match has gone out and the sound of O'Toole's breath carries over as well. Then, slowly, as the music builds, the sun breaks over the vast, sterile landscape, and we are there.

 

Another example: Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Truffaut hears the famous five note tune through an earphone ("Ecouté! Ecouté!") and begins to play the notes on an electronic piano keyboard. He plays it at least twice and just when his finger is going to play it over again, the image cuts straight to Barry's xylophone and he continues the transition by tapping out the same five note theme.

 

I'll give another Spielberg example, then let that director's work drop: Jaws. Mayor Vaughn unequivocally tells Chief Brody that the beaches will be open tomorrow morning for the 4^th of July, then sits down in his car and drives off. Everyone misses this, except for me – as he sits down, a "One Way" street sign can be seen behind him. In other words, Mayor Vaughn's thinking is purely one way, which leads to disastrous consequences.

 

There are many, many other fine examples and it really boggles my mind at the number of people who really don't think that's what movies are all about. So many, especially younger people who shun classic films as so much primitive rubbish, think a great screenplay is a character walking around making unrealistic and snide comments while carrying a Sunny Delight jug.

 

But it's more than that, our minds think in images, not words. We can think about words but our brains are animal, so they think in images. Motion pictures are, first and foremost, motion PICTURES. Not knowing what has come before, what great images have been conjured up by great directors in the past, is utterly foreign to me. How does one even desire to come all the way to Los Angeles to be a screenwriter/filmmaker/procrastinator when one doesn't "get it," doesn't revel in these great images?? How can a dream, based solely on the idea of writing just words and not images for the screen, get somebody to drop everything and move here? It's like setting out on a literary career without knowing the classics.

 

Another example, and please bear with me on this one, you might learn something: Howards End. Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson) approaches Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins) in the hospital. Ruth, Henry's wife, is dying so Margaret, her friend, leans over and takes Henry's hand sympathetically. The shot holds for a bit as their hands are clasped, then cuts directly to the nurse taking Ruth's hand and placing it on a notepad, where she begins to write the legacy that will leave her childhood home, Howards End, to Margaret. This one shot encompasses the crux of the film – through a series of events, Margaret will eventually become Henry's second wife and will ultimately inherit Howards End.

 

There are simpler examples. In The Lion in Winter, two of the boys are plotting with the young king of France to take over the throne from their older brother, Richard the Lionheart. No great cinematic tricks in this scene, since the film is directly derived from the stage play, but if you look in the foreground you will see the entire bottom of the Cinemascope frame lined with chess pieces the two boys had been playing with before the scene began. This lends a subconscious image in our minds – they are playing a game, and a dangerous one at that.

 

All right,  one more, and this one is ancient: Murnau's Faust, 1926. Faust is standing outside Gretchen's open bedroom window and, after they've gazed longingly at each other for awhile (silent movies, pshaw!) she gets frightened at his intentions and tries to close the two window panes. He pushes on them with his hands, she pushes back. The scene is lit only from the inside of her room so Faust and his hands are almost in silhouette. She eventually cannot withstand his strength (isn't that always the case) and gives in. He pushes the windows open and she leans defeated against the wall, almost as if he's already taken her virginity.

 

So there you have it. Visual Poetry.  Perhaps I should ™ that term.

 

Hmmmmm…

Saw Iron Man last night and quite enjoyed it. Jon Favreau is indeed a Marvel-ous director and this film is up there on the short, handwritten list of the Best Superhero Movies. It's good to see a middle aged man kick ass and then tell everyone else to blow it out theirs after doing so. Tony Stark is the real thing, not a bumbling twit like Clark Kent, nor a whiny teenager like Peter Parker, nor a brooding businessman hanging onto a lot of guilt like Bruce Wayne.

Not that I mind those other guys, but having a real human do very real things (well, nearly real) to save a small village in Afghanistan engages me more than an alien working as a journalist at a large newspaper wearing questionable blue tights under his suit. Stark is the man, and he wears a wife-beater under his suit. And, at risk of giving away the ending, he does not hide behind a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, nor behind his books in school, nor behind the walls of his Bat Cave, something I've never understood about Superheroes. Why must they all have secret identities? Is it a little boy thing? In an age when everyone should be comfortable coming out of the closet, Tony Stark unapologetically was never in one. In one fell swoop at the end, he makes secret identities obsolete. When I saw Superman Returns which, having been written by trust-fund babies with no real experience of the world, makes Supes not only a Peeping Tom but a Deadbeat Dad as well, I had to agree with Lois' headline "Does the World Need Superman?" No. I don't think so. At least not that Superman.

Having said that, I still hold Superman the Movie as the best superhero film adaptation, regardless of its dated (very dated) late '70's gags and look. It takes comic book icons and makes them real people that we care about. Batman Begins does the same.

I can only write a blog this critical of superhero movies because I am past the age of superhero worship myself. It is my belief that it's perfectly natural for boys to worship powerful men who do extraordinary things to save those around them for the good of civilization, but by the time a man reaches his 30's or 40's, he should have become that hero himself. Life, of course, carves our self-beliefs down, chisels away at our dreams and makes them more realistic, more grounded. I don't believe that dreams are destroyed by the unfairness of life, I believe they are hardened, crystalized into something more realistic that you can work with, that you can lock around you in a suit of red and gold armor. Then you can kick ass and get things done.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to save the lives of a few frightened, child-like "executives" here at work.

 

Well, I’m in. It’s odd how all of my furniture and hangings and belongings match the house that I’m crazy enough to rent. I feel quite comfortable. The walls of the place are actually a warm, earthy color. It rained the other night and I started a fire in my hearth and was left alone by the outside world, at least for an evening. I seem to be living at Bag End.

 

I hope to get my life back, living in this new place. The past year or so has been rather unpleasant, living in an unhealthy apartment, with unhealthy landlords and unhealthy peasants on the other side of the living room and bathroom walls. Other things were happening as well which I let get out of control; a personal decision of just walking away from a disastrous situation, rather than keep pressing onward hoping it would miraculously fix itself, would have helped. But I was afraid that I would look guilty if I ran. Suffice it to say, all of my good intentions had been turned into something sinister by outside, baser minds and I let my hurt pride get the worst of me.

 

I didn’t know how badly this had depressed me, how low I’d sunk, until I finally made the decision to move on and get out of the crumbling duplex I used to live in. I love sliding around in socks on the beautifully restored hardwood floors of my new place, to get to the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom. I don’t know what will happen to me while living here, but I think I am willing to face the adventures to come.

 

I cringe when I think of the past year or so, but then I remember its reasons and causes and realize that no matter what direction I would have taken, the outcome would have been the same.

 

I am myself again, and it’s good to be home.

There is no getting around it - moving is a nightmare.

I have been living in an ancient duplex (1927) for nearly five years now and I’ve finally decided to make a change. I liked the duplex but the living conditions have disintegrated so badly that I am having the Fire Department look at the place next week. My landlady is a slumlord. She would rather be mounting horses at her ranch in Ojai than tending to the serious problems of the buildings she supposedly manages here in the city. My roof has leaked every single time it rains in Burbank, the water pressure is so bad that it nearly shuts down when everyone in the building decides to use it at the same time, the windows barely work, and there is an extension cord, a normal cheap extension cord that you might buy at any OSH, plastered under the kitchen floor to feed electricity to the fridge.

And to top it all off, over a year ago, a pack of Orcs moved into the other half of the duplex. These Orcs (spill-over from Glendale) have been so appallingly rude and obnoxious that I’ve had to repeatedly call the police on them to make them understand how successful civilizations operate. The last and final incident, the catalyst that made me finally decide to move, was when the Hag Orc, the Troll Orc’s female mate, tried to keep my cat. This cat has been mine for over a year, she is indoor/outdoor, I saved her from starving to death, I’ve got a stack of medical bills to prove my love and ownership of her, and in any case both of us were here long before those cretans slipped into this country (doubtless on a government grant). I wonder, if they ever get sophisticated enough to make their own country a Democracy, will they all move back? Probably not, I’m sure they’re at home in a country of white trash slum lords.

So I have found a house to rent. I am set on buying one day, but for now I must get out of this dump. I can now smell mold and even see it in the ceiling. The termite damage is substantial and I’ve warned my no-neck landlady about it, even emailing photos. That was last year. Still no termite inspectors, or even a response.

So I begin a new life next weekend. The rent is steep but I am paying for everything that I don’t have here. The awful thing about moving, about packing all of your precious belongings, is that it is so utterly, utterly lonely. You may have friends and family who help you, but it somehow puts your life, your belongings, the way you live, on trial, exposing it like evidence to a pitiless courtroom. It is horrible living in two places at once; you are neither here nor there, alive nor dead, successful nor failure. Only getting settled back into your comfortable routine, your own special pattern, gets you out of this dreadful purgatory.

I like the new place but at this point I don’t know what to like, to trust, anymore. I’ve shut off so many emotional parts of myself that I feel like a machine that is merely going through the motions of moving until I have time to become human again. Maybe I can in the new place.

I am hoping my life will be resurrected by this move. That reminds me - I wonder if Jesus saw his shadow this morning and ran back in?

Happy Easter

I won.

Yes, I actually won the Oscar pool at a party thrown by an editor friend at her cute new house on Feb. 24th, 2008. I did indeed win the previous year but, like Katharine Hepburn and Barbara Streisand in 1968, tied with someone else with 11 correct answers. I was accused afterwards by the other winner of having cheated. It was a sweet joke, to be sure, but nothing that’s happened since has been very funny.

This time I won by a landslide - 15 correct guesses, a record for me. The irony is that I had no intention of winning; I hadn’t seen most of the films, had no idea what to vote for, and really had no heart left over to throw myself into a competitive frame of mind. Perhaps I shouldn’t care more often. Or perhaps it was the four tall vodka tonics I’d gulped down.

No, I think it was my voting technique. I vote twice, but only count one pass. The first pass I mark down, in black Sharpie, what I think will win. The second pass I mark down, in silver Sharpie, what I think should win. That way I’ve separated my heart and mind (Church and State) and can ponder clearly what the limited imaginations and memories of the Academy members will vote for. Then I only count the black Sharpie marks because, after all, counting both would double my chances of getting a correct answer and would be cheating.

This technique actually seems to work better with each year, if my own success is any indication. Perhaps I’ll try voting for our next President the same way - I’ll need to bring a silver Sharpie with me to the booths, because they already have black.

I won $40 that night, of mostly other people’s money. I’m not a gambler; I do not understand gambling at all. It utterly makes no sense to me to play with one’s earnings. I imagine it’s only people whose parents could afford regular dentist visits for them who take money so lightly.

Regarding the Oscars. Into the Wild should have been the best picture of 2007 (There Will Be Blood was a very close second). I know people who complained about how stupid Chris McCandless was and yes I can understand that. But as a film, as a story, of how each person can affect the lives of those around them, even in the smallest degree, as a tale of how stubborn idealism can kill, it is truly a great motion picture. Most people missed the irony of McCandless’s death - he left home, avoided college, because he hated institutions and civilization, yet dies in the back of a derelict schoolbus. That is Greek Tragedy on an epic scale. Perhaps those who didn’t like the film were uncomfortable with it reminding them that, no matter how good you try to be as you go about your life, you are still going to hurt someone.

That afternoon, just before the Oscar party got underway, the pouring rain let up, the sun came out, and there was a rainbow stretching it’s full ribbon of color, from bright green to vivid lavender to intense yellow, across the dark, wet slate of the stormclouds in the east - though the pot of gold was really hidden backstage at the Kodak on the other side of the hill in Hollywood.

My $40 is gone. I spent it on peppermint white chocolate mochas at Starbucks. I am that unjust.

Anyone born after JAWS is an idiot.

Sorry, let me clarify that: With few acceptions, anyone born after JAWS is an idiot.

Actor Roy Scheider passed away last night and when I found out this morning, it was strangely upsetting. It was not what I wanted to hear first thing at work on a Monday morning, but that wasn't really why I was upset. To me it seemed as if part of my childhood - and JAWS was a large part of my childhood, which resulted in a sudden switch to taking showers rather than baths - had died. It's a good thing I didn't see PSYCHO until I was old enough not to be frightened out of taking showers either.

I remember being so impacted by JAWS when I was nine years old that I had to mimic it, so I made my own giant mechanical shark. It was actually a huge, long refridgerator box with a top corner cut out, serrated teeth glued in, eyes cut into the sides, but once the grey and white and, of course, red paint was applied, it was frightening and quite large enough to swallow a small child - and it did. I put grey fins on each side and a dorsal on top, then plopped it onto one of the gliders my father slid around under cars on at his service station, and chased neighborhood kids. One of them got so terrified she kicked my shark, "Bruce", in the snout and made me very angry. First love dashed again by my main mistress - the movies.

I think with Scheider's passing, and that of Suzanne Pleshette a few weeks ago, it keeps reminding me that all of these people I grew up on are leaving us. Now I know they are celebrities that I've never met, but they are part of the background fabric of my life, especially since my life is the motion picture industry, more or less. I guess I still believed in movies enough to think that they would live forever. And in a way, they do.

My father helped me build my shark, and even gave me the money to get the spray paint, though money was always in short supply. He was thrilled at my ingenuity, though he really didn't have time for it. I have come to realize that I was blessed with parents who dreamt as crazily as myself, despite what life had given them, and that it was this that allowed me to see myself into a future outside a small Goldrush town, a future somewhere close to, maybe even inside the walls of, the places that actually made the movies.

Damn, I was really screwed up by JAWS.