Lately, I have been meeting up with a lot of high school buddies on Facebook. Buddies is a bit of misnomer though. Some of the people I have enjoyed talking to recently were barely acquaintances back then, yet I greet them with open arms and listen about their kids and their jobs with sincere and rapt attention.

Why is that?

When I was in high school, during my sophomore year, one morning, during the announcements, The principal told of a tragedy that had occurred earlier just that morning. Brian Ledger, a freshman, had been killed in a car accident after an early morning tennis team practice.

The whole school was a strange place that day.  I was deeply effected by the atmosphere of such mass grief. I cannot honestly say I was effected by great personal grief. Though I knew him, I didn't particularly like him. In fact, honestly, I disliked him considerably. I don't remember why exactly. He had probably said something obnoxious to me at one point or maybe several times but I probably disliked him more because he was a popular kid and always surrounded by girls; a species I had a terrible time simply talking to back then.

Now, older and wiser, I realize that much of what I believed about people back then was clouded by my own self doubt and the over-inflated importance of high school social strata. Perhaps Brian and I would even be Facebook friends today, but on the day of his death, I have to confess, I still disliked him.

I felt terrible that his young life had simply ended like that with so much ahead of him. So many people that he would befriend and love are walking around this very day with no clue that the friend they might have had, the life that would have touched theirs was snuffed out that Spring day. I knew that then.

I felt bad for those who really did like him, I imagined his parents taking that phone call that would change their lives from that day to this one. I even felt badly for the people whom didn't seem to care for him until after he had died.

I felt the heartbreak of all those around me, yet I wasn't truly grieving myself. I felt this huge abyss between everybody weeping in the halls and myself, saddened but not sad if that's possible.

Why did I feel so effected though? What did this mean to me?

I wouldn't know till the next day.

Jeff Mortinson was the social antithesis of Brian Ledger. I cannot remember his name for certain until I get my yearbook out of storage, so, for now, he's "Jeff". Whereas Brian might have been considered by many to have been a 'preppy' Jeff was what some people may have called a 'redneck'.

Brian sang in the chorus and took regents college prep courses. Jeff wore a flannel shirt and studied auto body repair, or something along those lines. He cussed, told dirty jokes, acted tough, maybe got in trouble a lot, maybe worked on a farm, maybe he smoked and came from a working-class family. I speak in stereotypes rather than specifics since I didn't know him well and my school-age prejudices didn't allow me to see past the way he dressed and the way he talked any more that the prejudices I had about the 'preppies', or the 'jocks', or the 'fence gang' (the stoners) etc…

Whatever prejudices I had would be mortally wounded when I heard his account of the accident the next day.

Jeff seemed different from his usual obnoxious self: serious, quiet, depressed. He was the last person I would think would be so effected by Brian's death.

Jeff was nearly in tears, which is what got my attention. I overheard his account as he told his tale to some friends. He had been on his way to school himself when he happened on the car accident. He stopped and ran to the wreck. At one point, he pulled the badly injured, but still conscious, Brian Ledger from the back seat of the wreck.

According to Jeff, Brian looked at him with great fear in his eyes and said "Don't let me go." Those were his last words as he died in Jeff's arms.

From the look on his face I knew Jeff's life would be forever altered as might anyone's who'd had someone die before them like that. He had that same distant stare that I have recognized since in some Vietnam War vets.

For me, the image of these two kids from different worlds, one holding the other in his final moments of life, stood out as a profound lesson in human unity. They never would have been buddies walking down the hall together; even if Jeff had been able to save Brian's life that day. Because Brian died, they are forever linked.

Different worlds had collided.

But did they? Was the irony only in my own views as a teen-aged observer consumed with social barriers and definitions.

I didn't have much in common with either Brian or Jeff back then. As my other classmates and I grew up and moved away, we have less and less in common with each year that passes and life shaping experience we have individually. Yet now, I feel more connected to them than I ever did during school. We were once in the same important place at the same important time; forever linked.

Just like Brian Ledger and Jeff Mortinson… on the side of Townline Road in the spring of 1981.

       This Week |Last Week |Beginning | 1^st Goal
Weight    216Lbs |   -3Lb   |   -15Lbs | 200Lbs
Waist     43.5"  |   -1"    |   -3.5"  |  40"
Chest     44.25" |   -.25"  |   -1.75" |  48"

As described in my last post, I had decided to have a week free of electronic media. Monday morning will mark the end of the experiment so I am still in 'radio silence' but here are my observations after six days.

-The road sounds good.
This whole idea was born as I was driving to work on Monday and decided not to turn on the radio or plug in the iPod. What I did after that, and on every trip following, was to open my windows and hear the sound of the road. The point was not to encase myself in silence but to observed the music that I, and nearly everybody else, has been missing.

This was my favorite part of the week. Today I was listening to a yellow Porsche in traffic beside me it's engine sounded tight and precise at low speeds but the rat-cage fan-driven oil pump (the main difference between a Porsche engine and most other cars) made it sound wheezy and weak as it wound up past 2000RPM.

I loved hearing the pavement change from one surface to another or passing truck. First I would hear the engine, rattle of the engine cover and the scream of the turbocharger winding up. Then the drive wheels and the exhaust with it's throaty bellow. Last the wheels of the trailer passed by in relative silence.

That reminded me of driving the bus when I was on the road: The engine, being in the back of the bus, is so far away it can barely be heard when your rolling down the road. When the window was open (known as the fart window but more commonly used for 'other' fumes) one could hear the road quite plainly and the surrounding traffic without the distraction of sounds like things going horribly wrong with the engine or transmission.

To me, the sound of the road is a soothing lullaby that began on trips to my grandparents' house when I was very young. It has that effect to this day…  Whoa! WAKE UP! You're still driving!

-There is no escaping the Election and certain new items.
I didn't go media-free to escape the election but it sure crossed my mind as a benefit. Sitting in the "Sony Grill" which is basically the Sony lot commissary, There were CNN screens everywhere I looked. Audra would also want to discuss things she had seen on TV (while I was gone) and things she'd heard from her Mom. I had also read the entire article about Paul Newman's death after seeing the link on the home page of my Yahoo email account before realizing I had 'peeked' around a forbidden corner of my rules.

I also found myself in traffic next to a open-windowed car listening to "All Things Considered" the NPR evening news program. I considered closing my window but I decided that my windows were open deliberately to experience the sound of my commute, that news show just happened to be one of those sounds.

-The silence has been good for creativity
If nothing else, the experiment presumably bore some creativity. Over the course of about an hour, I cranked out new lyrics and fitted it with a piece I'd been fooling around with on my grandmother's classical guitar for around 18 years. I'm actually quite excited about it and if my partner-in-crime, Juan, agrees when he hears it, it will probably go on the CD.
Here are the words:

© Joel T Johnson 2008
_________________________

-Reading is fundamental
If you remember the old "RIF" ads in the seventies? I learned this week that my reading muscles are the equivalent to a 90 Lb weakling. I spent much of my time this week reading. It was something I could handle: a picture book: My wife has this huge book called "The Movies" which is a history of of movies and movie making in the US. This is not to say that I just looked at pictures of silent movie stars there is a libretto, poorly written as it may be, so I do read every word. The pictures are a great help in being able to take brief breaks in the deciphering of words before I flip the page and read on.

My learning disability makes reading difficult but that's a lame excuse for not reading. It's a skill just like anything else, so what if I happen to start a little further down the hill that most other folks, it doesn't mean I can't read as well or as much as anyone else, I just have to want to work at it.

This week has helped me remember that when I manage to read something, I enjoy it quit a bit.

-It was not that hard
I was expecting this to be a bigger challenge. Sitting down with a plate of food and not sitting on the couch and clicking on the remote was hard at first. I slipped up here and there simply out of habit.

Exercising in the gym sans tunes just plain sucked. I ain't trying that again.

On my running/hiking trail it was fine. Not having to carry the iPod or have the ear buds and cable to worry about wasn't even a bit liberating. I enjoyed hearing the sounds of the city and of the canyons. My favorite part was hearing irreverent bits of other peoples' conversations as I passed them. When I run with the ear buds in, the world is closed-in—not always a bad thing. Without them things seem to open up including my mind. I'll admit, it is a little easier huffing up a hill with the Red Hot Chili Peppers bangin' away to inspire me.

Our evenings have been very pleasant with my either reading, working on the CD on my laptop or researching exercise techniques or whatever, while Audra listened to music with headphones (she, like my good buddy Kenbone, would wilt like a flower in the desert without a little music). She played "Bookworm" on her computer and researched fall fashions online.

I think I will want to indulge in more of these quiet evenings. I never noticed how loud the refrigerator can be though.

-One week is not enough
'Eight' may be enough, but seven is not. I think I would have to extend this experiment much further to really find out what lies beneath the clutter of my noisy life.

Am I going to continue living media free?

Two answers: Yes –and- Of course not.

It's not realistic to go on like this all the time. I enjoy music, movies and some TV too much to give them up entirely, but I would like to spend more meals eating at the table with just the sweet sound of conversation with my wife. I will indulge in what used to be only a Sunday night treat when I was growing up: eating dinner in front of the TV, but maybe more as an actual treat and not a lifestyle.

I will spend a bit more of my commutes listening to the music of the road and the sound of my own thoughts. I will be listening to a lot of music as well—it is my stock and trade after all and I do a lot of my work on the CD while listening to and singing along with my tracks in the car.

I think that living media free does not have to mean living without media. Perhaps it's just the ability to choose to experience some silence, however briefly, just to hear the difference.

Right then and there I decided that I was going to leave the radio off, I was not going to plug in the iPod and for the rest of the week I was going to put a self-inflicted ban on electronic media. Here's the deal: no radio, no TV including DVDs, Internet only to check email/Myspace/Facebook, and no iPod. I just heard a collective 'gasp' at that last one.

A week without music? A musician?!

Not exactly.

My own music and my studio are not on the chopping block. In fact that is what I plan to spend the week doing; diligently working on my album.

I am not attempting to live without any recreation: reading books other analog activities are ok. Maybe I'll put a puzzle together and spend more time playing with the cats.

There are two things that may be a little difficult. First I have gotten in the habit over the past fifteen years of eating in front of the television. It has become and automatic comfort-zone to click the TV on when I sit down with food and I may twitch a bit at first. Maybe I'd better avoid soups!

The second challenge is going to be my workout. When I do my run up the mountain on Wednesday it won't be a big deal. My iPod battery died about three-quarters through my run last week and I actually enjoyed being in the space around me, hearing my feet on the trail, hearing birds and snippets of conversation as people passed. It will be in the gym doing my aerobic machines that might be painfully tedious.

This whole idea, I suspect, was put in the back of my head when last night I lamented that Audra kept leaving the room for long periods of time. She said "I'll be happy to stay here, but turn the TV off. I was ensconced in my little world; the
Internet on my lap and the comforting din of the TV across the room. I reluctantly turned off the TV but her company was worth it. On a larger level, the idea has been brewing subconsciously in my brain for the past few weeks. I have been having rather deep email conversations with a friend of mine and we have been discussing the concept of life being full of noise, not just sound waves but distractions and abstract busyness that drowns out what life really is and what it can be.

If anyone would care to join me in this experiment and turn off some stuff this week, I wouldn't mind the company, if you'd rather be the control group I can hardly blame you. Post a comment below and when I write the corresponding blog a week from now you can post your experiences then too.

If nothing else it will be a different experience, a break in the routine. Something good almost always follows.

Weight loss stats:

Workout days 7 of 6 (two days I worked out twice)
Weight: 220 (-11Lbs!)
Waist: 44 (-3")
Chest: 45 (-1 1/2")

This week there has been some excitement in the already scintillating world of weight-loss. Last week's weigh-in was rather disappointing; at 227 I had gained two pounds. On Wednesday Audra was looking at me and said "Call me crazy, but I think you've lost some weight." After I called her 'crazy' we put me on the scale to check and to both our surprise it read "222". Today's weigh-in was even better at 220!

There is a park not far from us in the Hollywood Hills that has a trail I have been hoping to hike/run when I was in good enough shape. On Wednesday, as a sort-of dry run, I walked all the way up and ran most of the way home. This morning I tried it again and found I was able to run most of the way up and back. My route was 4.75 miles and includes over a thousand foot vertical climb (according to Google Earth).

I got a call from Vista Electronics, the company I have done a lot of work for over the years and there seems to be plenty of work between now and January so that's good news financially.

Work on the album continues. Mostly rehearsing singing parts and writing some new lyrics and tweaking old ones.

Continuing on with California or Bust, Part VII, Win Ben Stein's Craft Table:

It was just a couple months before Susan was to go home to New York and I had no idea how I was going to survive. One day during a taping of "Inquizition", one or more of the podiums stopped working. Since I was the do-all guy and the house engineer didn't seem to know anything, I called the owner of Vista Electronics, Ron Schwab at his home--it was a Sunday.

He talked me through several techniques to try to identify and resolve the problem but in the end we concluded that a chip or two had been blown. The taping was canceled and I stayed behind to pack up the podiums and the scoring computer and help Ron load them up when he arrived to take them to his shop.

While we were loading the equipment in his truck I asked if he ever had a need for any help at Vista.

"I can't imagine why you'd want to work for us." He said cryptically.

 It wasn't a surprise when I didn't hear from him. I had submitted between twenty to forty resumes every week since I had arrived in LA to various productions and never got so much as a rejection email, letter or phone call. I had even tested at a temp agency that seemed impressed with my computer skills but never called me back none-the-less.

Still, somehow, I knew I would be OK. Something would turn up before Susan left for home.

In the first week of December I did get a call from Ron at Vista Electronics. There was going to be an "Inquizition" booth at the NCTA (National Cable Television Association) convnetion show in downtown LA in January '00. They would be running a version of the show that people on the trade show floor could walk up and play. He could use my help setting up for and operating the show. I think as a test he had me come in and work at their shop on a Sunday. They were prepping another show of theirs: MTV's "Webriot".

I drove thirty-five miles north to Santa Clarita where Vista is located and helped them prep and assemble gear for their load-in the next day. I liked everybody there and seemed to show them a moderate level of competence with their hand build custom designed equipment.

While I was there he warned that paychecks were sometimes, even often, late. I told them that was no problem.

What was I going to say? Even if  I had known at the time those checks would be, on occasion, up to eight months behind, I still didn't have anywhere else to go.

Only a few days after my first day at Vista, I loaded up a 16 foot rental truck with Susan's belongings and started for New York.

I drove long and hard since I didn't have much money for motel stays. I took the southern route to avoid snow but found the entire panhandle of Texas covered in ice. All the cars were pulled off the road but I didn't have that kind of time.

It was good to be back in New York, my first time since we left. It was great to see my folks, my brother and sister and my friend, Jim.

Susan and I spent the Y2K New Year together at my brother's place and kissed each other politely at the stroke of midnight. It was to be our last. I had been planning to stay for a week past New Years but when I checked in with Ron from Vista he told me there had been a change in plans. He wanted me to work on "Win Ben Stein's Money" instead of the trade show thing. Because of this change I would have to change my flight and return to LA earlier. Ultimately I had to purchase a new two-way flight (it was cheaper than a one-way). I chose a return date at the end of January. If things went horribly wrong, at least I would have an escape clause.

When I arrived at LAX I had exactly thirty dollars in my pocket, $9.43 in the bank and no working credit cards.

I told the Cab driver where I was going and how much money I had. "If you can get me close, that'll be alright I told him."

"We'll just make it a flat rate," he told me, and turned the meter off.

The next day I drove three miles down the street to the studio where Ben Stein taped. I was cast headlong into the world of a real studio game show. It was my job to reveal the categories in a wall of video monitors then reveal corresponding questions when the contestant selected. The guy I was taking over for gave such a lame and rudimentary overview of the job that I had to learn much of it myself through trial and humiliating error.  I had a hard time at first but seemed to get the hang of things by the end of the day. The next day I decided I'd better walk to the studio. I had a quarter tank of gas. I figured better save that quarter of a tank as long as I can.

For food there was the craft services table at Ben Stein. I lived off of PB&Js, Ramen Noodles, Toostie Rolls and, of course Coffee. There was another crew member who seemed to be as broke as I was. When the rest of the crew went off-lot for the walk-away lunch he and I hit the craft table. He taught me some creative alternatives to the usual limited fare such as the ramen noodle sandwich.

At home I had no TV and no food so I listened to the radio constantly to drown out the silence; mostly talk shows so I could hear voices and stories. Even though I was happy to be moving on with my life I missed Susan terribly. She had left some clothes behind for me to get rid of but I couldn't for months until her lavender scent was no longer detectable. I spent my time rearranging the apartment to prepare for the roommate I was planning to get. I combined my music studio with my bed room. It was a cramped maze of gear bed and dressers.

My only companion on the show was the other Vista operator who did the scoring on the podiums. Jerod was a motorbike degenerate punk that spoke of nothing but the wild times he would have over the weekend in which he, and everyone else was always "so shit-faced" someone always "nearly died" or was "almost arrested". The stories always ended the same with naked chicks dancing on the roofs' of cars and reruns of these stories persisted throughout the week.

Between the sugar and starch of my craft table diet, my depression and my jackrabbit A.D.D. mind, I found it especially hard to concentrate when operating the show. I would make and error which is humiliating because the whole show comes grinding to a halt. I would take this to heart, as I tend to, feeling every eye in the house glaring at me whether they were or not. Being even more upset I would continue to fuck up until my heart would be pounding through each round.

My perceptions weren't just paranoia. The director, Dennis Rosenblat, who is the biggest dick-wad fussbudget asshole I have worked with before or since, would personally rail me on the headset so all could hear as well as in-person when he had the chance. I accumulated such a reputation for incompetence in his eyes that he began to yell at me for things that went wrong that had nothing to do with me or my equipment. These days whenever I see old crew members from that show they joke with me--in a sad, head-shaking way--about how I was the whipping boy for everyone on the show. It's been good to learn that it wasn't just me.

After an especially bad week, Ron, my boss at Vista Electronics, called me and chewed me out for having had him get chewed out by the show's production manager who had been chewed out by the director who demanded I be fired. Fortunately for me, Ron had no other options so he, the production manager and the director were all stuck with me for the time being.

Now the show was pure hell for me. The pressure to perform and try to make my scatterbrain behave while tape was rolling was so intense I often had to bite my lip to keep tears from impairing my vision. I wish I was merely being dramatic, but no such luck.

I used to count down the shows, the rounds and the questions till I would be done for the day and could walk home and be with my cats who didn't care how badly I train-wrecked the show. I can still remember the intense relief I would feel when I would hear Dennis, the director call out "Coo-coo!" Jerod would then hit the end-of round cue and the "coo-coo" sound effect would sound as the pneumatic door on the coo-coo clock would open signaling that the round had ended.

Slowly things got better. I would get through entire shows without a glitch, then whole days. Still I would sometimes allow my self to get over confident and my concentration would slip and thus so would I. No matter what I did Dennis never stopped giving me a hard time and blaming me for other people mistakes. His assistant director, Tony, felt bad for me I think and was always very nice.

My first paycheck came after nearly a month. It was a joyous, however cautious, trip to the grocery store that evening.

A friend I had worked on AFI films with gave me a 13" color TV and a VCR he had no need for so that I could watch some movies he wanted me to see in order to get an idea of how to score a film he had recently shot.

The same cable TV convention that was in LA had a second showing in New Orleans. Ron asked me if I wanted to go work on that one.  He told me a car would take me to the airport. The morning of my trip I went out in front of my building to see a stretch limo with the door being help open. This must be a mistake, I can barely afford to buy groceries. I actually asked the guy if he was picking me up. In later trips the cars have been predominately Lincoln Towne Cars but on two or three other occasions the closest vehicle happened to be a stretch.

It had been a long way from living off the craft table and walking to work to being picked up in a stretch limo to fly to New Orleans. I've come even farther from slinging bed pans in an ICU in Rochester, New York.

There have been many trips to the airport, many shows and many ups and downs since that time but along the way I found the most fabulous woman in the history of man and managed to trick her into marrying me.

But that's a different story.

I will add a little current personal update here as it has been a while.

Our financial situation is becoming pretty dire I must confess. I have confidence that we'll get through it and I only mention it as it's part of the journey, part of the path. I am even excited about where this path will take us.

In the meantime however, measures must be taken, asses must be kicked (in the general sense). I have had very little results in looking for graphic design gigs. It has been suggested to me that I contact charity organizations to do graphic design for their events and mailers, on a low/no-pay basis to gain a better portfolio and experience. I am going to follow this advice but it still doesn't bass strings on the table.

This past week we spent at Audra's folks' house near San Bernardino, California (about 70 miles away). Our Sunday night trip out was interrupted by a flat tire. One of our cats escaped the cat carrier and, luckily, Audra saw her just as she jumped from the open hatch onto the freeway ramp we were stopped on just as a car was driving up the ramp. Thankfully, she had enough sense to treat her first encounter with a moving car with enough regard not to run in front of it and we got her back safely before any more cars showed up.

Our primary purpose there in the Inland Empire was so that I could do a day's work with my father-in-law, Neil. The work was for a Realtor making some minor changes to a house. Most notably was removing some outdoor carpeting from a concrete porch—that horrible green felt-like stuff. The original work day got pushed back a couple of days from Tuesday to Thursday and after realizing what an impossible task this was and two days would be barely enough to complete the task. The work was some of the hardest most unpleasant work I have ever done. On our hands and knees half in the sun in ninety-some degree heat scraping at carpet copiously applied adhesive that was either tough and gummy or dried up and hard as a rock. After the second day I was only able to scrape away a few square inches at a time before stopping to catch my breath. That evening I was sore all over, sunburned and stupid tired—you know the kind where when someone asks you "How was your day?" You reply "Howitzers are anything but gay, why do you ask? My left hand had three large blisters and I was unable to make a fist with either hand. I am kind-of ashamed to admit this is how I treated my hands, one of my greatest assets! We were paid fairly well, though maybe not considering the enormity of the task.

A little over an hour ago we, along with our cats arrived home in Hollywood and we are so happy.

We staying enjoy Audra's folks, her nine-year-old brother and even the kennel's-worth of small dogs but this is our home and we have missed it.

The album just got a big boost, in theory. A piece of recording gear I have has not been recording cleanly or properly. It was purchased to relatively cheaply replace a broken unit. I have had another such device but the lame company that makes it (Line-6) just now released the Windows Vista Drivers for this product. This makes a big difference and it has gone from a largely useless box to my main—read: only—recording interface.

This, fused with a new fresh approach to my songs are going to equal some great progress over the next few weeks.

"Enough about me, let's talk about you… What do you think of me."
Bett Midler –Beaches-

And to the story…

Al Capone's Locker

I didn't sleep well that night. I was happy to be in LA, happy to have the journey behind us and excited about the future. It was having everything we owned parked on the streets of Hollywood that had me tossing and turning.

At 7AM the next morning I walked a block down Hollywood Boulevard and took a deep breath before turning down Cherokee Ave.

Thank God!

The truck was still there and the pad lock looked intact. To avoid a ticket I moved the truck to another location till later that morning when we could drive it to the storage facility we had rented and put our stuff in a safe place while we found an apartment.

The storage facility was a 15 story building that was at one time a hotel owned and lived in by Al Capone who spent several months living in LA until authorities gave him an offer he couldn't refuse: Leave town, or go to jail.

For Angelinos: this building is a tall, white, nearly windowless building standing by itself. It is visible West of the 101 freeway near the Silver Lake exit with a "Public Storage" sign on the side.

Susan was sick and couldn't help me move our stuff into our storage room so I had to do myself what it had taken six or seven people to do in the same period of time.

Our storage room was on the tenth floor.  I had to move everything to several points to ensure the elevator would be available to others. Therefore, I loaded everything from the truck to in front of a very large elevator, then into the elevator, then outside the elevator on the tenth floor. From there I shuttled everything to an area outside the storage room where I could organize it into what was going to be a very tight fit. I successfully puzzled the truck load into the space up to the ceiling and leaving very little room for the door to close. It was as hot on this day as it had been the day before in this un-air-conditioned building. The task took over eight hours and I was soaked to the bone. For lunch I walked a short ways down Beverly Boulevard to a KFC and brought a modest meal back to the storage building where Susan and I ate it on the loading dock.

I was so hungry and that greasy chicken and the bottle water we bought tasted sooo good. I have had a particular fondness for KFC ever since, even though I rarely indulge.

The exhaustion allowed me to sleep well that night. We had the truck for several more days so we decided to keep it as long as we could till we had to rent a car. Parking the truck was still a constant challenge but at least our stuff was safe in Capone's locker. We used the truck to drive a criss-cross pattern through West Hollywood looking for an apartment. We were told that "for rent" signs in front of buildings were a far better source than using listings in papers etc. It was a long task followed by making phone calls later that day based on our notes from the signs. It was depressing hearing landlord after land lord tell me they didn't take pets or rents that were way beyond our budget. It seemed like LA was an endless series of rolling gates across driveways and parking lots. I was an outsider with access codes to none of them. Locked out. Too much like the homeless people I kept seeing for comfort. It was disturbing how close we were to that.

I had made a number of calls in regards to work including a call to a friend of Edd Altavella's. Edd was the drummer and A/V utility who had gotten me into the broadcast truck where I first been inspired to come to LA. Edd told me to give his friend Mark Coen a call when I got here. Mark said he would ask around but he didn't sound encouraging. The other calls were even less encouraging.

The situation was starting to get to me. This closed-gate world was so intimidating; it seemed there was no need for me here.

After several days our money was running out. We wouldn't even have enough for a deposit on an apartment. I started to feel panicked.

"Maybe we could still go back." I reasoned to Susan. "We could live with your folks or mine till we got back on our feet."

I thought she would jump at the chance to leave.

Then I got the 'Buddy boy' speech. You know, the one that starts out "Listen buddy boy…" Any married man knows this conversation. The essence was "You got me out here, now we're going to make a go of it. I knew she was right. I'm not sure if I really would have turned back as much as I felt like I wanted to. In any case, it was just the bitch slap I needed.

I must disclose that Susan is a very sweet person would never really bitch slap anyone verbally or otherwise. I'm just being sensational and attempting to write bloggishly edgy—How am I doin'?

We walked along Hollywood Blvd. looking for a cheap place to buy dinner. Everything seemed so cold, so inaccessible. I saw fear and darkness in the eyes of each person on the street.

We ended up at a Pizza place that sold by the slice. We barely said a word while we ate at one of the booths. What had we gotten ourselves into? How were we going to make it? Then I happened to sneeze. A stranger, sitting alone in the next booth over said "Bless you."

He'll never know it, but in that minuscule gesture of courtesy he offered me hope. I felt better somehow as we returned to the hotel. There are kind people here, maybe we would be OK after all. Suddenly even the gritty streets of Hollywood proper didn't seem so cold and formidable.

Like a Play Dough Fun Factory form disk, it is indeed our perception that shapes all that follows.

When we got back to our hotel room we turned on the TV. The movie "A League of Their Own" was on HBO and for some reason we both found a great deal of comfort in watching that movie. I'll never know why. We watched it several more times that week and never grew tired of it. To this day, along with KFC and strangers that say "bless you", I have a perpetual fondness for that movie.

The next day after we searched for apartments again we returned the little light on the hotel room phone was blinking. I checked the messages and some guy from the Gameshow Network wanted me to call him. At first I figured it was someone trolling the hotel phones looking for contestants and audience members.

Boy am I glad I called him back.

Brent Schwebel was the "Executive in Charge of Production" (a fancy name, I've since learned, for a technical production manager) at Gameshow Network. I had been referred by their former audio mixer Mark Cohen, Edd's friend and my one and only LA contact I had called a couple days prior.

Brent explained that, while he didn't have an audio position available like I was looking for, he had a new game show coming up and needed a sort-of do-all guy.

Like I was going to say no!

The following Saturday was my first day on the show "Inquizition". Not counting my hockey game ride-along, it was my first day in television as well.

I followed my directions which took me almost exactly on a route that I had driven during our recon trip eight months before.

The directions read like a charm and soon I was at the gate in front of the modest Gameshow Network Building. I pressed the button and told the security voice my name. The gate hummed and began to roll open. Now there was one; one gate in LA that I could make open.

"Inquizition" was a quirky show. The entire show was shot on a miniscule (18 X 35) stage with three unmanned cameras. The host--who's face was never seen and identity never revealed, was an tall lanky man with long snow white hair who regularly insulted  the four contestants as they wordlessly answered multiple choice questions with buttons on their podiums. The podiums and all the electronics therein were supplied by a company called Vista Electronics. I wondered if they ever had any need for a drafter/technician.

It was at least implied on the show that the lowest scoring contestant eliminated each round had something horrible happen to them afterwards. The contentious host is said to have been a precursor to Anne Robinson's anti-host persona on "The Weakest Link".

My job, or jobs on the show were: video utility (camera technician), lighting technician, lighting board operator, A2 (assistant audio tech), production assistant, grip and prop master. I once corrected the writers on some incorrect information an a question about George Eastman so I get a claim to script supervisor as well.

The show paid me an unbelievable $20 an hour; almost double what I was making as a drafting supervisor in Rochester. The only hitch was that the show only taped four days a month for six months of the year. If I could get a couple more of these gigs we just might survive, I thought.

I had no idea how lucky the first one had been.

That week we found two apartments to look at. One we could probably afford, the other we probably could not. The first was a modest two story building hiding behind an overgrown palm of some sort. The Russian woman in the manager's apartment didn't even bother opening her screen door for us. She said the place was open in very broken English. We looked at the apartment ourselves. It was OK but it was the landlord's lack of manners and any hint of warmth that kept us from calling her back.

The other apartment we looked at seemed huge with two balconies and a fireplace. It was out of our budget but my gig at GSN had given me undo financial confidence. Most of all, the manager was a young guy who seemed to be everything the old Russian grump wasn't, warm, friendly, he spoke English…

"We'll take it."

We had to borrow money from our parents to make the deposit. It was especially high since we had pets and no rental references.

Susan was also sick on the day we moved in, so once again, I alone had to move us out of Al Capone's storage place and into our apartment in one day. It wasn't quite as hot that day and at least the apartment was air conditioned. Susan was able to help a bit as the day turned into night and we were still bringing loads up.

That night we spent our first night on a mattress on the floor while our bewildered cats sniffed out their new home.

I tried in vain to find other work in television but ended up interning on a series of student films that lead to some low paying low budget films and many adventures.

Susan found work as a bank teller in downtown LA and we were somehow able to scrape our $1,250 in rent every month and buy some groceries.

We had a home and a remote that opened the gate to our underground parking garage. My work in film took me through a number of other security gates: Universal Studios, CBS Studio City and countless locations that gave me a behind-the-scenes ground-up tour of LA that not many locals even get to see.

My hope that Susan could expand her horizons was a folly on my part. My dreams were not hers and hers were of a simpler life in a simpler place. We separated less than a year-and-a-half later. Our first sizable Earthquake happened while there were tears in both our eyes as we discussed our differences.

Susan was to leave at Christmas in a few weeks and I still wasn't able to find steady paying work to make rent. The taping for the second season of "Inquizition" had wrapped and we used what little money we had to rent a truck in which I was to drive her things back to New York and buy an airline ticket for her to fly home.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do when I got back.

To Be Continued…

I have been posting my blogs on Sundays pretty consistently so some might notice that this one's a little early. There's a reason mentioned below.

On with the story; in which we had just got outta dodge…

The Crossing

One of our greatest concerns of our trip West was the wellbeing of our two cats Baxter and Penelope. Baxter was a large three legged black and white cat and Penelope a petite grey who was more adventurous and social. We bought two carriers for them, one small, one large and stacked them between the two seats in the truck. We thought it a horrible fate for them to have to be cooped up in that truck cab for the entire trip so we purchased little harnesses and leashes for them so that we could let them outside at rest stops without loosing them. I know cats and I know they wouldn't like them but I hoped they might give the situation different consideration as it was the only outside time they would get for a long time. We felt badly that we were asking two outdoor cats to live in an apartment. Maybe they would grow accustom to their harnesses, we reasoned. Then we could take them out to parks in LA and let their little paws feel grass again.

Nice thought.

In true guy-like fashion, I was keen to get some miles behind us early on, so our first rest stop was in Ohio, about six hours into our trip. We harnessed-up the kitties, grabbed one leash each and headed out towards an un-occupied expanse of grass. Baxter parked himself under the truck and was keen not to be pulled out. I was able to coax Nell out of the cab and she let her lead me towards some tall grass.

At some point in the tall grass Nell began to feel the restraining effects of the leash which caused her to test it more which caused her to feel it more. This rolled into an exponential snowball; an escalation of fight or flight which, in no time at all, rendered a blur of clawing, growling, running, somehow flying, grey fur in a perfect sphere all around me. I wasn't particularly thrilled about the idea of reeling this buzz saw of claws in to me since I was not wearing falcon gloves, a leather suit and a helmet.

Soon I developed the courage to face the claws and fangs. I got down low and used an ineffectively soothing voice to try and sell her on how everything was going to be ok in this strange field fresh from a strange cage in a strange truck bound for an unimaginable destination. Ultimately, I held her by the scruff of the neck at arms length and hurried back to the truck as fast as I could. My docile and loving cat had turned into to a wild animal. Susan had already given up on her experiment and was waiting in the truck with Baxter already cowering in his cage.

"So much for that idea," I said. She agreed.

I posted accounts of our progress with pictures from the digital camera using my laptop in our motel room every night. At Motel-6s pets were welcome, they were cheap and everywhere, so that's where we always stayed.

Before we left I had secured a website and already posted a 'blog' or two chronicling our preparations. Now that money was desperately short and the reality of our move raining down on us harder by the minute, the prospect of our week-long journal-driven trip had lost much of its luster. There were also the cats to consider.

In the truck cab we opened the cats' cages to give them some small measure of freedom and access to the small litter box and water dish we had for them. By-and-large they stuck to the cages. Penelope eventually migrated to hide under my seat. Baxter on the other hand, developed enough curiosity late in the trip to hop up on the dashboard and even seemed to enjoy watching the passing landscape. Penelope never got used to traveling and stayed hidden the whole trip.

Our first night we stopped somewhere in Western Ohio.  In Kansas we pulled off the Interstate to take in local color but soon returned to the generic four-lane catapult and we continued to make a bee-line for Southern California.

That night we bunked down in Denver, Colorado. Crossing the mountains in our overloaded truck the next day made me wish I'd taken the southern route through Arkansas, New Mexico and Arizona. We inched up the hills like a toggle train and the down grades were a nerve-wracking balance of brakes and low gears. I neglected to buy fuel in Grand Junction and during the trip across the Utah desert. As the miles ticked away and it was apparent we were heading deeper and deeper into the middle of nowhere, I spend more time watching the gas gauge than the road. William Least Heat Moon said in his book Blue Highways that if you clench your butt cheeks tight enough, you can drive on "E" nearly forever.

Couldn't hurt.

Fortunately there was one gas station a hundred tense miles later. We squeaked in and were happy to pay what was probably a dollar over the national average and my butt cheeks got to relax for the rest of the days travel.

That evening, as we closed in on our night's stay in Cedar City, Utah, my emotions were beginning to catch up with me. I was crying as I drove. I was thinking of all the friends and family so far behind us. I thought of our empty house. As run down as it was, it had been our home—mine for ten years—and now it was merely part of our past. We were off the diving board now and about to hit the water. No turning back. Then I thought of how our cats would never again see their yard and they didn't even know it. That really did it. I started crying hard enough I nearly had to pull over. Susan, who was cool and collected, didn't say anything and didn't seem very sympathetic. It was I who had uprooted her life and dragged her out here, perhaps she didn't have patience for my blubbering at the moment in light of her sacrifice. Maybe she didn't want to have to be the strong one right then.

The next morning I had a renewed confidence when we hit the road. We got a late start but we were only about ten hours away I figured.

Las Vegas… Barstow… we passed through them without stopping. We had dinner at a Denny's in Victorville and continued down through the Cajon pass. The Cajon Pass is a slalom ride into the LA basin and our deliverance from the ever-bleached desert landscape and to slightly greener, watered palm, urban sprawl and a rust-colored cloud of pollution. We didn't care though, it was our goal; our new home.

An hour later, having inched only twenty five miles down the I-10 and still thirty miles from Hollywood, our excitement was considerably less. Mile after mile it was bumper-to-bumper. It was around seven o'clock, surely rush hour had died down for the most part. Was this what we were in for? We had come all this way and we were so close. It seemed we would never get through those last thirty miles. The traffic did free up for the most part about five miles from downtown LA and as I look back, the only time I've seen traffic that bad on the 10 since that time was rush hour the day before Thanksgiving a few years back.

We followed the directions to our final Motel-6:. I-10 West to the 101 North, Exit at Hollywood Blvd. Turn left and drive for two miles…

It was unreal driving down Hollywood blvd. with everything we owned in the World behind us. Our eyes were glazed with the lights. The pavement of Hollywood Blvd. is infused with crushed glass as are the sidewalks, so it actually sparkles. Soon we saw the stars of "The Walk of Fame". Crossing Vine Street. Look!, to the right, the Capital Records building!

Yes, it's glitz and glam, cheap and fake. There was seething underbelly of many questionable individuals on the street and shops closed up for the day with novels of graffiti painted on the steel roll-downs. A barefoot crazy guy yelling at the air, or anyone that passed by. We weren't blind to that side either but it didn't matter, it was all part of the same adventure.

Right on Whitley, half a block on the right.

There it was. Motel-6. It was not just our home for the night but for as long as it took to find an apartment.

We had arrived.

I break away from the story to mention that this point in the story was ten years ago to-the-minute (August 29^th, 1998 8:30PM, PST) that this blog update was posted. I've now been here for ten years!

Now that we were out of the truck I noticed that it was quite warm, hot even, for eight-thirty in the evening. I had researched LA pretty thoroughly. Low humidity and rarely over eighty in the LA basin (in the Valley, all bets are off). Was I wrong?

The clerk who checked us into the hotel complained to one of his co-workers about the heat.

"Thank God," I said. "This heat must be unusual."

"Oh yeah," he said. "It hasn't been hot like this all summer."

After they instructed me where to park I noticed that there was not nearly enough clearance in the underground lot for our truck.

I went inside to ask what I should do. Surely they had encountered this sort of thing before; a couple of wide-eyed newbies in a moving truck.

Surely, they had not.

They told me, in so many words, I was on my own. For the next half hour I zig-zagged the back streets looking for a spot I could keep the truck overnight where it stood a good chance of still being there in the morning.

On Cherokee Avenue, across Hollywood Boulevard, I found a spot that didn't look too bad. I parked the truck, got out and walked away. I looked back when I got to the end of the street.

God, I hoped it would be there in the morning.

To Be Continued…