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…