PLAY IT AS IT L.A.’S

I’m in Los Angeles right now and although I’m sitting in my favorite coffee shop, Aroma in Studio City, in the landscape of me not a creature is stirring.  Not even a Mickey Mouse.

Whether we know it or not, when we travel, besides underwear and Ambien, we unconsciously pack a week’s dose of portable zen which never has to be unpacked because zen is an inside job.

I spent half my life here beginning in the late seventies when the sky was brown and so was Jackson.  No. Not Michael.  We’re talking the troubadour who knew how to take it easy. Well, okay. Michael too.

Back then Los Angeles was still the world that the Beach Boys extolled in all their surf happy songs.  There were no car or house alarms in those days. In fact we used to keep our front door wide open at night to let the cool night breeze tumble it’s way in.  There was no traffic.  Ever.  Today they call the freeway the 405 because it takes between 101 and 405 minutes to get anywhere.  For even a trip to the supermarket, you have to take life sustaining provisions with you.  

Hollywood after all, to this day, is a Donner Party town.

L.A. in the day was marshmallow mellow.  Tanning was the number one intellectual pursuit of the day.  If your feet did not touch stand on any given day, they made an audible weeping sound.  

We were a population of Jeff Spicolis in puka shell necklaces and vintage Hawaiian shirts, an army of casual stoners who listened religiously to KNX-FM (the mellow sound of course) as we received our marching orders for the daze from Dan Fogelberg, The Eagles, Crosby, Stills and Nash and the ladies of the canyon, which was the main headquarters of Groovy Town.

We were so laid back that any outside observer could easily mistake us for Sunny Van Bulow comatose. We hit the NuArt for films.  Cruised Papa Bach books across the street for a hit of Ferlinghetti our Didion, hung out in Diners, some of which had toasters on the table, which was our high tech of the day and burned your toast even if they were set to Caucasian light.

I drove an Orange VW Bug that came equipped with a Citizens Band radio, which was basically a walkie talkie which was created specifically for Truckers so that they could stay awake by talking to each other.   They hated that guys like me, who were constantly interrupting the flow, to cut into the conversation and play.   My handle was “The Big Apple,” and I spoke fluent CB.  The affirmative, for example, was “10-4” which was right out of Highway Patrol.  If you know that particular reference, odds are that you passed away from old age thirty years ago.  The truckers, who were obviously enraptured by our presence, would respond with, “Get the fuck off the radio asshole!”  Good times.

The main temple of LA was not the Mormon one on the hill above Santa Monica Blvd.  It was Tower Records on Sunset which was the the daily pilgrimage destination of it’s day, at all hours of the day and night.  It was run by hippies like us who lead us to the next album that we would play for, well, I’m still playing them.  Directly across the street, right next to Book Soup, was Tower Classical which attracted millions. Wait. Did I say millions?  I meant one guy named Bob, who most likely played the triangle for the L.A. Philharmonic and had a stuffed squirrel for a pet.

I remember walking into another record store, Licorice Pizza, on Wilshire Blvd in West L.A. and they were playing the first Roche’s album and the sound literally staggered me, like I was one of the people shot who was standing near President Reagan when he was number one with a bullet.  

In the sixties right through the seventies, it seems like every single album that came out was important, symphonic, melodic and life affirming.  They didn’t just make us sing and dance.  They galvanized us to action...or to have copious sex.

Music spoke to us in the exclusive 18-30 language of the day and every single (and album) release instantly became the soundtrack of our lives.  Harmony was pure and participatory.   We all had guitars, which were the automatic weapons of the day which we carried.  We smoked weed, popped tranquilizers like Skittles and sang our little hearts out.  Literally, by the end of the night, couple’s hearts conjoined like Siamese Twins, and then we got naked and had great sex.

Nudity was the other fashion of the day.  We would Sunset Strip at the drop of our drawers.  Weed always seem to lead us to the next communal hot tub, where we marinated for hours like Italian sauce.

Disneyland is where you went to dared them to throw you out.  Long hair was not permitted.  Years later I got arrested there by the Mickey Mouse police, accused by an undercover lady cop for shop lifting, because my little one had put on a hat and we walked away not noticing it. That’s for another story, which was just hilarious—especially since I was under contract to Disney at the time.  I am not exaggerating when I say that they literally interrogated both my wife and I, individually in their “police station” interrogation room, like any scene out of Law and Order.  We eventually got escorted out because my wife could not stop laughing during her interrogation.  But they did take our picture as a warning that in the future the would be keeping an eye out for us. 

Concerts were also a part of the pilgrimage.  We would head to the Universal Amphetimine...no...I mean Amphitheater, and as the full moon would slowly rise behind the artist, we would watch acts like Steve Martin’s wild and crazy guy open for the Blues Brothers,  Paul Simon and Kenny Loggins.   Stand up comics became rock stars so we would go see Robin Williams, Gary Shandling, Richard Jani open for people like Donna Summer.  I saw Frank there too.  He was not announced.  He just swaggered out and ring-a-ding-dinged us in a voice that was soaked in Jack Daniels and nicotine.

The Hollywood Bowl reeked of history.  The ghosts of Fred Astaire and Gershwin were still wailing and echoing in the hills that it was carved in to. I would buy into a full series of weekend concerts and see/hear the likes of Ella, Carmen, Big Joe Turner, Tony Bennett, Mel Torme and on and on.  I remember that people would sit high up in the trees that guarded the perimeter of the Bowl, swallowed by the Moby Dick darkness of the night and hoot and holler like jungle natives, as the hoi poloi rattled their jewelry in the box seats as they dined on high end picnic basket booty while they swilled their champagne and snorted their Peruvian coke.

Then there was the Troubador, the Whiskey and the Roxy which was where you went to die from the billowing toxic plumes of cigarette ether while you watched folk singers sing about saving the planet.

Cable TV started in the day and we used to watch the “Z” channel which was like a 24-hour film festival of cool and eclectic movies.  It was programmed like a hip radio station and we were totally infatuated by it.

For getaways (which is the phrase most Studio Executives say to writer, as in “Getaway, this script doesn’t work”) we went to Two Bunch Palms in Desert Hot Springs, which was a once upon a time Al Capone hideout turned groovy spa.  You would be greeted with a fat doobie at the door and spend the rest of the weekend in the Two Bunch Palm uniform: naked.   There was Joshua Tree for hiking and tripping.

You could always head up to Santa Barbara which was quaint in the day and filled to the brim with antique stores.  I wandered into one and to my own astonishment found a Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos comic cook with my published letter in it that I had written when I was 12!

We went to San Francisco for a coastal mainline shot of civility and Dead music.

We also went down to Rosarita Beach and Ensenada where the Federales would throw you in the tank in exchange for all the money that you had in your wallet.

Shopping was mostly Vintage stores and eventually Fred Segal’s where you would spot celebrities trying on jeans.  I remember, for some reason, watching the VERY young Ellen DeGeneres trying on clothes.  

Seeing famous people is so frequent, that actual famous people, wherever they go, find it almost impossible to pick out everyday people.

I was under contract to Studios:  first Disney, then Universal and then Columbia where we developed projects while we practiced debauchery.   Drugs and sex were the negotiable currency of the day and the times they were a boomin’.   I remember one day,  a particularly lusty secretary, probably fueled by a dare, casually ambled off the elevator wearing only a hat.

At Universal I had contact with some amazing people.  Anne Beatts comes to mind.  John Epstein who did McMillan and Wife.  Jerry Abrams, J.J.’s dad. (Great guy).  I conjured up ideas for series, while I  massively abused my expense account, especially when we would air freight films in from Chicago to watch while being staggeringly stoned with my bad boy compadres and absolutely worst influences Marc Warren and Dennis Rinsler, who literally invented partying.  

I wrote on Charles in Charge, Together We Stand, Fernwood Tonighy (for Norman Lear), The George Burns Comedy Week and eventually all that lead to 18 consecutive years of staffing and/or running and/or co-creating shows. My Two Dads. Full House.  The Royal Family (Redd Foxx had a heart attack and died on the set. Initially everyone laughed and applauded because they thought he was doing a “Fred Sanford.”  No one knew CPR, so Della Reese created a prayer circle around him.  Sadly, God did not know CPR either so by the time the EMT guys showed up, Redd had left the building.  But he died happy and full of love for his young Korean wife and unfortunately with lungs that were full of emphysema. 

From there it was Fresh Prince, Sister, Sister, The Wayans and then Mad About You.  I even have a new show that is streaming right now on Hulu that I co-created with the adorable Paul Reiser, called “There’s Johnny” (as in Johnny Carson of the 1972 Burbank years).  The writing/Hollywood addiction continues, which is why I live in New York now, writing plays as a form of penance in search of depth.   

It is virtually impossible to find the deep end of the LA kiddie pool.  

Today I consider myself, finally, a writer.  Back in my nascent, baby David LA days,  my life was just an extension of high school.  It was traveling from one clique to the next where the Mean Girls and Boy, mostly tanked onfear were well practiced in ther art of MEAN.

I have many stories to tell, which actually began in my pre-L.A. days in the late seventies whenI was a first trimester Publicist for United Artists in their New York based 729 Seventh Avenue building and worked on the campaign for films like Rocky 1,  Network, Cuckoo’s Nest, plus the Woody Allen and James Bond films.  We also worked on MGM films which included the premiere of “That’s Entertainment, Part 2” at the Ziegfeld Theater which was attended by Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Donald O’Conner, Johnny Weissmuller,  Bobby Van, Katherine Grayson, Jackie Onassis, Bob Fosse and on and on and on.  In one night.   And there I am in the background of all the press shots, long-haired and bearded, wearing a tux and a Casio watch, sailing on the fumes of wow.

I have a book in me that will be called, “I Wake Up Screening,” which will highlight every single major fuck up that made me the publicist that I am not today.  Major. Major. Fuck ups.  And hilarious.

And now, here I sit, back in LA, my fingers tapping away like Ann Miller on crack, reminiscing, while I kill some quality time, as I await rehearsals for my play, Grave Doubts (a new play full of plot holes) which is going to be read this Tuesday, June 19th at 7PM at The Whitefire Theater in Sherman Oaks, which everyone on the planet should attend.   Theater, unlike in New York  is not a big thing here.  Personally I think that they should make attending theatrt a part of traffic school where you could clean your record by watching an original play.

The seats would be filled forever.

IMy play is a deeply personal account of everything that haunted me as a child, come to life for your enjoyment and my own, personal horror. 

By plumming  the depths, I have learned this:

You do not exorcise ghosts

You tame them like pit bulls, who can still turn on you and eat your face off if they are suddenly in the mood.  

Kind of like Hollywood itself.

But right now, high on caffeine, I look back not in anger, but in amazement of what I have accomplished and better yet what lies ahead.

Because despite the active and ongoing campaign against it,  aging does not suck.  It hurts, I’ll admit that.  But having just visited heaven which has emerged in LA in the form of Medmen, which is the chic, Apple Store equivalent for legal and recreational cannabis  (which frankly is a lot better and more enjoyable than cannibalism) I have discovered my own personal Lourdes.  

One stick-on back patch and I was pain free for 12 hours for the first time since Kindergarten.

So there you have it.  

My form of unpacking zen for the day.

It’s the lightest that I have ever traveled.