Polly-Who?

It’s been a long time. I would love to say it was because I was busy being fabulous or shepherding a burgeoning career along. Anyone who has been with me from the start will know I had a fairly Pollyanna outlook on life and my career potential as a writer. My tagline: ‘for the naive and hopeful’ pretty much says it all. As the years passed by I’ve lived a sort of Hollywood-adjacent life. After a while, I didn’t have a very Pollyanna outlook anymore.

I recently spoke with an eternally optimistic friend about life in general. He shared how great life was going for him and I was genuinely relieved. It felt so nice to hear about good stuff happening for a good person. When I replied with my laundry list of life he said “Jesus, how do you get out of bed in the morning?” It finally dawned on me: it’s not just me being whiny. I’ve had a shit-pile of a year and since that's what is, that’s what I’m going to write. I promise not to be morose or self-pitying (as much as I can). I will look for the humor and snark whereever I can. I’ll look for the lesson and the growth.

I’m going to start with the hard stuff: my mother is entering hospice care in a few weeks. My family is braced for that end and dealing with the emotional roller coaster as it comes. How does one go about saying goodbye to the person who gave you life? My father is aging and it’s not easy to watch. He forgets our wonderful, long conversations and chastises me for never calling. He is in a world of pain of his own making I cannot seem to reach or help him out of.

My husband and I live in a dark, noisy condo with a crazy shut-in for a next door neighbor who verbally assaulted and threatened me for the fact that my husband and I apparently spend our free time standing outside her door meowing to try to make her dog bark. Really? (Yes, I see the comedy potential there and I DID get to make my first police report so that was exciting.)

That same neighbor led the charge against us this year when we got a new puppy who had severe separation anxiety. In the end, we were forced to return to the shelter a beautiful dog who could have been a great family member given enough time and training. His loss ripped open the scab that was still fresh from losing my beloved Simon last year.

I do rewarding, important non-profit work that doesn’t pay much. It occupies my scant waking hours. I do the job of at least two people and am never able to get ahead of my to-do list or do the outreach I need to do in order for our organization to thrive. I spent a good chunk of time this year dealing with a vengeful idiot who was more interested in being right (though she was wrong) than in taking responsibility for herself. She, more than anyone this year, made me lose faith in humanity.

Underscoring everything is the fact that I’ve been sick for the better part of two years with what has generically been dismissed as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I’ve been poked and prodded by every specialist imaginable. I’ve been told I have cancer several times only to have the tests show nothing of the sort. (An “I’m sorry about the C word” would have been nice, Docs.) Most days I cannot function for more than four or five-hour chunks in between which I have to sleep. If I don’t, my body shuts down as in seriously: I crashed my car one day because I pushed too hard past shut-down.

I pretend that I am fine most of the time and people get irritated that I cannot be productive like I used to. They have no idea that it’s a struggle to be awake and that I can’t remember what I promised to do for them last week unless I wrote it down. Aside from the deep circles under my eyes, I don’t look sick so it’s hard when I find myself in the awkward position of convincing someone I am and not just making excuses for having neglected that to-do item. It has brought home to me the Philo of Alexandria quote that a friend signs her emails with: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

Then there’s my life’s mission. To write. I don’t write anymore. Except for two weeks in the summer when we go on vacation, my life is absorbed by these duties, dramas and disappointments. I came here to write and I don’t. That, more than anything, breaks my heart.

When I did write something, it was stolen from me and produced without crediting me. Someone I’d known it was a mistake to trust had lied to me and I hadn’t seen it coming.

When I look at it all in a pile like this, it seems to be a year soaked in tears and heavy sighs. To put it succinctly, I can’t do another year like this.

So I am pulling myself out. My blog header used to say something about believing in the dream and the day I couldn’t say that anymore would be the day I’d pack up and leave. By all accounts I should have left by now. But I am choosing to stay. I don’t know why, really, except maybe force of habit. Maybe there is a tiny speck of me that does still believe.

I am working with a new doctor now who finally has me on a road to recovery. My mother’s hospice is twenty minutes from me so I will get to spend many more hours exploring the mystery of life with her. I have a beautiful new niece who reminds me of life’s joy every time I see her. I have some wonderful new friends of wisdom and integrity and am slowly culling the crazies out of my life. I have some wonderful old friends who’ve stood by me. I see my daily work rewarded in the smiles of my students who find their power and live better lives because of me. Despite my best efforts, I find myself married to a lovely man who adores me and makes my days warm and safe. Together we run a screenwriting intensive in Tuscany in the summers and being in Italy yearly feeds my soul.

And I’m writing again. I have a wonderful new creative partner and there are interesting things brewing for us. I’m thrilled to have the energy and will to sit and write this right now. I may be a little rusty. But I am making a commitment to be back in the blogosphere for 2012 – this month marks the seventh anniversary of this blog. It’s going to be a strange, heart-breaking, wonderful ride. I hope you will take it with me.

What's in a Tagline?

After a recent post, I clicked on my blog to check the spacing and I mused for a moment on my tagline: A Tinseltown Chronicle for the Naïve and Hopeful. I started this blog over five years ago and I genuinely was that girl. Fresh from my small mountain town, a fancy job in a big studio, writing training at a prestigious university, I believed with all my Pollyanna heart that I would have a meteoric rise as sought-after writer in this town, that I’d meet and marry a rich and famous Prince Charming and all would be well with the universe. I’d been told my whole life that I was special. I believed that my life would enjoy such rarified trajectories because I deserved it – I was destined for it.

I began blogging as a witty aside to my days. My goal was to produce a stable of comedy essays that would be curated into a book ala David Sedaris. Not that I claimed to have Sedaris level talent. But I still thought a publisher or three would sit up and take notice.

I’ve noticed of late – like over the last year or more – the comedy has abated. More of my essays seem to focus on something that infuriated me, hurt me or left me indignant or incredulous. If you came here for the comedy, sorry to disappoint. But, as I'm finding, so like life.

What happed to that funny girl who believed that “any day success can come it this town”? I actually said that during my first year here to a neighbor as I was out walking. I heard them laughing at me as I walked away.

The studio job evaporated in a corporate take-over. I went on to produce an independent film but its distribution has been an uphill battle, not the break-out hit/calling-card project as hoped. I’ve sort of slid sideways out of the film business and find myself running a non-profit that helps women. It’s a vital and worthy cause and it should make me feel fulfilled. Instead it just reminds me every day that there was no meteoric rise to film power. From the film sidelines, I watch my compatriots go on without me.

As for Prince Charming, the famous one broke my heart as it had never been broken before and I made an abject fool of myself pining for him and trying to win him back. My heart got kicked around by a few others to whom I gave it too easily hoping they might stop that pain. I finally met and married a wonderful man who doesn’t have any such show biz meteors up his sleeve. We are safe together and on the same page.

All in all my life is quite pleasant. It has settled down to be normal and average. Normal and average. Two words that always made me cringe.

As a kid, even understanding I was special, I thought I’d be great at normal. I was raised by my father with a kind of anachronistic set of 50’s ‘be true to your school,’ sock-hop values. I assumed I’d be a cheerleader, date a football player and wear a letterman jacket while driving my Studebaker with a raccoon tail flying from the antenna. I got to high school and was shocked to realize school spirit was super-uncool, the cheerleaders were the skanks of school and the football players were idiots. I was unequipped for navigation in such waters so I sank to the bottom in my own bubble of “off-beat, unique, eccentric, eclectic.” I cultivated that bubble through college where I was a DJ. The more fringe you were the better. The sooner you declared that a band had sold out, were over-exposed and moved on from them, the more insider you were. My whole adult life has been: “if everyone else if going right, I’m going left.”

And now to be faced with normalcy and average-ness. No wonder I’m filled with upset and angst that flows into my writing. The film career fizzled, the book deal never knocked. The famous I thought I’d hob nob with flow past my window without seeing me.

I moved here because I realized I was living a small life in my little town. I didn’t want to wake up one morning ten years later with nothing to show and wonder what would have happened if I’d only gone out to LA and reached for the brass ring. Well it may not quite be ten years later but I reached. At least I’ve answered that question for myself. I caught at a bigger, more glitzy, more important life. I didn’t get it.

So it seems my tagline should be changed. I happen to live in Hollywood but really have nothing to do with Tinseltown, the mythic construct that functions around and without me. While I still have moments of Pollyanna trust, I am no longer the naïve ingénue that believes success is just around the corner ‘cause doggone it, I’m special.’ I have finally become that most average of Hollywood states: jaded. And as for hopeful. That strikes me as a saddest part. I have lost my hope in success - in my talent bringing a film/writing career to life. In the absence of hope, resignation fills the void and I see I have become bitter. I am sorry to see that flow into my writing and on to these pages but it’s what is true for me.

“An LA chronicle for the jaded and bitter” doesn’t have that great a ring to it. But I finally fit in with all the other bitter writers grumbling in cafes. I have become a true Hollywood girl… Which may ironically mean that success really is right around the corner. While I don’t hold my breath, I suppose it’s time for me to take a step back and reassess what success looks like for me. It’s time to start finding it in the small victories, in the little bubbles that make up my days. I’ll leave the tagline as is for now, just in case.

Awkward

I went to the Arclight this week, the only cinema in LA as far as I’m concerned in my …is it snobbishness or curmudgeonly-ness? OK I do love the vintage movie houses like the Vista et. al. l but I digress. I went to the Arclight and while waiting for my friend in the lobby, I saw what can best be described as a former acquaintance walk in. He hadn’t changed much in the six years since I’d last seen him. Still tall and mostly bald, still somewhat sheepish, with an awkward walk. I could see by the emblazoned sweatshirt he wore that he was working on one of the new cable shows this year. I turned to see if he’d see me and wondered how to greet him.

We met when I was at film school and he was a featured speaker as a writer who had a successful film out. It was actually he and his brother – his hunky, fit, charming brother. After their lecture I plowed down the stairs of the lecture hall in my forthright, still-unjaded way and marched right up to them. I figured it would be smart to make a connection with a working writer and it would be an added bonus if I could date a cute one.

Sadly, the cute one was mobbed so I ended up connecting with the awkward one who was eager to have someone be interested in him. He was very sweet and we agreed to meet up the next week. Excellent, I thought, I have my first connection in Hollywood! It would have been fabulous if it had been romantic too but I was contented to have a new friend. Besides, maybe there was a way I could get to his brother…

So we had drinks that week. He creeped me out when he did an awkward lean-in at the end of the evening. I avoided the smooch and tried to make it as gently clear as I could that this was not like that. It seemed fine. We hung out a few times with other family friends, and in other social settings but the brother was never around. Maybe Awkward wasn’t so bad. He was smart and funny. He was kind and a little eccentric. His looks left me cold as did his lack of charisma but maybe I’d be OK with that if I looked a little deeper.

At this point it became clear that their writing team was as imbalanced as their looks. The cute brother had been hired on a show and assigned a feature script. Awkward continued to have his pitches turned down and lived off old family money. It also became clear that he thought this was more than just a friendly writer mentoring situation. The details are fuzzy now as it’s been so long but I seem to recall he tried to kiss me again and my firm no sent him scurrying. It seemed there was no friendship possible on his end without romantic attachments and on my end there was none possible with.

I knew I’d hurt him even though I thought I’d been clear on that first “date”. Well at least clear-ish. Maybe a part of me knew he was only continuing to talk to me because I was young and cute and looked up to him. Maybe I knew he hoped this would go somewhere romantic. Who are we kidding, I was only talking to him for mentorship and business connections. I hadn’t even written my first script yet! I suppose it was a case of mutual using and we both walked away unsatisfied.

After my last exit following that awkward kiss attempt, I never heard from him again. His humiliation over the rejection apparently precluded any possible continued friendship. I was sad to lose my one connection in a town where it’s all who you know and I knew nobody. But it was a good lesson learned: I’m not up to the challenge of toying with men’s hearts to get what I want. I just can’t fake it.

When he walked into the Arclight, I was the only other person standing in the lobby so it’s not possible that he didn’t see me. However, six years is a long time. My hair is different, my clothes are different. Maybe he didn’t recognize me. I thought for a second about going over to him, catching up, seeing how he was. But then I stopped. If he’d been so hurt, he may not have relished being faced with me. I decided to leave well enough alone. He did his awkward walk toward his theatre. I watched him go and hoped his new series gets picked up.

Justifiable Ignorance?

When FX announced their new series, Justified, I was excited. Put Timothy Olyphant in a cowboy hat and I’m there. After watching the season so far it ain’t no Deadwood but it is mildly entertaining in a run-of-the-mill kind of TV way. I was disappointed then in the writing in a recent episode.

A girl was stuck in the desert with a good guy and a bad guy. The bad guy started leering at the girl; backing her into a metaphorical corner. The good guy, already wounded, picked up a big rock and killed him, then sat in shock over the horrible thing he’d just done.

The girl comforted him that he’d done the right thing. “He was going to rape me!” She reminded him. Just like it was a foregone conclusion - as if she had no say in the matter, there was nothing she could have done to defend herself. I was on my feet screaming at the TV.

Was this episode written by a man who was going for the tired old “hero saves the helpless girl” crap? Or worse: Was the episode merely reflecting that perceived societal truth that there is nothing women can do to defend themselves against rape? Given that my whole life is about training women to do just that, my heart broke. I’m sure it seemed like an innocuous moment to many viewers and even those on the show. But that’s just it, this stuff is not innocuous. It’s how that kind of mindset infects both men and women by seeping in under the radar.

This is a good time for me to state that I never blame a rape survivor. Given that no girl wants to be raped, I’m very clear that all of us do what we know to do if faced with such a dire situation. The problem is that too many women don’t know that they do in fact have options - that it’s not a foregone conclusion, that there is something they can do with their own powerful bodies. TV scenarios like this just reinforce that potentially deadly ignorance.

I always worry about how the media may negatively influence my students. I caution them on watching too many popular procedural shows where the girl gets backed into the corner by the bad guy, she screams, flails her hands, cut to: she’s on the slab in the morgue and the clever cops go on to solve the case. Our brains record this information and if, God forbid, we are ever faced with a similar situation – backed into a corner, say, our brains search for what to do. If all we’ve seen are women screaming and flailing, our brains will likely settle on that as the only solution they’re familiar with. We’ll scream, flail…, and you know how the story ends. “Entertainment” scenarios in which women are consistently portrayed as helpless can be harmful to your health.

If you are involved in entertainment, be responsible for showing what real women are like: fierce, feminine, and able to defend themselves. It’s up to you to shift this perception by both men and women. It’s up to you to seed empowerment in the minds of women and girl viewers. Imagine a TV world where it was a given that a girl would simply kick the ass of someone who assaulted her. That’s MY reality. I’d like to see it reflected in my entertainment!

What examples of disempowering TV do you notice in a week’s time? I ask my girls to report on this weekly and sadly they always come in with plenty of examples. I’d love to hear what you notice. Here's hoping that Justified ups its game and shows women as the powerful creatures they are.

Diablo Cody Frosts My Mitten

Last year, the Oscars were a bitter pill for me. I railed against the nomination and win of Diablo Cody and “Juno” for best screenplay. They say we writers are vicious bunch of haters when it comes to our fellow writers’ success. And, well, it’s true. But sometimes it’s also merited.

I had many issues with the film from a feminist perspective as well as the overall, gag-me cuteness factor. She was lauded for the quirkiness of her characters while I felt she shorthanded quirkiness with an unusual phone and other props. Isn’t real character more than props?

“Oooooh, look how funky her kids talk! How natural. She captured the 16 year old,” people said. Um, no, that’s a 35 year old putting the quirk and construction of 35 year old speak into the mouth of a 16 year old. I was a damn funky 16 year old and I didn’t speak like that. I speak like that now.

Even more annoying was her hipper-than-thou musical references. That’s my gig. I wrote a screenplay four years ago featuring a character who wore a “your favorite band sucks” t-shirt and bring my years of bona-fide college radio DJ experience to everything I write.

People were amazed that Diablo “discovered” the Moldy Peaches. “New indie rock darlings” the heralds blasted. Thank the gods Diablo, our hipness prophet, delivered them unto us. I hated the Peaches eight years ago when I saw them play a little club in Denver. They sucked then and they still suck.

My ire spun out of control.

“But she’s a woman. And she won,” my producing partner gently reminded me. It’s a well-worn fact that as women in the industry we are fighting an uphill battle with a miniscule percentage of films directed or written by women, let alone nominated. She had a point. I felt a pang of guilt about not supporting our sister.

Then I got it. My script with the “your favorite band sucks” t-shirt. The random game my friends and I used to play defining our quirkiness by who could come up with the best non-sequitor. Breaking the best indie bands. The thrill of writing the little script that could… I was pissed because Diablo Cody stole my shtick. And she won a freakin’ Oscar for it. So now, what were the odds my quirky girl script could win anything? Or even be made?

All my issues with the Juno script aside, I was really insanely jealous. Which I guess is a form of flattery – if somewhat twisted. I finally saw Diablo with kindness and solidarity.

This year I missed her up there on the stage bereft of female nominees, not to mention wins. I don’t dig her style per se but I hope she’s up there again next year along with every other woman making upward progress in Hollywood.

If begrudging another’s success initiated me into real writer-hood, all that remains is the other part of the initiation: actually having one of my scripts sold and made.

Hello, Hollywood? It’s ready. It’s quirky. Call me. Love you. Mean it.

The Note Writer

I am that neighbor.

I have stuck my head out the window at 3am and shouted for quiet. Those darn kids. I have left notes in their mailboxes when they woke up the whole street for weeks on end. I have left notes on cars sticking into my driveway or otherwise inconsiderately parked.

I have considered leaving notes for people with selfish signs:

“Don’t even think of parking here” – It’s a public street. You don’t have the right to restrict parking.

“If caught disposing of trash in this bin, you will be prosecuted” – If you spend your energy on something as trivial as guarding your trash cans you must have a sad life.

“Yes on Prop 8” – You are a hateful bigot…but then we’ve already been over that one.

I have also considered leaving notes for other concerning behaviors: The whole street can hear you when you scream at your elderly mother. We wonder if we should report elder abuse.

Sometimes I just feel the need to blow off the steam of my occasional outrage at the state of the Universe. Notes are fairly harmless. Plus every thwarted screenwriter needs as many outlets as she can get.

The thing is I also am the neighbor everyone likes, the one you can count on, the one you invite over for tea and cookies. I don’t know if they’d be so quick with the Toll House if they knew I was the righteous note bitch. I like to keep my righteous note soap-boxing anonymous. I feel my noted opinions are indubitably correct but I still don’t want anyone to know it’s me – just in case they’re not.

I was having tea and cookies last night at a neighbor’s when a friend of theirs popped in for a cuppa. He said he was parked in the alley with his hazards on. I suggested he park in my driveway and he chuckled. Then our hosts chuckled.

“What?” I asked.

“Tell her,” one prompted.

“Well,” hedged the guest, “it’s just kind of funny that you would offer since you once left that note on my car.”

I froze, horrified. How did they know? “What note?”

“I guess I didn’t realize four cars can fit across the street and I had sort of parked in the middle of the space so only three –“

“It said ‘please be a considerate neighbor,’” interrupted our host, “’four cars park here.’” She giggled. The guest giggled. Everyone giggled but me.

I actually remembered coming home expecting to park in front of my house but being thwarted by a rogue car who, very rudely in my estimation, took up more than his share of curb so that I couldn’t. I was pissed. Indignant. I wrote a note and smacked it on the windshield. If there was one thing I couldn’t stand it was people who were oblivious to how their actions affected others. I remembered writing that note; being that righteous bitch.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I waffled. “I didn’t leave a note.”

My hosts chuckled on. It was clearly no big deal. But I was on a roll.

“Why do you think it was me?”

“You said you left notes.”

“Yeah, for the loud kids. They woke us all up for a month, remember? But… never just on a car.” I dug deeper.

“Oh. Huh.” The chuckling was dying out now.

“I’m actually kind of offended that you would think it was me.” Dang this was a big shovel.

“Oh don’t be offended. It was just funny.”

The evening went on from there and we moved on but I kept thinking about it. I wasn’t actually offended, of course. I just hadn’t known what else to say. It probably would have been much better for me to admit to the note and laugh along with them since it was clearly no biggie to them. But something stopped me. I didn’t want them to think I was an awful note-leaver.

I had always kept my notes anonymous because I was afraid, not of being wrong, but of being thought of as the bitchy busy-body with nothing better to do but leave notes on cars, passing judgment on others’ actions from on high. I didn’t think anyone would invite a note writer over for tea and cookies. Not being part of their neighbor family was what I was afraid of.

Yet they had laughed. They didn’t care if I was a quirky, occasionally indignant note writer. They knew and had accepted me for me anyway. Even then, I was afraid to trust them with my silly truth.

As I walked home, warm with tea. I though how silly I had been to lie. It’s not like the secret identity I was protecting was like Superman or anything. I was just the Note Writer. I will set the record straight over tea tonight. I finally get it. Friends accept you, opinions and all, and don’t cast judgment even if one’s opinion delivery method is a tad ridiculous. I’ll have to write them a thank you note.

La Dolce Far' Niente

I am a blessed woman. I come from a family that values travel as the best education. One of my favorite bragging points about myself is that I’ve been to every country in Western Europe and about half of Eastern. But anyone who knows me, knows I have one true love: Italy. I knew there was something special between us when I came home from my first multi-country hop, walked into my high school English classroom and burst into sentimental tears at the sight of a Florentine Duomo poster.

Once again I am even more blessed. I got to spend July with my beloved. And my boyfriend too (an Italian, of course). We celebrated our year anniversary with a UCLA writing intensive. As always I never want to come home from that magical country and upon yet another tearful return, my BF asked me: what is it about Italy exactly that has such a hold on me? Not that he’d argue with my opinion but he’s pretty content here.

I could say the food, the people, the language, the history and all of the above are true love motivations for me. My BF argues it’s possible to get all that here: there are some (a teeny handful) of good Italian restaurants here. I have lots of Italian friends here. I can speak Italian with them or with the BF whenever I want. I have my kitchen geared for Espresso, not drip. But there is still a missing intangible that I love. The sum of Italian life is greater than the parts. The best I can come up with is: I love Italy for how I feel when I’m there.

To put it in context, it helps to understand that I was stressed out of my mind before our trip. Broken out worse than ever, trying to get distribution for one film, find financing for another, attach my favorite BSG star to a third, prep pitch materials for CAA for a fourth, AND struggle to turn a floundering company into a non-profit, AND work enough hours at that and several other freelance gigs to make a month’s income in ten days so as to pay my rent before leaving. I was pretty much stretched to the breaking point. But then, that’s nothing unusual for life in LA.

And then there’s Italy. Even there for a writing intensive and working from 8am to 8pm there was such joy. I stopped worrying about just when something got done and noticed it always got done just fine. I took pride in arranging breakfast and cleaning the kitchen after our troop of nine writers. Even the simple act of stringing up laundry to dry in the sun was enjoyable. It’s not just the air in Italy that makes me enjoy life there, it’s the breathing room. Nothing is done in fretta.

And then the weekend came and no matter how much work loomed before us, we hung up our weary laptops and went out and enjoyed. And didn’t feel guilty about it. This is a particularly American concept. Guilt about pleasure. Feeling that we have to earn happiness instead of just being entitled to it and blessed with it by nature. The Italians think we’re crazy for this, and they’re right. I took time to enjoy my life in Italy and I still came home with a great new script. (Hey CAA, dysfunctional family road movie?)

And that’s my missing intangible. I no longer believe in killing myself to get ahead. I renounce my devotion to the church of “the one who gets the most done wins.” I have discovered something truly remarkable in Italy: The weekend. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. I hadn’t seen one in real life in years, not all at once. And now I get them once a week. It’s amazing. You should try it.

I absolutely, categorically refuse to work on the weekends. I even hung up on a Red Cross Blood Drive guy: “Buddy, I’m happy to talk to you about giving my blood on Monday but today is Sunday.”

Since I’ve always been the uber-productive efficiency queen, my new ‘I get time for me’ policy is unsettling for those who always counted on me to get the job done no matter what. But that’s OK. No one ever died from waiting till Monday for a return email. OK, maybe in a medical emergency but I’m not a doctor and you can’t email me your pancreas. Nope, I am strictly enforcing my lowered productivity.

The funny thing is, my face has cleared up for the first time in years, I’m still getting stuff done on time, and I have more energy. I am actually enjoying life in LA again. Not pining for Italy quite as much as usual. In real world terms, I still get the work of two or three normal humans done in a week but for me that’s a big lazy shift from four or five.

There really is something sweet in the doing of nothing. And in allowing myself to see that as necessary rather than indulgent. Really, it’s acceptance that I’m in fact not a machine and an honoring of my humanity. Italy was trying to give that to me all along with the Baci and gelato and Illy Caffe and sunshine on medieval cobblestones and fireflies in the deepest Umbrian night and the good friends who bring half the town to welcome your visit and the slow mail and ridiculous bureaucracy and la bella figura and the roadside chapels and the little Italian cook who thinks you’re crazy for loving her homemade truffle lasagna like it was filet mignon and caviar at a five star restaurant because that’s what it is…Italy was gifting me this and I finally accepted. While I’ve always had Italy in my heart, I finally really got some of it in my life. Grazie, amore mio. It only took me twenty years to get it.

RIP Nuala

2008 is shaping up to be the year of losing amazing people. First my friend Jon and now Nuala O'Faolain. I stumbled across Nuala's work by accident and fell in love with her frank, enchanting prose. She was known as a feminist and rabble rouser in Ireland - a country where one just doesn't talk about certain things. (My ancestors must be rolling over in their graves at this blog.)

Her book "Are You Somebody?" was sparked when a stranger ran into her on a Dublin street and thought she might have been a celebrity. He asked her the titular question and it set her off on an exploration of that for herself. Who are we anyway? Her novel "My Dream of You" is a rich and lyrical journey towards self-acceptance.

Check out all her works. And if you're feeling you need to do something nice today, donate to a cancer research fund. Nuala did not have a happy life but she gave her heart in her writing. Nuala, here's hoping the rains fall softly on your fields in the next world. Thank you for everything.

Scraping the Foundations

I started with the cabinet in my bathroom. I went through my house, methodically and slowly. Room by room, drawer by drawer, thing by thing. And I got rid of everything I could; all the expired goods, the unworn clothes, the unread books. All the unnecessary furniture, the well-intentioned gifts, the once-critical collectibles. Stuck in a darker place than I have been in a long time, I was at a loss on how to manage my days. So I cleaned.

I didn’t know if it was to prepare to move or to prepare a new work surface for living. I thought about calling my mom to tell her I was considering moving back home. But then I thought I couldn’t take her relentless optimism about my life here.

I worked my way into a closet and the phone rang. Naturally, it was her.

“Guess what I grabbed from the old house last week,” she gushed.

We’d just shut down and sold her house of ten years. We’d spent an afternoon tersly shoving boxes at each other, crying for the past – and crying we were laughing so hard reading my sister’s first grade stories and plays. I read them aloud in her phonetic seven-year old spelling and sounded like Borat.

Like me, my sister came to her writing early, left it and only came back to it recently.

“I didn’t think we were both allowed to be writers and that was your thing. Our brother did art so I couldn’t do that,” she’d explained.

“So you became a dancer instead,” I concluded. I understood how she felt. After a thirteen-year swim career, I’d quit the team when her times got too close to mine. We both agreed we couldn’t be great in the same arena.

We’d both been infected by that thinking for far too long. Now with me talking of leaving LA, she wonders what will become of our sitcom we are developing together. I think maybe it’s time for me to step aside for her to be the writer now. After all, I came here because I wanted to be able to say I’d given it a shot. I didn’t want to go on living a small life and wondering what might have been if I’d only tried. Well, I’ve given it a shot and it hasn’t turned out. So far.

Then - back to scene - I’m sorting my closet and mom calls.

I tell her, yes, I know she saved some of my sister’s elementary school writing from the trash heap. The stuff we’d been reading and laughing about.

“No, no. Well, yes. But there was yours too.”

I haven’t told her about my current personal distress, what I am considering or what I’m in the middle of doing.

“You know what? You’ve got to never give up on your writing. Listen to this…” and she proceeds to read me my elementary school teachers’ comments on various stories I’d written. “Heidi, even then…” She concludes.

How does she do that? She doesn’t read my blog. She hadn’t talked to my sister. She had in no way been told that I was rifling through my belongings considering chucking this whole Tinseltown life and moving home where life would be “easier.” Yet here she was, answering the unasked question. Like a perfect Act Two turning point. Just when you thought all was lost for our heroine…

OK so it’s cheesy and overly sentimental. But so like life. And movies.

I grunt but otherwise don’t really acknowledge what she’s said.

“What are you up to?”

“Cleaning…” I find a stash of mittens. I’d need these back home in the mountains.

“Oh. Well I just thought you’d want to remember what Mrs. Walsh said about your writing when you were eight. I’m so glad you’re out there, honey. It’s meant to be and it was from first grade.”

My mother, the deus ex machina.

I can’t say my faith is restored but I do know that sometimes you’ve got to go on other people’s perceptions of you when your own becomes dimmed. So for now, I’m just holding onto the fact that I don’t want to have to wear mittens in May. At least not this year.

Cracks in the Facade

I am the first to admit I can come off as a Pollyanna. Especially with my consistently blithe outlook on life in LA and a Hollywood career. I've had my share of off days but I've never really lost hope. Brazen and sure of my talent I marched into the Tinseltown battle. Lately though, things seem to have hit a turning point in several ways.

Last week while home, I visited a friend whose been battling various cancers for nearly a decade. There's no one taking care of him. That's not sitting well with me. As I contemplate the possibility of moving home to care for him, I'm forced to assess what I'd be giving up. The answer was a sad "not much."

This summer I will hit my five-year mark. I have created a great network of people and have done some great writing. I have work ready to sell. Heck, I've even produced a feature... which needs distribution.

For the most part though, I still mostly grocery shop at the 99cent store and am barely able to claw out an existence here. I'm getting tired. In the grand scheme, no one who could really pay me for the work I've done, or hire me to do more of it, knows about me. I am at a loss as to how to change that.

And five years already. When does non-success become pathetic? Ten years? Twenty? Or was it at three?

I can finally turn around and look at myself as I was when I moved here so full of audacious hope. I see what they saw - those cynical veterans of the Hollywood trenches. I know why they laughed.

I feel like I've fought the good fight to reach this point. What happens next will determine if it becomes a might-have-been story or a snatched-from-the-jaws-of-defeat story. Either an angel connector will reach out a helping hand or there will be a sign from the Universe to pack it in and go home. Tonight, all I really know is I'm tired of fighting.

It Girl

It's been a big, bloggy week for me:

• I came full circle on one of the life narratives that had been driving my blogging. (See previous post)


• I posted my 100th blog essay.


• And my blog got tagged by a fellow blogger as rated E for Excellent.

If only the book publishers would pay attention and give me that essay book deal now!

I am flattered and validated to be "it" for the moment. And the best part of being it is the ability to tag others. So I would be remiss if I didn't tag my tagger right back:

Mutant Poodle is a provocative writer's writer with strong politicial opinions and the moxie to back them up.

And then, I tag some other blogs for your reading enjoyment:

Zazamada follows the life of a Hollywood friend as she navigates the studio job world while falling in love, getting married and now (!) having a baby.

Gavin Shearer is a super-smart guy who has reviews and interesting things to say about life in Seattle, movies, sports, technology, rollercoasters and life in general.

Kid Sis is a real-life comic book character whose journey as a rabble-rousing writer and feminist will always give you something to talk about.

See? Writers aren't all bitter, resentful people who hate each other. Enjoy!

Crossing the Line

I’ve never been a big fan of unions. It could be because I was brought up by a capitalist who believes that unions are sucking the competitive edge out of America. It could be because of my early exposure to Ayn Rand and my resultant belief in meritocracy. It could be because when I worked for a major corporation creating a Times Square theme restaurant, I was appalled to see a 40-year old 7^th grade drop-out earn $40 an hour for pushing the construction elevator button up or down while I, a college grad, made $15 an hour running the office. The elevator operator was in the Union. I was a mere temp.

Whatever the genesis of my dislike, I am surprised to find myself now a huge union supporter. At least of one particular union. Though I am not yet a member of the Writers Guild of America, I hope to be. I imagine WGA membership is what separates the real writers from the wannabees in this town. I long for that validation that my membership will bring. Not only will that make me part of the club, it will mean I have sold a script. It will mean I have made money off my art.

As I drive around town during the strike, I honk in solidarity when I pass picketing writers. I am one of you, I long to shout. I get smiles and waves in return. I feel like I am part of something bigger – fighting the good fight against the greedy corporations. OK so I wouldn’t be Sally Field in “Norma Rae,” but I’d be one of the beleaguered farm workers cheering her on.

“Come by for lunch today!” my friend enthused. A great idea, as the friend in question is one of my best and we always have a good time talking over the ups and downs of our lives. The only problem: she works on a major studio lot – the same one where I used to work.

Up until this point, I’d always managed to schedule meetings and lunches with studio friends off the lot but the logistics of this day made it impossible. I didn’t like the idea of having to cross the picket line of my fellow writers but it’s not like it was for work. That made it OK, right?

I drove up to the main studio gates and waited for the light. The picketers slowed at my approach. No one cleared the way even as the light turned green. I inched across the sidewalk, conscious that I was now blocking the road and cars going straight were getting pissed. My fellow writers did not hurry their progress from my bumper. One guy adopted a slow, shuffle-step and paused to glare at me with each shuffle. It was every bit the uncomfortable, traitorous experience I had feared it would be.

“No, you guys!” I wanted to shout, “I’m one of you! I’m not working here. Just meeting a friend for lunch.” I willed the message out of my eyes at Shuffle Dude. On he glared. I think he even slowed down.

“We’re not even buying food from the studio, we brought from outside!” I eye-pleaded.

Nothing.

After about a year, the angry guy shuffled aside enough for me to pass to the security gate where I was warmly greeted by old friends. Even though my visit to the lot was completely un-work or money related, even though my presence on the lot would in no way impact the studio's business, I still felt like a horrible traitor.

These strikers saw me every day as I drove to one of my ends-meet part time jobs. I always honked. They would know my car. They would probably think I was selling them out; a scab. How would I repair this rift between myself and the members of my aspired-to union?

As my friend and I ate it began to rain. I was too queasy from the whole line crossing experience and could only nibble at my sandwich. By the time I left her office, it was raining in earnest. I got in my car and drove toward the gates. I prepared myself for the wall of anger and misunderstanding to hit me.

Maybe, I thought, the thing to do would be to park across the street and come back and explain everything to them. I could picture their rain splattered faces laughing as I got to the “We even got the sandwiches from off the lot” line. They would become new friends and we’d commiserate over the studios’ greed. I’d be brought back into the fold.

Confident in my plan, I idled my car up to security. It was late and wet. The picketers were gone.

RIP

Norman Mailer

Thanks for all the words.

Hold That Thought

One has to question the timing of the Universe...or one can just assume it's not all about one.

My Italy rom-com script just finished as a top 20 finalist in the Creative Screenwriting Expo contest last month. This is after creeping up in the quarter and semi finals of the AAA contest and Fade-in this year. My producing partner's script actually won one of the top awards. We wrapped principal photography last month and are in the midst of editing our first indie feature as we speak. All signs point to: we actually have some talent and might find success here.

And then it all comes to a screeching halt with the WGA strike. Even though I'm not in the union yet, I can't sell anything or work for anyone on anything right now or I never will be allowed in the union. I am striking by proxy. This also means I can't promote myself to would-be agents around town. No one wants to hear it right now. Everyone is focused on their own skins as shows shut down every day and agencies begin to thin themselves out.

So we writers - we reasons you have the movies you love - we'll wait it out until we are fairly paid. Meanwhile, we'll keep the creativity flowing if even just for us:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7vHxw6El0E
(Someone tell me how to embed this stuff on a post. Brilliant!)

Thought for the Day

The world will daily give you reasons to dispair and lose faith in humanity. Your job as a human soul is to find the beauty and goodness in things and people despite that. That is faith.

Question of the Day

Why do businesses have their hold music set to radio stations that are not tuned in to an actual station? Did someone at switchboard HQ accidentally knock the dial? Or do they feel we'll be entertained trying to deciper if that's Chuck Mangione or the Tijuana Brass? Just curious.

The Secret of My Non-Success

I’ve just had one of those quintessential LA writer experiences. I visited a writer friend on the set of the network show he writes for. Because you know, really, we’re all friends. At least we pretend to be. He gave us the full treatment: headphones to listen to the dialog while we watched the monitors, intros to the show’s stars, and even dinner at the crew’s craft service table.

This writer friend is one of those effortlessly successful people. In truth he’s the friend of a writer friend of a writer friend so I didn’t know that much about him. Curious as to how he grabbed one of the brass rings of the writer world: the Staff Writer Job, I asked him more about his background.

It seems he’d always been into film but had started out with his sights on a law degree. So he got one. From a really good school. Then, while he was passing the bar he decided to apply to grad school for film. With his glowing, brainiac scholastic record, he obviously got in. He then worked as a junior lawyer while going to film school and soon he had both his JD and his MFA.

With the contacts he had in both worlds, he was able to parlay his thesis film into representation and then this job. As he told me his career history, I began to feel like a big fat poseur. No credits to my name. No fancy advanced degrees. Just producing an Indie because I’m silly enough to think I can.

They say writers are really a bitter bunch and that we hold any other writer’s success against him. As this charming Southern boy aw-shucks-ed his way though his personal triumphs I found it hard to hate him. But I managed a modicum of resentment and ire.

Sure, I mused, I’ll just run right out and get my Jurist Doctorate and bang out a few well-received short films. Then I’ll just casually pull off an MFA and voila! It’s all so clear to me now. Why didn’t I think of that before?

Watching the set up for the final scene, I clung to my wisp of belief that my path is just different that his; my lack of “esquire” after my name won’t in fact preclude me from Hollywood success. At last I reasoned that anyone that has such success in so many other areas can’t be that good of a writer. I mean you have to bleed ink to really be a writer. A sideline interest never makes a byline paycheck.

Then I watched the scene film; a tense moment between father and daughter with subtext and understated emotion. At last I found the will to genuinely dislike this man. Now I’m a real Hollywood writer.

Dragonflies

Thought of the day:

Given that there is an inexhaustible supply of love, your only responsibility is to give it.

Development: Released

We have nothing to complain about. I mean as a TV watching nation. Everything on the air is just fine.

Isn’t it?

I’ve grown up as a TV viewer to the popular refrain: There’s nothing on. I assumed that to mean nothing of wit, originality or substance. But now I am confused. America, to which nothing are you referring?

You see, we (Hollywood) gave you Arrested Development. This show has to be the best network comedy since Seinfeld. It’s well-crafted, witty, dark, silly, timely, self-deprecating, award-winning, critically acclaimed…And no one’s watching.

I hate to underestimate our collective national intelligence but you do need to pay attention to get it. I’ll give you that if you just tune in out of the blue you might not know what’s going on, how these people are related or why it’s hilarious that a character just pulled a bizarre chicken dance to tease another character. It’s a self-referential show that is continuously building. You need to pay attention. And if you do you are vastly rewarded.

I occasionally try to watch the big network shows these days. I honestly can’t. Well I can but it’s more of a train wreck fascination. As I watch the “characters” spell things out for the viewers along the lines of:
Husband: I’m mad at you.
Wife: Why?
Husband: Because you ruined my car.
Wife: Well you were driving me crazy.
Cue laugh track.

What? I have to turn it off and stare at a plant just to reclaim my eyes and purge my brain.

I understand that humor, like everything else, it subjective. But America, come on!

My father and I had a political debate recently where I got up on my liberal high horse and spouted on about why W should not have been reelected.

“It makes no sense, I know no one that voted for him. How did it happen?”

He proceeded to inform me that the bubble of Hollywood does not represent the country and who did a bunch of actors think they were deciding how things should be run. Maybe he’s right. We must be seriously out of touch. We assume the nation wants television with intelligence, a biting wit, interesting stories and original, off-the-wall yet strangely relatable characters. We give that to the nation and the nation splats it back in our face like a baby flinging the finest stewed organic carrots.

Well don’t worry, America. Here’s your pabulum. Here is more of the programming that makes the rest of the world think we’re a pack of idiots. When I lived in Italy, our top exports there were Baywatch and Small Wonder. The only small wonder is that they haven’t all invaded us already crying “How did you Wal Mart shoppers become the World Super Power?!”

As George Clooney noted in his Oscar speech Hollywood may be out of touch. Like George, I’m fine with this. At least we can imagine a better world, and a better TV show even if the rest of the country would prefer to ignore it. All I can say is if anyone gets voted off the island, I hope it’s us. We can amuse ourselves on the life raft with many more tales involving a stair-car, a banana stand and a hand-eating loose seal.

That's Amore

“A house like this? Oh, say two hundred thousand dollars. Less even.”

Francis Mayes of “Under the Tuscan Sun” authorship was pointing to a slide of a run down Italian farm house. I had gone to see her speak at my small mountain town bookstore. Me and all the other Italo-philes in town with dreams of someday getting our own slice of Tuscan sun.

I was in the midst of house hunting in the mountains but suddenly there was this possibility. Instead of making a practical real estate investment in the little property boom town where I actually lived, I could use that same money – less even – to buy a stone structure in another country where I did not live with no working plumbing, electricity and perhaps not even a road. I was beside myself with excitement.

Having spent junior year abroad many moons ago, I have always been obsessed with getting back to Italy. To live. I have taught Italian. I have compiled an intended coffee table book with my Italy photography and essays on Italian life. When I yell at other LA drivers, it’s in Italian. It just sounds better. Each screenplay I write has references to if not major story arcs in Italy. My weekend treat is to fix myself a latte with my Italian coffee maker and listen to CDs of some of the bands I befriended during my year there. (Amazing how far a smile and an “I’m a DJ from LA” will get you). In short, I’m obsessed and I have been since I was sixteen and first set foot in Italy.

What is it about Italy? Life. They value family and friends over possessions. Art and culture are part of everyday living. The food is amazing, the language is mellifluous, the landscape is breathtaking. Life seems to have more value and richness there.

Several years after that reading of Ms. Mayes’, I own no property in any town and rent a small apartment in the Hollywood hills. But I still think of Italy daily. Is it possible to feel intense homesickness for a place you are not from?

When I saw the KCRW drawing to win tickets to the “Cinema Italian Style” festival at the Egyptian theatre, I entered right away. And I won. I raced into the courtyard of the Egyptian that first night like a starving person to a banquet. Sure I’d get to see some movies, great. But I’d get to be around Italians. Lots of them. For two weeks running. Maybe I’d find a connection, a way back at last to my promised land.

Hearing Italian all around me I squealed and wandered the crowd with a goofy grin on my face. As hoped, the festival had drawn out all the local Italians and other American fools like me. My junior year was brought full circle to me when I ran into a friend who’d been in my dorm that year. He was actually Croatian but close enough. He’d been determined to marry a California girl and get here and so he had.

I’m learning that this town works on attitude and connections. If you pretend you know what you are doing, most people will buy it and if you know the right people, they’ll definitely buy it. When one of the biggest Italian film stars took the red carpet press line, a gasp went up from the girls. He was hot. Un gran bel figo. And married. But I figured it would be cool to meet him, make that connection. And I could, because he had been in a movie by the Big Deal Director. I kicked myself for not having a copy of my latest Italian script with me to hand him.

I marched through the fans right up to him with my hand out. I greeted him in Italian. His face registered “Please don’t hurt me, tall American” until I dropped The Director’s name. Suddenly, this Italian God’s eyes brightened, he grasped my hand and said it was lovely to meet me. We laughed about the Director. The God’s wife, who was equally lovely, told me they’d love to have dinner with him. Ever so usefully, I passed the Director’s number along to them. Here I was, in the middle of an international film power connection. I felt so damn smug.

Later, at the after-party, I chatted briefly with the God’s wife again. It was thrilling to just have access to fame simply because I had the right name to drop. I’d met several new Italian friends that night and saw them watch my apparently effortless ease in getting this access.

I found out later that the God and his wife never got around to calling the Director so he wouldn’t know I’d dropped his name. I was hoping they would. I wondered if he’d wonder about me and all the circulating I was doing. Then I realized, only someone who really doesn’t have carte blanche access to such strata of the business would wonder such a thing.

I have a great teacher here who says in the most satisfying stories, often when our protagonist lets go of what she wants, she gets what she needs. In the end, I got just what I needed out of the festival. I saw some truly fabulous new films (Romanzo Criminale, La Bestia nel Cuore, Quando Sei Nato Non Puoi Piu Nasconderti, Ma Quando Arrivano Le Ragazze?, La Vita Che Vorrei) And was reminded again that the nature of film storytelling doesn’t necessarily have to follow the rigid American Structure most of our films adhere to.

More importantly, I have embarked on some new friendships with Italians who share my film dreams. And better yet, they understand a different approach to life and movies that many of my American friends miss. Plus they appreciate my Italian coffee maker.

One of my new friends took me to a dinner last week with other Italians. Of course, they were all wonderful. One diminutive woman with a spunky joie de vivre informed me she knows my very favorite Italian rock star and can introduce me when he’s next in LA. Her husband, an American with an obvious love of all things Italian turned out to be a director. I told him about my latest Italian script idea. “Let’s see it when you’re done. I’d love to shoot something in Italy,” he said. You and me both, amico.

Though I am now further in terms of miles from the place I dream of living, I am feeling more and more that I am just where I need to be. Every night, as I walk my dog and take stock of my day, I greet the moon with a “Ciao, Luna.” I figure if the moon speaks anything, it’s probably Italian.