if i knew then

November 18, 1985

I met Gene Simmons for the first time in Gary Lucchesi’s TriStar office. Gene was wearing leopard boots, a multi-strand choker with colored glass beads or gems and some sort of mesh bracelet. I’m pretty sure I looked like a PTA president by comparison in my dress and pantyhose. (What was I thinking???) He liked my spec script and wanted me to write his movie project about groupies.

His plan was for me to attend a lot of rock concerts, go backstage, and soak up the scene. For those who read yesterday’s blog, Simon and Garfunkel’s empty dressing room at the San Jose Civic in ’67 was as close as I’d come to getting up close and personal with a rock star. (Not actually true. I met some heavyweights with Cindy Williams in 80 – but that was more of an “Industry” event, not a groupie scene).

I love rock music and I’m fascinated by the “secret society” that surrounds it – the novel I’m working on right now, in 2016, is set in the rock world. The prospect of safely immersing myself in that world was enormously appealing – but so was my hope of adapting the Moonflower Vine, a novel by Jetta Carleton I’d loved since I read it in the sixties.

It seems as if good things (such as opportunities, rewards, and kudos) as well as bad things (failure, rejection, and financial stress) tend to come in clusters. Either there are two or three projects I want to write or I can’t get arrested. Two guys ask me out or I’m home alone on a Saturday night. I’ve always assumed it’s the same way for everybody (“buses always come in threes”) but I’ve never asked. Is it?

Actually, I don't mind spending Saturday nights alone if I've got something to read. — Actually, I don’t mind spending Saturday nights alone if I’ve got something to read.

Don’t bother looking up either of these projects on the internet. Another party already purchased all rights to the Moonflower Vine – forever – so there was no hope of optioning the underlying material. I wrote a draft of the groupies’ project for Gene and TriStar at which time it died, never to be resurrected (at least not with me as the writer). In this case, these days of indecision – ripe with intoxicating possibilities – were as good as it gets.

November 17, 1967

I think this show took place at the San Jose Civic – is it still standing? I was – and still am – a devoted Simon and Garfunkel fan.

Ticket stub for the Simon and Garfunklel concert

I’m fascinated by boyhood friends who become successful creative collaborators only to discover they can’t stand each other and implode. I’ve read several Paul Simon biographies – all of them discuss the friction, none of them explain it in a way I understand. They’re far from the only paired performers to be so afflicted, though, so a lot of people probably relate.

Sweet shy Mary in our backyard in the sixties

The truly remarkable thing about this night was Mary and I actually blazed a path all the way to Simon and Garfunkel’s admittedly empty dressing room. Granted, security would’ve been tighter if the stars were still on site, but factor in the fact Mary and I were as far removed from bona fide groupies as possible. I wouldn’t have known what “groupie” meant, let alone believed there were girls who actually acted like that. (And there were. Lots of them.)

Mary and me suburban matrons - about a decade later — Mary and me suburban matrons – about a decade later

For another thing that makes you go “huh”, tomorrow’s diary blog finds me on a trans-Atlantic phone call with Gene Simmons in London; he wants me to write a groupie movie for him. Stranger still, while I’m not as naïve as the girl fighting my way backstage at this Simon and Garfunkel concert 49 years ago tonight – I’m not that much wilder, either.

November 15, 1980

This was an amazing day, full of promise, and it retains its magic quality in my memory even though almost nothing unfolded like expected. I got the assignment to adapt S. E. Hinton’s classic novel, the Outsiders, for the screen. I did pose as a high school student and return to the high school I graduated from (more than a decade earlier) without getting busted.

Gio Coppola took this Polaroid of me with Fred Roos on this day.

Augie didn’t direct the movie, Francis did, which was the good news and the bad news. I’m awed by his talent; he directed some of the greatest movies of our time IMHO. How could this development possibly be bad? He’s an equally talented writer and took over the rewrite himself. When I saw the final shooting script, my name was nowhere to be seen.

Under the Writers Guild of America rules, this triggered an automatic arbitration because a production executive (director, producer etc.) sought screenplay credit. Three anonymous writers read all of our scripts and rendered a decision about screenplay credit. After a second and third arbitration and a Policy Review Board, I prevailed. It was a tense time.

After winning the arbitration - before the storm. — After winning the arbitration – before the storm.

This experience piqued my interest in the arbitration process and I volunteered to serve as an arbiter. Eventually I got to serve on the Policy Review Board, which I continue to do to this day.

Reading multiple drafts of the same script to decide who deserves screen credit provides a spectacular education in screen writing or, more accurately, rewriting. It was a front row seat to see exactly how scripts assume their final shape. I also learned a lot about human nature.

W/my sisters, wearing my Writer's Guild Strikes! tee-shirt. The WGA struck for the right to determine their own credits - and it was worth it. — W/my sisters, wearing my Writer’s Guild Strikes! tee-shirt. The WGA struck for the right to determine their own credits – and it was worth it.

There are significant financial rewards for getting your name on a script, even if the movie’s a bomb. That might have motivated a few writers to battle but I think most of them fought because they believed they deserved to win. It reminds me of the joke about the actor playing the gravedigger in Hamlet, who’s convinced the play is about the gravedigger. Time after time, writers clearly saw – and frequently exaggerated – their own contribution and missed or minimized the contribution of writers before or after them. I doubt I’m immune to this self-serving blind spot; no doubt I do the same thing, despite being aware of this trap.

I suspect this tendency isn’t restricted to actors and writers – that many, if not most, human beings focus on their own contributions to the exclusion of others regardless of their line of work.

November 3, 1989

More than 25 years later, the details of this day stand out in my mind with startling clarity. Something about life and death situations has that effect. Five days earlier Sam saw the same doctor – he said she had the flu but every day after that she got worse. For the first time, she was too weak to trick or treat.

With her brothers Chris and Alex (both a little jealous of the attention she was getting - see below) — With her brothers Chris and Alex (both a little jealous of the attention she was getting – see below)

She got a lot of balloons and gifts in the hospital.

Although I’m married to a trial attorney who does some medical malpractice, we never considered suing the doctor for his failure to diagnose her correctly. This dermoid cyst thing was so unusual that no doctor would jump to that conclusion first – or even second. It wasn’t what they expected to find when they started surgery. They were after a bad appendix (even though the problem was on her right side.) What they found shocked us all.

I feel so blessed to live in this century, in this country, where medicine was advanced enough to save her. A hundred years earlier, the gangrene would’ve killed her and no one would’ve ever known why. Although this was a a horrible harrowing experience, I feel nothing but gratitude she came through it safe and sound.

She bounced back fast! (walking attached to IV on Day 2)

October 28, 1964

To say my sisters and I adored my father would be a huge understatement. In our all-female household, he was the sun we all orbited around. The reason I started writing stories in the first place was to please him. Before I trotted off to school in second grade, I placed the latest pages of my first novel – printed in pencil on lined paper –on his pillow. It was titled “LOST” (yeah, the TV series stole it from me.) It told the thrilling tale of twelve children of a “steamstress” (ibid), all kidnapped by two evil guys. Instead of escaping however, these children opted to convert their kidnappers to Christianity. Yes, I was definitely the daughter of a Lutheran minister.

I'm not sure which Bible story this is, but Jani and our dog are getting a ride. — I’m not sure which Bible story this is, but Jani and our dog are getting a ride.

We used to act out Bible stories for entertainment. The Good Samaritan was a favorite. Daddy played the victim on the side of the road. I must have been a Pharisee since Janet was definitely the Good Samaritan. Daddy was hugely amused when – after retrieving a glass of water from the kitchen to save his life – she invariably stopped and drank half of it herself before offering it to him.

The more worldly side of my life at school was all about me and Sandy. We combined our names and gave our friendship a name – Kandy. We loved to create things, in this case our own dictionary, although I’m pretty sure we never used a single word from it in real life. In addition to our dictionary, we made drafted plans for an elaborate campaign to make ourselves popular – needless to say, a total failure – but I’ll get to that in another diary entry.

October 22, 1971

Less than a month after I bought that splicer from Larry Kemp, he served as cinematographer for my award-winning Project One film. He also functioned as my AD, my confidante, driver, grip, sound technician and comic relief. He stepped up and played every role that I asked him to because he was the only guy who was there. That’s not a bad description of Larry and what he meant to me. He was the guy who was there.

He was the youngest of three boys and I was the oldest of three girls. He was from New Jersey, I’d been in California (by way of Iowa) most of my life. We both loved the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel (okay, not exactly crazy choices in those days, but I doubt we’d have gotten along so well if he’d been into country.)

Laughter was easy with Larry. On the day of my shoot, we were both in hysterics when Larry leaned on Josie’s couch, causing her to almost poke her customer’s eye out with a tweezers. (Maybe you had to be there.)

Of course, it couldn’t be a real friendship without an occasional conflict or two. Larry met my Inner Brat and witnessed my pettiness up close and personal but he didn’t lecture, judge or reject me. It was the kind of friendship I expected to last a lifetime but we took different paths and lost touch after college.

We haven’t seen or spoken to each other since the 70s. We are Facebook “friends” but almost never email or message. In other words, our friendship today is nothing like what it was – but we’re not who we were forty years ago either. The knowledge those days are gone doesn’t diminish the friendship that once existed. I’m happy just to know he’s alive and living happily ever after in LA – one of relatively few people I went to film school with who actually wound up working in the film business.

If a time machine dropped me back in 1971, I’d buy Larry’s splicer all over again. It was worth every penny. I got the deal of lifetime.

October 14, 2006

Before CD could apply to UCLA, he had to survive California’s community college system. PCC (Pasadena City College) is one of its best schools – but not one of the easiest. When the state cut its budget, Chris had to battle for even his most basic courses.

For his language requirement, he chose Chinese. Unable to take Chinese 3 at PCC (due to budget cuts, not low grades) he completed Chinese under stiff competition at UCLA. This summer when we toured Russia, he astonished a group of Chinese tourists by talking to them in their language. They were so awed by the tall Caucasian speaking Chinese that they asked for his autograph and insisted on having their photos taken with him.

His accomplishments would impress me even if I didn’t know how far he’s come. He dropped out of high school halfway through his sophomore year when he turned 16 and passed the GED. We’d exhausted every educational alternative. From private school to public school – where they whisked him into the “At Risk” program for potential drop-outs – then on to boarding school followed by another private Lutheran school.

Chris was fatally shot in the play. Note bullet hole in forehead.

We sent him to private therapy and participated in family therapy. I read books about how to motivate kids determined to fail. My breaking point came when I conferenced with his math teacher to supervise every homework assignment. I verified he completed every single one correctly. Each morning I reminded him not to forget his homework. At the end of the week, his teacher informed me he hadn’t turned in a single page.

That’s when I gave up. I couldn’t read his failure to turn in completed assignments as anything but the finger. Short of going to school with him every day to ensure he handed in assignments, there was nothing I could do.

The applicable cliche here is you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. CD’s will to fail was stronger than our will to prolong this futile battle. We felt like we just failed parenting. When friends bragged about their kid’s early admission to Yale, then asked about CD’s college prospects, it painful to admit he didn’t get through his sophomore year.

Given all this, we didn’t expect him to perform in a college play or speak Chinese, let alone win a place in UCLA’s Film School, graduate first in his class and give a speech as Valedictorian.

I claim no credit for his miraculous transformation. He figured out how to change his life and followed through. His father and I always believed he was smart despite his early academic performance. Much like he opted to learn Chinese instead of Spanish, CD chose the hard way to obtain his education and succeeded against all odds.

Forgive me for bragging; I waited a long time for this. I couldn’t be any prouder of his unique journey to become the man he is today.

October 10, 2014

My absolute all-time favorite game growing up was dress-up (today, it’s called role-play but it’s the same thing.) I was up for a part in any fantasy – princess, boarding school, teen-ager, Rapunzel and Bonanza were perennial favorites. The only role I couldn’t relate to was horsy. Then as now, the appeal of prancing around pretending to be a palomino eluded me. For starters, playing horsy pretty much precludes costumes unless you count tucking a fake tail in the rear of your pedal-pushers (I don’t).

I have only two requirements for a good game of dress-up.

I play a human (no horsys!)
I wear a costume – and hopefully a wig.

Beyond that, anything goes.

It’s a shame that dress-up tends to be cast aside before adolescence. It’s all but forgotten by the time we’re adults. IMHO, this is a real shame. Luckily, like riding a bike, the requisite skills reside inside you, ready to resume active duty if called. If you can get past your self-consciousness for a trip into fun and silliness, dress up is even more fun to play as a grown-up.

Technically, each of us gets only one life to live. Dress up role play lets you dabble in as many lives as you can make up. If – like me – sometimes you get sick of being yourself, take a break. Cut loose and be somebody else – someone without a mortgage, congested kids, or pets pooping on the rug. All you’ve got to lose is your dignity. Isn’t it about time?

ANY GIRL CAN BE GLAMOUROUS. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS STAND STILL AND LOOK STUPID.

If you’re over 18 or past the age of consent: Dress-up role-play is unlikely to be hazardous to your sex life, if you get my drift. Enough said.

October 8, 1964

Even now, decades later, it’s easy to visualize this. In eighth grade, I played second oboe in band – and yes, there were two of us. Mike Moxley played first. There I sat at 7 AM, bored out of my mind, probably daydreaming about the Youth Center Dance and idly twisting my music stand without realizing what I was doing.

It was neither my first nor my last mortification in band. I had no innate talent and no hope of developing any since I hated to practice. I’m not sure why I didn’t quit in 7^th grade; perhaps Mr. Royer persuaded me to stick it out because Mike Moxley and I were the only two oboe players at Jefferson. I knew my tenure at second chair would terminate should another oboe player appear. This was hardly an imminent threat. Oboe wasn’t my first choice either but I was even more hopeless at flute.

The only song I recall from our limited repertoire was my favorite, The Green Leaves of Summer. I can still picture the sheet music and hear the melancholy chords.

“It was good to be young then – to be close to the earth”

It wasn't so good if you were wearing Peter Pan collars and ankle socks. No wonder I'm not thrilled to preserve this look for posterity. — It wasn’t so good to wear Peter Pan collars and ankle socks. No wonder I’m not thrilled to preserve this look for posterity.

At thirteen, mourning my lost youth brought tears to my eyes. Then again, it didn’t take much. I’m surprised I didn’t break down when I toppled the top of my music stand.

Another “Fashion Don’t” modeled by Kathy.

October 4, 1972

I don’t know where, when or even if Jack Nicholson made that comment but plenty of people relate. Consider all of the rock and pop songs about the anguish of running into your ex – Walk on By, I Go to Pieces, I Go Crazy and When We Were Young to name a few. The gut-crunching misery of realizing the heel who broke your heart is living la vida loca without you is timeless and universal.

When I find out an ex is getting married, my higher self wishes them well. My lower narcissistic self prefers they pine for me forever[1]. If that sounds heartless, consider this. How happy does the dude who shattered you deserve to be?

IMHO, the vengeful narcissist inside all of us roots for the bastard who dumped us to crash and burn in an epic fail. Anybody who acts overjoyed when their ex’s success far eclipses their own is a liar.

I wish you nothing but the best - as long as you don't do better than me. — I wish you nothing but the best – as long as you don’t do better than me.

My own encounters with exes occurred in or around Melnitz Hall at UCLA where our film major brought us together. Since leaving college, I rarely run into anyone I know, not even casual acquaintances. That’s life in the big city.

However, a motivated ex can beat those odds with an assist from Google and FB. The downside is the risk of being labeled a stalker and served with a restraining order.

I'm not stalking you! I just happen to be here. — I’m not stalking you! I just happen to be here.

I’m a crying fool for movies (Splendor in the Grass, The Way We Were, Wild Horses) in which ex-lovers encounter each other long after their breakup. It kills me how they make awkward chit chat to hide the depth of their true feelings. Does it work this way in real life? Sometimes, probably.

What gets to me is the message that even though it’s over – their great passion is gone and it’s never coming back – the remnants of love remain in a new shape. It might manifest as love from a distance or devotion to a memory. It could come in the form of compassion, affection, concern or the deep camaraderie of people who know each other to the core. It might not be the love we’re looking for or the love we want but a little love is better than nothing.

I'll always love the way we were. — I’ll always love the way we were.

Something about that always makes me cry.

[1] In the interest of full disclosure, even when I was the heartbreaker, I wanted them to pine for me forever.

if i knew then

November 18, 1985

November 17, 1967

November 15, 1980

November 3, 1989

October 28, 1964

October 22, 1971

October 14, 2006

October 10, 2014

October 8, 1964

October 4, 1972

Search

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archive

Categories

Administrative