The Toy (A Review)

All right.  I tried to write a review for one of my favorite Holiday movies (or what could be a Holiday movie) but this cold I’ve got won’t let me.  Instead, I’ll write about my cold. 

As a friend of mine likes to say, “The struggle is real, people.” 

That can mean different things to different people.  Today, it means I’m sick as a dog, but still must move forward.  I thought yesterday would be the worst, most peak part of the sickness, but I was wrong.  I woke up from a Nyquil daze feeling worse than before. 

Add to this the power has been out in my hallway and bathroom for two days, and while I’m sitting there, getting ready to leave for work, the maintenance guys come over and start trying to fix it.  I can see in their eyes they have no clue what to do.  But work won’t wait, so leave it in their hands, hoping its fixed by the time I get home. 

No luck.  Five hours later I pull up and there’s an electrician’s van in front of my apartment.  All I want to do is take a shower and wash the grease off my face, but instead I sit down and wait, and watch the electricians jump into the same routine as the maintenance guys, running up and down the stairs, checking outlets and doing electrical stuff.  In the background, I hear the beep-beep of the smoke detector, which I guess lost power too. 

“It’s always something,” one of the electricians says to me, as he sees me sitting on the couch moping about my predicament.

“It sure is,” I answer.

It sure is.  It is always something.  That’s part of life, I guess, and life would be boring without it, but in the moment, when all I want is peace and to wash my face off and not feel sick, the element of surprise that makes life special and worth living can go suck it, and get flushed down the toilet with my snot rags.

Anyway, they were still working on the issue when I had to leave and have dinner with my mom and brother.  It was his last night in town, so I dragged myself out of there, hoping I’m leaving the power outage in good hands, to meet them for burgers at a diner down the street.  My aunt and uncle show up, and when I get there I’m not feeling so bad, just a little hard of hearing because of the head cold. 

It’s a nice dinner, and even with my greasy face and the constant feeling that I’m about to sneeze, I have fun and try to make the most of it.  The waitress is slow, but it gives us time to make conversation.  I don’t see my extended family very often.  These are people who have been in my life forever, so it’s like a mini holiday in between holidays. 

When I get back home, the electrician’s van is gone.  I slowly open the door and walk inside.  The apartment is dark.  With calm precision, I flip the hallway light switch.  The light comes on.  I smile.  Things are looking up.  I go upstairs to the bathroom and flip the switch there.  Light!

I look longingly at the shower.  I hear a beep.  I’m so close to the shower I’ve been waiting hours to take.  Another beep.  It’s the fire alarm in the hallway ceiling, beeping from a low battery.  I want desperately to ignore it, but every couple of minutes it issues another beep that drives a spear through my brain.  I reach up and unscrew it.  It beeps in my hand.  I pull the battery out and drop it to the floor.  I’m going to get that shower, dammit.  It beeps again.  The smoke detector is taunting me.  I stare at it in my hand like its my newest sworn enemy.  Even dead, with no battery, it to beeps at me.  I think about that episode of Friends where Phoebe has the same struggle, and now I understand.  It’s real.  The struggle is real!

I’m not going to let it defeat me.  I put off the shower, go out to my car and drive down to the store and pick up a battery and more Nyquil.  I come back to the sound of the alarm beeping from the dead on the hallway floor, and put in the new battery.  At this very moment, as I write this, the smoke detector is dangling from the ceiling because it refused to screw back into the attachment.  But I won.  The beeps have stopped, I got my shower, and finally, I could relax.

The movie I was going to review was The Toy, starring Richard Pryor and Jackie Gleason.  It’s good.  You should watch it.   

Lifestyles of the Broke and Anonymous Part 1.

This is the first article in a series about Los Angeles, California, and my time there as a struggling musician, my accidental movie career, and tips on how you, too, can survive the daunting task of leaving everything you know behind, and diving into what Tom Petty called, The Great Wide Open.

Twelve years ago, I moved out to L.A., or what I like to call, The Land of Broken Dreams.  I moved to the city of stars and guided tours, like so many others, to try my hand at becoming a rich and famous musician.  That didn’t happen.  I didn’t even score an Oscar or a Grammy out of the deal.  But I did learn a few things along the way about how to survive in a strange city, where friends are few and far between, and everyone is either trying to get something out of you, or over you, or in you.

1.       FIND A PLACE TO SLEEP

This is a tricky one, but it’s important.  We’ll start with it because it’s the first thing you need to do after stepping off the bus, plane, or train that brought you this magical place of panhandlers and pickpockets.  I was lucky enough to have someone waiting on me.  He had been out there for about six months and told me we had a place.  The night before I left my hometown of Huntsville, Alabama, nervously excited about boarding that Greyhound Bus the next morning, to leave everything behind, I talked to him on the phone.  Turned out he had secured us a place, all right.  It even had rooftop access with a great view of the city.  And it was true.  It did have a great view.  The place he had secured, and I use that term very lightly, was the rooftop.

                Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m as romantic as the next guy, willing to tough it out for The Dream.  Nothing come easy, right? And I was young enough to say, “Sounds awesome, man! See you when I get there!”  and hang up the phone, visions of Jim Morrison living on his rooftop in Venice, writing songs from the concert he heard in his head floating in mine.

Only, our rooftop was in Downtown, Los Angeles, not Venice, and not the free loving bohemia of Jim Morrison’s era.  Our trip was a little bit different than Morrison’s summer long LSD vision quest.

I didn’t know any of that at the time.  I didn’t know the difference between Downtown L.A. and Venice. Or Hollywood and Santa Monica.  It was all just L.A. to me.  Turns out, there’s thirteen cities that make up the greater Los Angeles area, and I was running away from a city with a population of less than a million people to become just another lost hopeful struggling in the streets of Lost Angels.

And, it was fun.  It was like we were getting away with something.  We’d sit on the rooftop and write songs on acoustic guitars, while people walked the streets below, or worked in the office spaces inside the building, oblivious to our own quest.  We were living the dream, baby!

The rooftop had elevator access. That’s how you got up there.  So, we could tell when someone was coming when the doors dinged open.  That was all the warning we had.  There wasn’t a lot of traffic up there though, and we had our bags stashed beneath the air conditioning unit, out of sight.  When someone did come up, that’s where we stashed ourselves, laying down flat beneath this giant HVAC unit, waiting for the interloper to finish their cigarette, or phone call.  Whatever it was that brought them up there.  

                We made the best of it, but this wasn’t a permanent solution.  Lucky for us, it was summer, and L.A. was going through its usual dry spell.  But people started to catch on.  It was a little suspicious, I guess, that anytime someone came up to the roof, there we were, two dirty guys strumming beat up guitars.  There’s one thing about homelessness.  You can smell it on someone.  Something about the desperation in the eyes and constant B.O. gives it away.

                Eventually, we got some money together, and got a band room.  If you go this route, here’s a few pointers.  First, it’s got to have 24-hour access, so you can come and go as you please.  Also, put a radio in there, and learn to sleep with music playing (this works especially well if you’re not really a musician) so when you’re in there at night, it sounds like you’re working.  And of course, make sure there’s a bathroom with a good faucet.  You got to be able to wash your feet in a situation like this.  Other body parts matter, too, but your feet, man, your feet! (more on this in a future installment)

                Another option, and probably a better one if you’re flying solo, is to get yourself a car or van.  Vans can be awkward, especially if you’re not used to the traffic of a big city.  But if you strap on your big boy pants (or big girl pants), a van will offer you the room and privacy you just can’t get sleeping in the backseat of the Kia hatchback you got off Craigslist.

                Next, scope out the neighborhoods.  Find a place to park that beast.  You’ll have to move it occasionally for the streetsweeper, but once you find a good location, you’re set for a while.  This isn’t the safest option, but life in the city ain’t never safe.

                Now, I just mentioned Craigslist. Craigslist is full of scammers and fake ads, but in a city like L.A., Craigslist is a vital tool.  If you have the dough-ray-me, you can squeeze yourself into a roommate situation, often without a credit check, or background check.  Lots of people rent out their couch, or section off their apartment with partitions and rent the space.  It’s not glamourous, but this is the real Hollywood.  Besides, if you had the money to get your own respectable place, you wouldn’t need any of this advice.

                My last suggestion for finding a place to sleep is to check out the hostels.  This only works before you get an L.A. license, so keep that in mind.  Also, thirty to forty bucks a day adds up quick.  While it’s nice to get a good shower now and then, I don’t recommend the hostels for any kind of long engagement. 

                So, if you have dreams of living in La-La-Land, and are hungry and desperate enough to make that leap, go for it.  Just know, it’s not going to be easy.  You have to want it, you have to work for it, and you have to suffer for it. 

                Unless you have the money to get into a nice $2500 a month apartment, plus deposit, and credit check.  In that case, can I crash on your couch?

Never Enough Time, or I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

Welcome to Pontifications of a Dishwasher. 

This is going to be a weekly blog about whatever I’m thinking about.  I chose to name it Pontifications of a Dishwasher, because, 1.  I’m a dishwasher, and 2. Pontifications is the most pretentious title I could come up with.  So, that covers two sides of my personality.  We’ll get into more sides the deeper we go, whether willingly, or unwillingly.  Things tend to seep out that way.

Now, the main reason for this blog is a personal one.  It’s a weekly writing exercise for me.  I have always written fiction, but this is a way to stretch beyond that, and to train myself to write, even when I don’t feel like writing, to meet my weekly goal.  There’s no word count here, there’s no theme beyond the weekly article, at least, not yet. But like everything else in life, that could change. 

It’s also a way to gauge my attempt at writing non-fiction.  I’ll delve into some personal stuff, my evolution as a writer, some origin stories, and see what happens.  It’s a grand experiment, and I hope you come along.

And so, here it goes, my first Pontification….

NEVER ENOUGH TIME (or, I’LL SLEEP WHEN I’M DEAD)

I get hung up a lot, as we all do, with not having enough time in the day.  I wake up early, start my day with a shower, coffee and cigarette, and then sit down to write.  If I’m lucky, I get a couple hours in before I go work at the deli, where I wash dishes and grill sandwiches for five hours, six days a week.  When I’m done with the deli, I come home, wash the grease off, and write some more, or get down to editing.  

That’s the ideal situation, anyway.  It doesn’t always work out.  Sometimes real life gets in the way, and I put aside writing the pages of fiction and handle business, whether it’s family, friends, financial, or what have you.  There’s just no way around somethings.  We all have obligations and people we don’t want to let down. 

And, let’s face it, for an unpublished writer, or one who has very few credits to their name, it’s awful hard to tell someone, “I can’t do that right, now.  I’m working.”

“Working?  On what?”

“On my writing!”

See what kind of face you get for that one. 

It’s a broad statement, and I’m being unfair to a lot of people here.  Most of my friends and family are very supportive of what I do, but that’s how I feel when faced with the decision to drop my pen, and go help mom with something she needs done, or my buddy wants to go get a drink.  Pick your battles.  If you really want to write, you’ll make time for it. 

I’m not going to let myself off the hook here, either.  Writing is hard.  At least for me it is.  It’s easy to become distracted.  To find any reason at all to not write.  To say, “well, that’s half a paragraph.  Better go do these dishes, or vacuum the floor, or stare at the wall…” or “all right, let’s go get that drink.”

It’s hard to get your mind and body motivated to sit down and write the disorganized ideas floating around in your head.  Or, make your head have ideas.  They’re not always there, you know. You can’t just reach out and grab them. Sometimes you force it with brute strength.  And unless you’ve been training, working at it every day, it can be a monumental task.   Hold on, I’ve got to go have a smoke…

See?  Easily distracted.

It’s easy to blame life and other people for lack of time, but it’s really on me.  Or you, if you’re working on something, whether it be writing, painting, or working out to get that killer bod.   I enjoy helping mom.  I enjoy spending time with friends.  Hell, I enjoy making money and working odd jobs.  But these are all facets of life I can incorporate into my passion for writing, and when I do get that time alone to make it happen, I try to really make it happen.  To get all I can out of that time.  Because time is valuable.  It’s the most valuable commodity we have, as human beings.  There’s no way to get it back, and when it’s gone, it’s gone for good.

And what are passions good for if we can’t share them, anyway?  They become hollow, empty things.  I mean, maybe you have some secret passion you’ve never told anyone about.  Maybe, you really want to be a clothing designer or decorate cupcakes with hotdog shavings.  Think of how great it would be to reveal that passion to people you care about.  To live that passion.  To have them enjoy your hotdog decorated cupcake, and see them smile when you say, “I made this!”

 It means so much more when you share it with other people.     

So, keep working at it, whatever it is.  You know it’s a passion when it’s hard to find time to do it, yet you strive to do it anyway.  If it’s something that keeps you going, keeps you stable, you’ll find the time to do it.  You’ll work at it, and when you accomplish it, it’ll be that much more fulfilling.

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