My calves ache. Why?
As an experiment I took the bus from Malibu to Hollywood.
It was much easier than one imagined. I walked off the mountain, leaving the dog in the house. I walked the long way down the steep Las Flores Canyon in the blazing midday sun causing blisters and bruising on both feet.
At the bottom of the hill there’s a very convenient bus stop.
On the way there the bus was crammed with migrant workers and mental patients. By the way, even mental patients have smart phones that they check compulsively every ten seconds.
What could they be possibly checking?
I liked the ride along the PCH…looking out to sea, watching cormorants bombing the waves and dolphins making their way west. Everything looked very pretty and southofranceafied.
On the way back, the bus was full of homeless people keeping out of the unusually evening cold. Bad move. The air conditioning made it colder inside than outside the bus.
On both trips I met a few disgruntled European tourists who were shocked by the patchy public transportation: how long everything took and general lack of information, schedules etc.
Had I not used my iPhone travel app I’m sure I would have gotten very lost. Maybe that’s what the the mental patients were checking…their route.
Surprisingly I still have a huge amount of shame around taking the bus in LA. Nowhere else do I feel it. Anywhere else it’s just the way things are.
Getting back to Malibu later that evening was miserable so I aborted the mission and caught a cab from Sunset and PCH waiting in a smelly fish restaurant called Gladstone’s until a jolly Georgian cabby picked me up. $30.
On the way home two large dogs dashed across the PCH. They were not killed but I don’t know how they survived. They survived the mad dash. Thank God. The cabby started shouting incoherently at the owner in Russian and English.
“Fuck you!” He screamed. “Fucker!”
As he dropped me off he said, “You can never depend on a man but a dog will never let you down.”
I spent yesterday morning in the garden, planning to hang this huge bronze lantern I found on the street. I need a sturdy chain and a butchers hook.
Capitalizing on my confidence surge I arranged to see my Important Producer Friend. It worked out really well. Before I leave LA/USA for good I have to achieve more than a couple of reality TV shows and a revenge novel…oh, and a beautiful garden.
Perhaps I’m being a little hard on myself.
Anyway, after a few moments of timidity I burst into the pitch with passion and verve. He wants to help. He is able to help. Real power in an illusory town. I felt safe.
Whilst I was with him it was easy to identify what has been missing these last two years.
Let’s look at the facts: I can write an interesting script, develop a great idea, direct a compelling movie. Sell it, promote it, open film festivals worldwide. I can really do that. I’ve done that with all but one of my films.
Because I’ve had the wind punched out of me I just couldn’t find the huge strength required to force the film off of the page and into the world. Perhaps I can? Now I have the energy and focus.
Walking down the mountain to the PCH rather than staying at home and weeding the garden…well, that’s the advice I would have given a good friend. Get off your ass and do the deal.
The miserable veil, today…for the past few days has lifted. Let’s see if it will last.
Watching that evocative twenty year old video enthused and invigorated me. I remembered just how much I have to be proud of. At the time I was making theatre, living an idyllic, simple life in Whitstable. Just returned from six months in Sydney, about to go to Film School, hanging with cool people, making love to beautiful men and mostly very happy.
My early thirties were great fun.
I think that’s obvious from those images.
I wondered what it would take to get back to that place. That happy place? Well, I have to think seriously about this blog. Because of you know who I kept this thing alive and by doing so I kept my connection with him alive. Like a daily letter to him.
It’s hard to imagine not writing this blog. It’s hard to let go.
The personal details that I pump daily into the world must stop. I have to get serious. This blog has become a destructive addiction, just like everything else I do compulsively.