Everyone in LA Has a Screenplay, Right?

I’ve been a writer for a long time. A really long time. When I was in first grade I put out a neighborhood newspaper, printed on mimeograph sheets called the Sometimes Sun, which came out, well, occasionally.

Since all I’ve ever wanted to be is a writer.  It’s pretty lucky for me then, that except for a lengthy detour into publicity, where I continued to write on the side,  I’ve managed to write for a living. Or something akin to that.

I’ve written and been published in most formats: journalism, non-fiction, press releases, etc. Hell, I even took a painfully awful stab at fiction and poetry. Be glad you will never read them.  Unfortunately for me, I wrote them and therefore can never forget.  It’s sort of like viewing a train crash.

But strangely, considering that I live in Los Angeles, I never tried scriptwriting.  The common lore is that everyone here has a script under their desk. I thought that was just a nasty myth until I took a taxi home from the airport. When the driver found out I was a writer -he didn’t care that I was a journalist- he literally locked the doors and wouldn’t let me out until he told me about his script. It wasn’t good.

That experience scarred me deeply. I never considered scriptwriting. For one thing, it seemed like an insurmountable task.  Good scripts make you forget they were ever written. They just seem to exist.

But in my constant search to keep myself from becoming even stupider (see: grad school and GREs) I decided to give it a whirl. I may be dumb, but I’m smart enough to know what I don’t know, so I searched around and found a class. I figured I needed all the help I could get.

Since I am in Los Angeles, there was no shortage of possibilities. I could go to a Learning Annex or give some random guy money and do something online; there were a lot of choices. I ended up picking a new program that was affiliated with an acting and directing school under the auspices of a famous actor. For me, the teachers and the curriculum were the main draw.

The class was eight hours a week, divided between a lecture and a workshop.  The plan was to finish the program with a first draft of a script. It was a commitment with an end goal, which I love.

The classes were taught by two experienced, successful and talented writers who were also actors. This turned out to be important, at least for me. As useless as many actors think writers are, a lot of writers feel that actors are just dopes out to screw up their brilliant words and great ideas. I learned quickly that this is not true. Add in the fact that both teachers rock, the whole experience was pretty cool.

Mondays and Thursdays were class days, and became the absolute highlights of my week. Thursday was a workshop day, where the teacher and the other students would critique the pages I brought. Afterwards I’d drive home in a fog, busily plotting how I would work their suggestions into my script. It’s amazing I didn’t rack up the car; I don’t remember any of those rides. I hadn’t been this excited about writing since I sold a piece to Sports Illustrated.

Surprisingly, the most inspiring thing about this experience was the one that had worried me the most—age. Mine. I’m older than most of the people in my class. Going into the first session I was terrified that my classmates would dismiss me as the crazy old broad. They probably do think of me as a crazy old broad, but they don’t dismiss me.  And I’m glad, because I think they’re a remarkable group of people, and I feel like they’ve accepted me as an equal.

Some are actors trying to get a bead on what writers do, others are fiction writers looking to broaden their horizons. But there are many who are deadly serious about making screenwriting their careers. They work hard and leap at any opportunity to get ahead. I’m positive these folks are going to be successful. Several of them already have made short films. And they’re good.

Officially the class is over. But a group of us are determined to figure out a way to continue the workshops, which would be terrific.

I really hope that this new venture works out for me. I’m dedicated to following it through where ever it may take me—which hopefully will be to a theater near you.

MD, Schmd, The Next Time I'm Sick I'm Going to the Vet

In my household I’ve always believed that the animals have it better than the people.  But now I have absolute proof.

It started, as these things tend to do, with a visit to mom on the East Coast.  Which involved an airplane. Actually two—one to New York and one returning. Oh, the joys of flying commercial coach!

Naturally, I got sick.  Which then turned into a sinus infection. As is typical, I didn’t believe I had anything more than a sniffle.  The first day it was almost kind of fun—I slept most of the time, and the dogs sat around on my bed snoring. But by the second day they – and I -were bored with it. They wanted walks, potty breaks and two catered meals.

I still didn’t think I was ill; my belief in denial is strong.  But eventually it got past the point where I could plausibly blame it on drinking or the time change.

I started considering going to a doctor. The problem is that I don’t actually have one.  My regular MD retired a few years ago without giving any referrals. Which is kind of bitchy of her if you ask me.

As one does, I asked my friends if they had a doctor they liked.  I came up with a surprisingly short list. When I called those MDs, none were accepting any new patients. Not even if I asked nicely.

I finally found a doctor who would see me—in three weeks. By which time I would have been feeling badly for so long that I’d be contemplating suicide. ‘Cause if you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of a big baby about being sick.

Eventually I gave in and went to a walk-in clinic near my house. It was lovely. In 20 minutes I saw a doctor and walked out with a prescription for meds. I was better in a few days.  Better living through chemistry, folks!

My cat became really sick about that time as well. It was a whole different experience.  I called my vet and made an appointment to bring her in that very afternoon. Of course she needed a specialist. I got her an immediate referral and the specialist saw her two days later. Tilly was pissed about having her stomach shaved for the ultrasound, but within days she was as healthy as ever.  But the truly amazing thing is that both vets called me two times to check on her. Two times!  I’ve had surgery and the doctors never called to find out if I was still alive!

An even bigger contrast for me is with equine doctors.  One of the horses became ill too.  (These things seem to happen in threes.) Naturally it was Lucy, the pregnant mare. It appeared to be colic, which is similar to that illness in people, except that in horses it can often be fatal. Lucy has already had colic surgery once, so I’m a little touchy about her health

. Okay, truth time, I am obsessed with her right now; I was frantic.

So I called my regular vet. (Again notice the difference. I don’t have a doctor but I have three equine vets on speed dial: My regular vet, a surgeon and Lucy’s OB-GYN.)  Neil was very nice and calm. And he arrived on my doorstep within the hour. Notice: he came to me.  When she wasn’t better in a day, he arranged for me to take her to a clinic. I showed up with Lucy literally in tow about two hours later than expected. Still, practically the entire hospital staff was waiting to greet us, and within minutes she was being examined. 

Shortly thereafter she was on an IV.  I’d still be filling out liability forms and surveys if it were a human hospital. Lucy was ready to go home three days later.

A few years ago one of my old horses tried to rip his lower eyelid off while scratching an itch. It wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done. It looked ghastly. But it didn’t seem to bother him as much as it freaked me out..

Once again an emergency call was made to Neil.  (The good doctor takes awesome vacations, most of which I believe I’ve financed. But he’s generous about sharing the photos with me. So I can live at least vicariously.) Within the hour my Neil came out and stitched up the eye. It was perfect, and there isn’t even a scar.  

So this is the deal.  The next time I get sick, I’m going to call the vet. 

Don't Even Try to Argue with Me: Bruce Springsteen is God

I have post-Springsteen depression. It’s that feeling that follows an amazing Bruce Springsteen concert. Which is to say, it happens after almost every Springsteen show.

I guess you could say I’m a fan. And have been since, oh, Greetings from Asbury Park. Which came out 1973. When I was still very, very young.

It isn’t so easy being a Springsteen fan anymore. It’s considered uncool. The Boss hasn’t been hip since before the Republican party tried to co-opt “Born in the USA,” which they not only didn’t understand, but didn’t ask permission to use. It ended badly for GOP, but also left a bad taste in the mouths of the arbiters of cool.

I don’t care. I adore Springsteen. I love his songs, which are often short stories. They create entire worlds. In three minutes. I dream of writing screenplays based them.

All of this is why, in early February when I heard that he was doing a series of New England shows  in smallish venues, I decided to go. The shows were all somewhat near where my mom lives and it was a good excuse to visit.  This involved some preparation.

First on the agenda was getting tickets.  This is not nearly as easy as it was when I was almost somebody. In the good old days I could call someone who owed me a favor or just plain liked me, and they’d hook me up. Those days are long gone. Now, like the rest of the 99%, I’m screwed.

I called my friend Randi, who decided that she and Bill wanted to go to the Connecticut shows too and we put an plan in place. We’d both get online shortly before the on-sale time and sign up to the Ticketmaster website.  Surely between the two of us, we could get four tickets.

With military precision we began our assault on Ticketmaster’s site. And the tickets were sold out literally a minute after the on-sale time. Before we could get through. This was a frustrating on several fronts. How could 36,000 seats sell in less than a minute? Even if a couple of thousand tickets per show were being held for friends, family and radio stations, that should have left a hell of a lot of tickets for poor slobs with cash. But no.

Then there was the fact that the day before tickets were officially on sale, dozens of brokers were advertising ducats at triple face value. They had specific seats which meant they already had the tickets in their possession. Which explains how 36,000 tickets were gone in 30 seconds. They were sold before we even had a chance.

This left Randi and I sputtering with fury. And more importantly, plotting. How could we get

into the show without succumbing to the scalpers? We were flummoxed.  And furious.

Instant messages and texts sprinkled with curse words flew across the country. Then Bill, who is nothing if not practical, decided to go to one of the ticket outlets, just on the off chance that they might still have seats.  I thought he was dreaming.

He wasn’t.  He went to a Wal-Mart, a store I’ve never set foot in for political reasons, which had a Ticketmaster outlet. He handed them money and they gave him four seats in back of the stage. We took them gratefully.

Which is how, after practically begging someone to housesit the menagerie and a fight with Delta airlines about frequent flier mileage, I ended up sitting in a car in Albany with Bill, Randi and my nephew, Peter,  and his girlfriend. Peter is a HUGE fan. So are many of his 20-something friends. Pete had somehow finagled his own seats, so we split up at the show with a plan to meet afterwords.

Yes, we were in back of the stage, but we were low enough to read the little sign that read ‘Albany’ on the stairs going to the stage. And there was an awesome video screen just above us.

Bruce is a force of nature. At nearly 65 he looks better than 90% of my friends, and some of them are in their 20s. He plays to the entire crowd – front, sides and back, and acts like he couldn’t imagine anything better to do with his time. He probably can’t. Lord knows, he’s not performing because he needs the money. He probably has more money than he can spend (even if one of his daughters is an Olympic show jumping hopeful). Nope, he plays because he loves it.

It’s contagious.  From the little ‘tweeners’ that he pulled onstage to dance with him, to the grandma he waltzed with, to the man in near us in a wheelchair, the crowd was joyous. For all three hours and 27 songs.

But now I have that inevitable let-down that happens after a Bruce show. But it’s worth it

Losing the War with Nature

I live in an area of LA that is laughingly called semi-rural. It isn’t. I just happen to reside on a street that is mostly horse properties. Or what passes for such in Los Angeles.  That means that only one of my cross streets has its own freeway exit.

Still, for all the traffic and city proximity, I have been dealing with a fair amount of wildlife lately. I recently had an alligator lizard just move right into the living room. Literally.

I had the front door open to let someone in, and an eight-inch reptile just marched in with her like it owned the place. Which it doesn’t, or if it does, sure hasn’t been paying rent

Neither Poppy ,the intrepid hunting Brittany, or I noticed the thing, but my visitor sure did. She brought it to my attention with a strangled scream. Not a pretty sound.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen one of these lizards, but they are aptly named. They really do look like tiny alligators. They’re quite attractive with black and tan diamond markings on their back, and they even sport substantial fangs. If it wasn’t so small, it would have been scary.

I think it came inside because we were having a ridiculous heat wave, and it knew the air-conditioning was on. I know reptiles are supposed to be cold-blooded creatures but people have said the same about me, and I was pretty uncomfortable.

The creature must not have a strong odor, because it practically ran over Poppy, and she didn’t even notice it. The lizard, like its namesake, was fast.  Just as I reached down to grab it and toss it outside, the thing darted behind a bookcase.  For a few days I just hoped it would move out on its own. But like a lot of uninvited guests  it didn’t cooperate.

It was a pleasant enough visitor. It stayed out of sight and unlike the rest of my quadrupeds, didn’t expect me to feed or clean up after it.  But it had to go. Preferably before it died and started stinking up the place.

Which is how I ended up on my hands and knees running a stick under the bookcase. I was trying to chase the damned thing into the living room and then outside back to nature. The first couple of passes brought forth a tremendous amount of hidden dog hair, but no reptile. The next time the lizard came shooting out, straight at me. I was so surprised I forgot what I was trying to do.

It wasn’t thrilled to see me either, and ducked back under the bookcase. Apparently I had not made my intentions clear, because then it scooted up the back of the bookcase and began walking on top of it. Where it glared at me directly—eye to eye.  I poked it with the stick to push it back to the floor and the thing hissed at me. Now I don’t speak lizard—until now I didn’t even know they could vocalize—but I knew it was pissed.

I was starting to feel a bit flummoxed by the whole thing—the standoff could have gone on for hours if not days—I  have a feeling that reptiles are pretty patient—when it suddenly ran back down the back of the bookcase, onto the floor and out the front door. Where it belongs. Back in nature.

The funny thing is that I have seen him regularly since he left. He’s taken up a spot by the doorstep. 

The creature Poppy found this morning wasn’t so lucky. Poppy is completely fascinated by whatever has been digging holes in the back yard so it’s not unusual to see her butt sticking up in the air and her head jammed down the animal’s tunnel.  It’s not her most photographic angle but I’m getting used to it. And she is usually just wasting her time.

Today was different. Poppy was digging as fast as her paws could move, the dirt was flying and then boom! The next thing I knew she was running around the horse paddock with something in her mouth. At first I thought –okay hoped-she had a clump of dirt, or even some horse poo. But no, I spotted little tiny feet. Ewwww.

She reluctantly brought it over to me and dropped it when I asked.  Good dog!

It was some kind of rodent, but I have no idea what species. I had thought that ground squirrels were the ones digging in the back yard, but this was no squirrel. Nor was it a rat. It was about the size of a skinny guinea pig, and had little short legs and a medium length tail.

It was probably some extremely rare creature which is now, thanks to Poppy and me, extinct. Yay nature.

Lucy's Home and Nothing Will Ever Be the Same

Lucy, the horse, came home from the clinic last week. Pregnant. Barely. The zygot is literally the size of half a dime. But it’s there. Getting slightly bigger every day.

It took some doing. Because Lucy was 15 when we bred her there was concern about whether she’d actually get knocked up. Obviously, the younger the horse, the great the chance for the pregnancy to take. 

But since Lucy was competing until she was 14, breeding when she was younger wasn’t an option. I wasn’t about to harvest her eggs and get a surrogate.  I’m crazy but not that nuts.

After her initial stay at the clinic I was told to bring her back for a recheck in 14 days. Apparently she had double ovulated, which meant there was a possibility of twins. In horses that is not good. Rarely do both survive and if they do, they generally have issues.

So if there are twins, they do something that is oh-so-clinically called a ‘twin reduction.’ That is, they abort the least viable embryo.

Wednesday was Lucy’s re-check. She was not pleased to be back at the clinic. After she got off the trailer she looked around and chomped me. Hard. She was pissed. The last time she’d been there had involved a week of daily ovulation checks, which were invasive and annoying. She’s not dumb and she has a very good memory.

The check-up was clinical. With barely a howdoyoudo, the vet pulled on a pair of plastic gloves and whipped out an ultrasound wand to check her out.

“Yup,’ he said, “Look there are two.”  I looked at the ultrasound and initially couldn’t see anything, but found myself agreeing anyway.

 “Oh, yeah, it’s right there.” Of course I was looking at two spots on the screen that had nothing to do with why we were there.

The doctor kindly pointed out the correct tiny specks. “She needs to stay here for a day for us to take care one of them.” At this point that I wanted to ask him to make sure he left the one that was a great jumper; the colt with the white feet, but he didn’t seem like he had much of a sense of humor, so I just nodded.

A day later I got a text that the ‘twin reduction’ had been completed, and to pick up my girl. Lucy’s life—and mine—was about to change. I wasn’t bringing her back to the boarding stable where she’s been for 11 years. Instead, she was coming home to my back yard to live with the boys until her due date approaches.

I wasn’t worried that Murphy or Dezi would hurt her—they are 28 and 22 respectively—but I was concerned she might kill them. She was none too fond of Dezi when he was still competing and they lived next to each other.

To that end I had her back shoes pulled off. That way if she kicked them, she wouldn’t hurt them too badly.

I was a wreck when I brought her into the back yard. She took one look at the boys and started eating grass. They, on the other hand, looked like their eyes might pop out of their heads. Fresh blood! For the past two years they’d lived in the yard alone with nothing more exciting than a sprinkler main breaking. Now there was another horse! Whee!

I popped her out with them and they were all off trotting around the paddock. The boys couldn’t get close enough to her. Every time they came within smelling distance she cocked a back leg and kicked them. So they stayed a respectful hoof length away.  After 15 minutes they all settled down—sort of.

My two ancient geldings had erections and were still staring at Lucy like a cat eyes mice.  But they didn’t get close. She pretty much ignored them and started eating the hay. Murphy, in particular, wanted to get near her and hovered just out of reach. She let him.

I went into the house for a glass of wine. By the time I had finished my first glass of Malbec, the boys had chilled out and all three horses were lined up, eating and minding their business.

I had decided for safety’s sake that for the first week Lucy would stay in a stall at night. She hasn’t been out since she was a foal, and I didn’t want her to get panicked or hurt in the dark. So I led her to a stall and carefully double snapped the chain, leaving her inside with her dinner.

The next morning at 6:30 I went out to feed the horses as usual.  And as usual they came galloping up to me to get fed. Except there were three of them. One of the boys (probably Murphy, he’s good at opening double end snaps) had unlocked the door and she’d pushed it open.

The inmates were running the asylum. 

Coachella and Families; How Not to Attend a Music Festival

The Coachella Festival was this past couple of weekends and I’ll admit it got me thinking. Not that I wanted to go—the Replacements and a couple of other bands were the only ones I really wanted to see. What got me really buzzing, and I admit a little nauseated, were the photos.

Not of the skimpily dressed, perfectly accessorized, fashion -brand sponsored girls, or the drunken boys, but the pictures my friends were posting on Facebook and Instagram. Of them with their children.

What. The.  F***. There is so much wrong with these photos that I barely know where to start. But I’ll take a stab at it anyway.

Say I was hit on the head by a bottle, and as result of the subsequent concussion decided to attend to Coachella.  Maybe then I would be willing, nay, required to fork over the many thousands of dollars that a “VIP” or concierge ticket costs. It might be a pleasant way to visit a multi-day music festival in the desert.  

Apparently these passes get you into comfortably air-conditioned tents (nice in the desert) away from the sun and the wind (again, really excellent in the desert) but most importantly keep you far apart from the riff-raff and the stinky masses.  I.e. the people.

‘Course that kind of privacy also keeps you away from the music.  But face it, if you’re shelling out for a helicopter to take you to Indio, access to a privately curated wine bar and custom, waitress-served meals, you’ve got to admit you’re not there for the music. It’s an afterthought. You’re there to say you were there.

But okay, if that’s the way a geezer wants to roll at a music festival. It’s bizarre to me, but most boomers have done their time in the mosh pit and may want to try something different. At least most of my friends have spent time moshing. Some still do. But I digress. If folks want to take a step back I get it. It’s not very punk rock, more AARP, but I am trying to understand here.

But who the hell takes their children with them? And what kid would want to attend with their parents? This is a music festival, not Disneyland, no matter how gussied up and VIPed they make the experience.

I can almost understand how, if the whole family wants to go to the festival, it would make sense to share a ride to Indio, and maybe even hit up the parents for a hotel room.  But attending together? Taking selfies in the concierge suite as a group?  What’s next? Doing shots with the preteens for their Facebook page cred?

This simply doesn’t compute.  Music festivals are not meant to be inter-generational bonding experiences. They are supposed be about music first, which is usually not a shared family taste, and secondly about having a whole lot of perhaps not parentally supervised fun.

I always got along with my folks, and invited them to come by when I was working on Lollapalooza. They never came. It wasn’t their cup of tea, and I wouldn’t have the time to spend with them during the show anyway. But mostly, they had no desire to attend a music festival and really see up close what it was that I was doing there. And, more importantly, what everyone else was doing there while I was working.

Music festivals are crowded and dirty and filled with people doing irresponsibly stupid things between sets. Sometimes during sets. Occasionally even onstage during the show. It’s part of the fun and the experience, and it’s not always G-rated. It’s certainly not always predictable. That’s the point.

The spontaneity is what can make the music part of the festival so great (or awful). You just never know what’s going to happen. It might rain. The power might blow. The lead singer might be in jail and miss his set. Your BFF could do some bad mushrooms and you spend the whole festival babysitting him and end up skipping your favorite bands. It’s up for grabs.

Obviously there is a line between having fun and being dopey, and being reckless. But that’s why little kids shouldn’t go to music festivals. Because they don’t know the difference.  They are little kids.

If your kid is so young that they can’t attend the Coachella on their own, they probably shouldn’t be there. If your kid is old enough to attend Coachella on their own, they definitely should be hanging with their friends, not their parents. And if they are so spoiled that they’ll only attend Coachella with a VIP pass hanging from their neck, they need attend the festival on general admission ticket to see how the rest of the world lives.

The Birds and the Bees; Spring Hits 7 Hills Farm West

Spring has hit Seven Hills Farm West with a wallop. It started with the canaries.

I have four of them in a rather large flight cage that takes up a corner of my bedroom. The birds have a simple job—look pretty and sing. The two girls look pretty and the two boys sing. A lot.

I don’t expect anything more from them. They are after all, birds. But recently one of the girls, Rusty developed baby fever. She spent the last two weeks shredding up the newspaper that lines the bottom of the cage and ripping her pretty red feathers out to make a cute little nest. Which would be fine if she actually used one of the little wooden boxes that I keep in the cage for that purpose. But no…. she decided that the perfect house is one of the food containers.

It works out well for her. Since she rarely leaves the nest, she can eat where she lives. The other birds are a little bummed though. It doesn’t matter that they have four other choices for their dining pleasure. They want to eat out of that one. So they hover around the nest looking vaguely confused and chirping. I mean even more confounded than birds generally look. Rusty doesn’t seem to care. Every few hours she stands up, fluffs her feathers and with a small sigh, sits down on the eggs again.

I’d be more excited if we hadn’t been through this drill before. This is the third time Rusty has taken to a nest. The first time I was intrigued. I don’t’ really care if we have babies—actually I do. Canaries are such terrible parents it’s amazing that the species continues at all. Their parenting skills are non-existent. In the past the infants, which look more like pterodactyls than domestic birds, have survived only days before their moms have knocked them out of the nest and onto the ground.  By the time I find them, there are no more. It’s a little tragedy every time.

So I’d be perfectly content to have no eggs under Rusty’s butt. Sadly though, there are always eggs. She does take care of them—carefully turning them, fluffing over them and only leaving the nest long enough to eat and drink.  Nature is amazing though. Just when I’ve decided that it’s time to remove the eggs and let her move on, she does it herself. One morning she’s just over them, and kicks them out of the nest onto the cage floor. I always feel a little sad. She doesn’t seem to care.

Hopefully Lucy, the other mother-to-be in our farmette, will take parenthood a little more seriously. Lucy is my recently retired show horse.

Our partnership has lasted ten years. We had a good relationship—I gave her lots of snacks, the best possible care, and she saved my ass when it was in the saddle and only bit me occasionally. It seemed like a fair tradeoff.

Lucy is the most talented horse I’ve ever had. Together we have won dozens of championships and muddled through hundreds of horse shows. If she had a more capable, more moneyed partner, she’d probably be famous. Instead she had to put up with me.

Sadly she reinjured her leg at a horse show last year, and even with the best medical treatment (surgery, rest, stem cells and lasers) she didn’t heal well enough to return to work. So I decided to breed her.

Breeding a horse, unless it’s Zenyatta, is not a wise financial decision. By the time you’ve bred the horse, paid for the stallion and raised the baby, it’s cheaper to buy a trained adult. But for me it was about emotion. I wasn’t ready to let Lucy go yet. (It's not like she was going far- even if she doesn't get pregnant, she'll live in the backyard with the other retirees.)

Picking a stallion is a little like using Match.com—but there are no loser coffee dates. And unlike online dating, it’s fun.

I thumbed through the Chronicle of the Horse stallion issue the way some people look at the Tiffany catalog. I picked about six prospects. Finally my trainer stepped in and helped whittle my choices down to the winner. Like many of the nicest guys, he’s Canadian. He was campaigned by an amateur and is an amazing mover—which is Lucy’s biggest fault—and almost as good a jumper as she is. All in all a good choice.

Lucy went to the clinic last week to be bred —sport horse breeding is not romantic.  There are no candles, soft lights, or even another horse in the room. Think turkey baster and you have the picture.

She goes back for her recheck this week. If all goes well she’ll have a baby on the ground in 2015. And people keep telling me horses, unlike canaries, are great and natural mothers.