Los Angeles Stories Hollywood Dog 2
March 29, 2018 scottcjones 2Comments

The Post-Standard’s prehistoric movie critic was a woman named Joan Vadeboncoeur. Joan was a stout woman of medium height. Everyone at the paper called her simply Joan, because her name—Vadeboncoeur—was an absolute chore to pronounce. Joan never married; she was confident enough in herself not to be defined by a man, which was still relatively rare in 1994. She had worked at the paper for what seemed like a thousand years. She kept a pair of heavy eyeglasses on a lengthy rhinestone chain around her neck. Her hair always looked the same: like a manicured dollop of festive yogurt.

My buttocks clenched like a pair of fists whenever Joan stomped into the editorial bullpen on her high heels. “That woman stomps everywhere. I swear you can hear her walking all the way in Cazenovia,” one of the reporters whispered to me one day. (Note: Cazenovia is a suburb of Syracuse. That was where Joan lived.)

Joan was irritated that Sven had given the Gregory Peck interview to “The Underling.” That’s what Joan had nicknamed me: The Underling. For some reason that nickname made me picture a small, deformed, shivering creature with an unfortunate hunchback that was covered from top to bottom with pubic hair. What right, Joan wanted to know, did The Underling have to speak to a bona fide Hollywood legend? I could hear the two of them arguing in Sven’s office. We all could. Sven stood his ground. “I assigned the story to that kid. Therefore, it will remain the kid’s story, Joan,” Sven shouted. “Case closed.” (Note: I did not mind Sven referring to me as “that kid.” Not in the least.)

Once the argument was over, Joan clip-clopped to a nearby desk and began to lick her wounds. She sighed dramatically, theatrically, exhaling vast amounts of air. She sounded like a volcano venting steam. “PSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” Joan said, to no one in particular. “PSSSHHHHHHHHHH.”

With sweat gathering under my arms, I clumsily dialled the number I had been given in Los Angeles at the predesignated time. (Note: I believe this was the first time I had ever called a number in Los Angeles. This is an important moment in a person’s life, the first time they call a number on the opposite coast.) A woman picked up. She introduced herself as Mr. Peck’s assistant. “This is Scott Jones, from the Post-Standard, in Syracuse,” I said. My back teeth were chattering as I talked. I was so goddamn nervous. “I have an interview? With Mr. Peck? At 2 o’clock? Is he available?”

“PSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” the volcano said.

Joan was listening to me—I could feel her listening to me. She was studying me, scrutinizing me. I could feel her trying to find fault. Joan’s mean-spirited scrutiny made the already-difficult task of conducting my first phone interview that much more difficult. To reiterate: I had no formal journalism training. I’d never conducted an interview in my life. All I had was this: I remembered a scene from a movie where one tough guy says to another tough guy, “You knew how to handle that situation—you shit your pants, and you dive in and swim.” I kept hearing that line in my head, like a mantra. I told myself that, yes, I was shitting my pants at the moment, but that I was also diving in and swimming, too. It was a great comfort to me, that line.

The assistant put the telephone down. I could hear muffled voices in what sounded like a large room. Voices echoed, but were unintelligible. I pictured a lone telephone receiver sitting on a grand, old desk. I hadn’t been to Los Angeles at that point in my life. So I pictured the mansion that Norma Desmond lives in in the movie Sunset Boulevard. I imagined I had connected myself ,via telephone, to vast rooms, roaming parlours, epic sitting rooms, libraries the size of gymnasiums.

First, I heard Gregory Peck’s unmistakeable voice off in the distance; I heard his laughter, which sounded theatrical and sort of showy to me: HUH, HUH, HUH. Then, Gregory Peck saying, closer to the phone now, “Tell Karen that I’ll be outside in about 20 minutes. And, Janice, can you bring me my iced tea? Thank you, dear.” He cleared his throat for a few moments, making grumbling sounds, sounds that I was not supposed to hear.

Then, strangely, there was utter silence. A deep, mysterious silence. In that silence, I could feel someone there, close to the phone. Was it Gregory Peck? Was he getting himself ready to talk to me? Was he performing some kind of ritual? “Hello?” I said quietly, into the receiver. “Is anyone there? Mr. Peck? Is that you?”

In that yawning, mysterious void, I heard the sound of the Los Angeles afternoon. It was expansive, bright, vast. I heard a mower in the distance. Birds were singing. A dog was barking in a nearby yard. The dog’s barks were stern, assertive yaps: BARK, BARK, BARK. This was the sound of a creature that was frightened. This was the sound of a creature that was letting something know that he was there.

BARK, BARK, BARK. Pause. BARK, BARK, BARK.

The volcano vented: “PSSSHHHHHHHH. PSSSHHH.”

Through the phone line, I heard the bright music of ice cubes in a glass of iced tea being held in the hand of an old Hollywood lion. The Hollywood lion was picking up the receiver now. The Hollywood lion was about to speak now…

BARK, BARK, BARK. Pause.

I didn’t know it at the time—how could I have possibly known?—but that moment was the beginning of my 20-year career as a writer and reporter. It’s a career that has been full of surreal moments like this one: anonymous dogs barking, ice cubes tinkling against glass, a conversation that’s always about to begin.

I thought my life was going to go one way. Then this happened—this grand moment happened—and my life went another way enitrely. That’s how it is sometimes. Things happen. They’re not the things that you thought they were going to be. You adjust. You have to adjust.

The old Hollywood lion is gone now. Peck died in 2003. And Joan Vadeboncoeur is gone, too. She died in 2011 at the age of 78. Joan never forgave me for this. I don’t blame her. Kids try to take things from me all the time now. It’s natural for them to do so. But it always burns my ass when they do.

And Sven? Good, old Sven. I have no idea where Sven is now. I hope he’s doing OK. I owe Sven a thank-you. I hope I get the chance to give it to him someday.

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Uncategorized Hollywood Dog
March 15, 2018 scottcjones 2Comments

I was a graduate student in the early 90’s. I attended a university that was built on top of a picturesque hill that was, surreally enough, filled with salt. There were salt mines in the region. On my walks up the surreal, salt-filled hill to the university each morning, I listened to cassette tapes of Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits. (Both Leonard and Tom were new to me at the time.) I was absurdly young. I was stupid and self-involved back then. I was afraid back then. (*I’m still afraid, but of different things now. Being afraid is a normal part of life.) Yet I knew that I’d never get anywhere in my life unless I flung myself headlong into the future. So I climbed the hill, to the place of enlightenment, walking by the rows of sorority houses, listening to Leonard and Tom.

I also had a meaningless part-time job at the local newspaper.

The newspaper had hired me for a humdrum task that should have been an insult to me: I had to put together the city’s weekly live-music listings. I accomplished this by calling every bar/tavern/club in the city. Does Shep’s Bar & Grill on Erie Boulevard have live music this weekend? Using one of the office phones, I called Shep’s to find out. A woman answered. “We’ve got the Cigar Box Banjo Band on Friday,” she said in a hoarse voice. What about Saturday? Cigar Box Banjo again? “Yes, Cigar Box on Saturday, too. Start time is 8 p.m. both nights. No cover charge.” The woman hung up without saying goodbye. I wrote down the words Cigar Box Banjo Fri./Sat. 8 PM n/c. Then I dialed the next place. It usually took around two, three hours to call all the venues in the city.

I was paid $100 for doing this. I did not feel insulted by the “humdrum-ness” of the task. Also: one hundred dollars was a substantial amount of money for a graduate student back in the 90’s. More importantly, this humdrum role gave me a chance to make an impression on Sven, the newspaper’s entertainment editor.

Sven was a youthful Scandinavian man who wore a pair of wire-framed eyeglasses. His plump face was punctuated with a white-blond goatee. Sven and I got along well. One day Sven decided to throw me a bone: he gave me a real story to write.

The actor Gregory Peck was touring the US at the time. G. Peck would take the stage for an hour in regional theatres. He’d sit in a parlour chair at the centre of the bare stage under a spotlight. He’d entertain audiences with tales from his storied Hollywood career. He alluded to old friends like Audrey Hepburn as “Audrey,” and the directory William Wyler as “Willie.” He’d take a handful of generic questions from the audience. Then he’d call it a night.

G. Peck’s tour was coming to our town. The company promoting G. Peck’s tour offered an interview with Peck. To my astonishment, Sven assigned me to do the interview.

I had no journalism training whatsoever. (I was in the Creative Writing department at the university.) I’d never interviewed anyone before in my life. I have no formal training when it comes to conducting proper interviews. I don’t know what “news” is, or how to report it. But writing is writing—that’s what I’ve always told myself. I can write, for sure. I know what a story is, for sure. And I told myself that I could do this interview with Gregory Peck, for sure.

 

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Poetry Man A Punch in the Mouth for the Poetry Man: Part 2
February 16, 2018 scottcjones 2Comments

I stayed with Amy in her comically small apartment in Chinatown. I tried some moves on her, sophisticated moves, old moves that used to work. Amy fended me off. Told me she was seeing someone now. Told me she had moved on. “We broke up,” she said. “Don’t you remember?” I was frustrated. Disappointed in myself. Disappointed that my sex moves no longer worked. Confidence? Gone. I was diminished. Felt like I’d walked into a buzzsaw here. Thought there was glory in New York. But, so far, no glory.

I was desperate. Desperate to get what I wanted, what I needed. I wasn’t leaving empty-handed. “Come back with me, Amy,” I said. “I made a mistake. I was a fool. I want to try again,” I said. I acted like this was a big prize for her. As if I was telling her she’d won the Publisher’s Clearing House.

Water fell out of her eyes. “Are you joking?” she asked me. Told me that I had lost my mind, that I should seek professional help.

She put out the lights. She controlled everything in New York—even the lights.

The room was the size of a hotel room closet. I could hear Amy breathing a few feet away from me. She sounded like a baby panda. Couldn’t believe how quickly she fell asleep. She obviously had no conflict in her heart. Not me. I was restless. Unsatisfied. I was running out of time. This was my first night in NYC. Sirens wailed from the street like excited ghosts. I couldn’t calm myself down. Went to the apartment’s minuscule bathroom. Switched on the light. Exhaled into the mirror a few times. Now what? Now what? I whispered. This is the uncomfortable part: I never think about masturbating; usually I’m doing it before I realize that I’m doing it. I was in the middle of lowering my shorts when, through the filthy, little bathroom window, I saw a middle aged woman in in the apartment across the alley. She was Chinese. Her skin was a soft yellow colour, like margarine. She held a towel in her hands. A cotton candy-pink towel. She was crying. She buried her face in the towel as she cried.

Couldn’t masturbate with that woman sitting 10 feet away from me crying into a towel. Pulled up my shorts. Went back to bed. Slept an hour or two at most. I made one last run at Amy in the morning. Did I get down on my knees? Yes, I did. Said things like, “Please! Come with me! I need you, Amy! I can’t live without you, Amy! I really can’t, Amy!  I don’t want to go back there without you!” But her answer was the same: No thanks, Scott. Then I got violent. Something I’m not proud of. Turned over a chair, which I didn’t expect to do. She told me to leave after the chair-turnover. She said the words, “GET OUT.” She walked me downstairs, the whole way her arms folded in front of her like the blade of a snowplow. Amy was shouting, really letting me have it. “PLEASE LEAVE, SCOTT, PLEASE GET OUT OF MY LIFE, SCOTT, YOU HAVE DONE ENOUGH DAMAGE, SCOTT.” A few neighbours poked their heads out of their doors as we descended, like rubberneckers at an accident. They wanted to see. They couldn’t help themselves.

Once I was outside, the door clicked shut behind me. I found a payphone on Mott Street. Called my writer friend with the car, the one who had given me the ride to NYC. Made a plan to meet up, to head back to the university together. I didn’t want to go back to the empty apartment at the university! Not without Amy, I didn’t. All those empty rooms. The impossibly high ceilings. The heating bill I couldn’t afford. But what choice did I have? I had to go back. Had to. Being an adult is going places you don’t want to go, doing things you don’t want to do.

I went back. I taught my classes. Wrote. Wrote long poems about the heartbreak I had experienced. I read the poems in workshop.

I can see in your eyes that you are strong now.

Stronger than I am. I live in fear of you.

Like a lost animal in a forest.

Then came the sobs. Totally pathetic. Even though I’d manufactured the entire heartbreak, the other writers tried to comfort me. Even though I’d controlled every aspect of it (except for the grande finale in New York), I presented myself in the poems as a sympathetic narrator. Poor Scott! Truth was that Amy had not left me. I’d made her leave. I’d told her that she had to go. Yet I felt entitled to the sadness.

I imagined myself as Orpheus in the poems. Was trying to get Eurydice out of the underworld (New York). Formula was simple: Me: Orpheus. NYC: the Underworld. An irritated cab driver: Hermes. A growling garbage truck: Cerberus. It was melodramatic. But, man, it was sophisticated, too (or so I thought). Because New York was sophisticated. And Greek mythology was sophisticated. And heartbreak was sophisticated. And tiny apartments on Elizabeth Street where you could see a woman crying into a towel at midnight was sophisticated.

The poems ended the same way: with a confused Amy-Eurydice being returned to NYC/the Underworld, lost forever to Orpheus/me. Rilke writes: And when, abruptly, the god put out his hand to stop her, saying,/with sorrow in his voice: He has turned around—,/she could not understand, and softly answered Who?

I presented myself as this very tragic figure. Very tragic. Even though I was not. Was this the only time I’d be a selfish asshole in a relationship? Was this the only time I’d present myself as a tragic figure? It was not. I’d do it again and again for many years to come.

That’s the end of the story. A few postscripts before we part ways.

Postscript 1: Where is Amy now? No clue. I tried to find her on Facebook a couple times. Googled her, too. Nothing. I wanted to tell her that I’m sorry for what I did to her life in the 90’s. That I was sorry for uprooting her from Chicago the way I did. That I was sorry for being so self involved, so insecure, so restless. Amy was a terrific person. She was gorgeous and smart. She tried her best to be part of my life. I hope she’s doing alright these days.

Postscript 2: The beautiful Communist and I got together the following year. But that’s a story for another time.

Postscript 3: When I got sick in 2014, while I was in rehab in British Columbia, trying to jumpstart my brain, trying to be me again, I remembered Rilke’s Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes. Lines came to me in my adjustable hospital bed. Lines I’d memorized dozens of years ago in that cold kitchen at the university. I hadn’t thought about that poem in decades. Being able to recall those lines was a great comfort to me. Being able to remember the lines made me realize that my brain was going to be OK. What was me—what was my history—after the illness, after the stroke, was still there, still intact.

Far away,/dark before the shining exit-gates,/someone or other stood, whose features were/unrecognizable.

It was there! It thrilled me so much to find it there.

Postscript 4 (and this is the thing that made me remember this entire story): I had a friend back at the university. Really talented writer. Complete neurotic, too. A New Yorker, through and through. The first real New Yorker I ever met.

One day as I was riding in her car back at the university, I told her that I had a fantasy about being the guy at dinner parties who always rose from his chair and recited a poem. I’d say something like, “I have a poem from Wallace Stevens that I’d like to share with everybody tonight…” I had never admitted my fantasy out loud before, not even to myself. “It would make me attractive,” I told myself friend as she drove the car. “It would make me sophisticated and strange. I’d be a hot ticket, for sure. Everyone would want me to come to their dinner parties.”

My friend was quiet. “I’m only going to say this once, so please listen,” my friend said as she drove. “Are you listening? Never do that. Never do that to yourself. Never do that to the people who have invited you to dinner. Are you listening to me, Scott?” We were at a red light. She turned to look at me. “Never, never, never.”

I tried to defend myself. “But it’ll be very charming. People will love it, I’m certain.”

“Please don’t,” my friend said. She somehow smiled and winced at the same time. Then she turned her eyes back to the road. She said it again: “Just don’t.”

Then she hit the gas and we drove on.

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