Homeless, 1988
Ridin' down the highway
Goin' to a show
Stop in all the byways
Playin' rock 'n' roll
Gettin' robbed
Gettin' stoned
Gettin' beat up
Broken boned
Gettin' had
Gettin' took
I tell you folksIt's harder than it looks[1]
Homeless, 1988
Making a film is not an easy
task. In fact, it is one of the most
difficult undertakings in the world—especially without money. I tried making
mainstream films; I tried "legitimate" screenwriting; it involves
structure, plot points, commercialism, restrictions . . . Absent of a high
school diploma and unable to afford a “proper” education, my thirst for
knowledge often led me to the many libraries around LA, researching every great
filmmaker or director, while seeking work as an extra or a Production
Assistant. I drudged for years at menial task while trying to get a commercial
script I wrote, Die Quickly, Deadly, and
Without Reason, produced. Nothing ever became of it.
I shopped it around for a while. My
hopes were to get two young television actors I thought would be great for the
roles, to star in it and at one point I had the opportunity to pitch it to some
execs. I summoned all the courage I could and with a little help from Jim Beam
I stumbled through a synopsis of the piece and naively believed the execs would
see its potential especially utilizing these two young actors. At the time the
studios said these two guys couldn't make it as "movie stars." They
had seen many others try to break out of the television mold, but most had failed.
"What makes you so smart you
can take a second rate TV actor and make him a movie star?" One executive
asked. "Who are you to judge?" Another one laughed.
I thought these actors were
good. They were up and coming stars as
far I was concerned. Later that year they would star in the films, Glory and
Die Hard. They were Denzel Washington
and Bruce Willis (as you are well aware) and have done pretty damn good in the
"Biz" and it only took a year for those idiots who doubted me to
realize their potential.
The script was an action thriller
set in Central America around the fictitious coastal country of Costa Midera.
Denzel was to play my protagonist, Brad Sumners, an ex-navy seal. Bruce was to
play my antagonist, Willie Petrale. While vacationing, Sumners goes scuba
diving off the coast and encounters a drug exchange. He returns to find his
wife has been kidnaped and while in pursuit she is killed in a boat explosion
by the drug lord Willie Petrale. Sumners goes on a rampage to maim, kill,
and disfigure ever drug dealer in the country affiliated with the Petrale
cartel and during the hunt, Sumners discovers his wife had never died in the
explosion and was actually in love with Petrale . . . and that he was just
being used . . . to eliminate some of the bottom-feeders.”
It had everything Hollywood is
looking for: drugs, sex, explosions, guns, deceit—A sure winner as far as I was
concerned. But nothing ever became of
it. I wasn't a player. I was a no
name. I was a kid without family or a
connection earning pennies as an extra. I couldn't find anyone that would back
me while all this time trying to keep up with the constantly escalating cost of
living in Los Angeles.
Failure is an interesting
thing. It can drive a man to
discouragement and heighten his depression.
Where the only logical conclusion in the crippled mind of the disturbed
is just say, fuck it—fuck the world, fuck the cars, fuck the mortgage, fuck
everything. It's not worth the
hassle. I tried my best, I have given it
my all and I'm tired of this fucked up world's perception, as well as my own,
of what I am supposed to be.
I had no one, except a crippled
father in a wheel chair in Florida; my mother had died from cancer in
prison in November of 1987; I had no brothers; no sisters; no friends; no
lover. I walked out of the small apartment, in Echo Park, with three months
rent past due, on Valentine's Day of 1988 and found my way to Santa Monica: a
place that had tourist with money, clean streets, the beach and some of the
best homeless coalitions in the world.
I didn't take much when I left due
to the fact I didn't have much, except for the clothes I was wearing, some
other shirts, pants, shoes, and a blazer I had bought for "important"
meetings. I left the blazer and all my writings, scripts, and ramblings in an
old desk the landlord owned. The furniture belonged to her as well and the only
property that was worth anything was my word processor, which I had sold three
weeks earlier. I placed the clothes in a suitcase, but thought the suitcase to
ostentatious for person in need. How
could I panhandle for money I considered, I might look like a tourist
rather than what I was about to become: what my father often referred to, and
often said I would be—a bum.
At the time, my bewildered judgment
preferred the term hobo. It sounded a lot more romantic to me: like the men
that traveled the country and hopped the freight trains during the Great
Depression, and in my doleful mental onslaught I had illusions of pedestrian
grandeur.
My mind often searched the only
mentors I knew: the great actors I mimicked as a fanciful child and now
emulated as a manic adult. I recalled the great actor Lee Marvin in the film
called, The Emperor of the North Pole: A movie based on a play written by
Eugene O'Neil and directed by Robert Aldrich—Marvin played the main character—a
philosophical hobo named "A No. 1".
Throughout the film, A No.1 clashes
with a sledgehammer-wielding character named "Shack", viciously
played by Ernest Borgnine. Along the journey he spews such wisdom, like
"You ain't stopping at this hotel, kid. My hotel! The stars at
night, I put 'em there". And, "I go where I damn well please. Even
the chairman of the New York Central can't do it better".
I convinced myself I was an
adventurer—not a bum—being free of all stresses and causes of heart attacks,
strokes, and suicide. I felt I was a pioneer in twentieth century
emancipation. Put simply my need was to not have any needs. So I threw my
clothes into a plastic garbage bag and headed out onto Sunset heading
west. I kept my head up. I thought, perhaps this wasn't so bad
compared to all the emphatic "no's" I had experienced from
uncaring assholes in the ”biz.”
Absence
of work and relentless depression, during the year prior, had become
suffocating. I tried to write and nothing came, except rejection notice
after rejection notice. It will work out, I thought as I walked along
Sunset Boulavard. It is not so much the end of the world, but perhaps
a new beginning. I'm heading towards the ocean. A place of
cleansing and beauty . . . and calm, my mystified logic reasoned. All
the aggravation and angst I experienced would somehow come to an end. I
was finally free, free of rejection, free of bills, free of worry. I had
only myself and the food and water I would find. Fuck the alleged
civilized world. Fuck you, movie business, I cried. Fuck
everything. I was A No.1.
Approximately two miles up Sunset I
turned north on Bronson to Hollywood Boulevard.
I thought I'd take in the history of the movie business I had once loved
and now loathed. I'd like to say, for
dramatic purposes, it was raining or storming with lighting all around me; or
that I felt a tremor as I turned on to Hollywood Boulevard, but no, the
beautiful day in March and the Southern California sunshine mocked me with a
blanket of blue skies as a bittersweet reminder of why I came to this place
called Hollywood.
As I walked, I reminisced about the films
I enjoyed watching with my mother as a child: the films with Burt Lancaster,
and Kirk Douglas, and Robert Mitchum.
What a great place this place must have been before all the filth, and
hypocrites, and whores. I played your games, I thought to myself. I
gave you my best—your way—but the hell with you.
Passing
by Egyptian Theater I looked up and marveled at the films that had premiered
here. I laid my garbage bag down and sat
on a nearby bus bench. My rationale
searched for joy in the new world that approached while fighting my minds
fervor of depression from my recent rejections. My heed’s turmoil sought the
beauty of once was legendary Hollywood . . . And in brief moments of delusional
anguish I saw Hedi Lamarr pass and have a smoke with Clark Gable and Jean
Harlow. Laurel and Hardy drove past in a
Model T and beeped with a friendly wave.
Marilyn Monroe stopped and sat on the bench next to me, pulled out a
cigarette and asked me for a light.
"Harry,
you seem so sad," she said.
"They would have killed you if you let them."
I put my
head in my hands and I began to sob.
I felt
Marilyn's soft touch rubbing the back of my neck, comforting me. I remembered when I had first arrived here
and the dreams I had of being a great director like Huston, or Wells, or
Ford. I was twenty at the time and now
five short years later I was old and battered and beaten. The City of Angels is really a city of ghost
that reminds you of how what was once glorious and beautiful can become
contemptible and wretched.
A bus
pulled up and stopped. I straightened
myself up as the door opened. A man exited and passed.
"You're
doing the right thing," Marilyn said as she got up from the bench and
walked to the bus. As she went up its steps, she turned back for a moment.
"Bye
everyone. Bye," she whispered while throwing a kiss. She turned towards the back of the bus and
passed the driver who sat holding the door, staring at me.
"I
don't have any money . . . Nor a destination,” I said to the driver.
He
released the door and it shut. The
engine rumbled as the bus accelerated and passed. I could see the back of Marilyn's head at the
rear of the bus; she seemed to be leading me west towards an orange sunset.
A young
woman resembling Joan Crawford approached and sat beside me. She turned the other way and lit a smoke. She
seemed uncaring, cold, and very real.
"Could
I get one of those?" I asked.
"They
don't grow on trees, buddy," she said.
I turned
as Buster Keaton was passing. He stopped for a moment, put his hand my
shoulder.
“The
bastards would have taken it all away anyway. You’re better off without them.”
He sighed.
He shook
his head in disgust and then disappeared. Anger shot through my veins, I stood
up grabbing my belongings, stopped, and stared at the woman. I somehow felt
sorry for her. She was probably going to
or coming from a job she hated and a boss she despised.
"Thanks,
lady, thanks," I spat, excepting the uncaring and hopeless world as I saw
it.
"You're
welcome," she scoffed rolling her eyes.
I began
to walk . . . continue to Part 2 of this chapter
Comments