9/25/22
Newsletter108
The Crack of Dawn
In 1988 when I was writing Lunatics: A Love Story (1992), I took my piece-of-shit diesel Eldorado in to be repaired. I don’t know if it’s still there, but there was about a half-mile long strip mall on Santa Monica Blvd. that was all car repair shops. I took my car to Two Guys From Tonga, these two enormous, nice Tongan fellows who did good work cheap. So, as those guys were fixing my car, I took my book and strolled over the shady front lawn of the Hollywood Cemetery (now called “Memories”). I sat down on the grass and began reading. A few moments later the cemetery caretaker came out and said to me, “I wouldn’t sit there if I were you.” Ready to fight, I said, “How come? I don’t see a sign.” The caretaker said, “You can sit there if you want, but have you noticed that where you’re sitting the grass is discolored?” I hadn’t, but now I stood up, looked around, and yes, the grass was yellow where I was sitting. The caretaker explained, “You were sitting directly below the chimney of the crematorium. Whatever is in the smoke of the cremated people comes down right there and kills the grass. You can sit there if you want, but I wouldn’t.” Neither did I, and I left.
The second time I lived in Hollywood, in 1979, I was in an apartment at 1933 N. Whitley, two blocks north of Franklin. I didn’t have a car at that time and only rode a bike. Going north on Whitely from Hollywood Blvd. the road begins to incline upward as you approach the Hollywood Hills. Once you cross Franklin the incline becomes so steep that, for a year, when I was twenty-one and in the best shape of my life, I could not get the bike up that final block and had to walk it. It was a shabby, old, one-room apartment with a Murphy bed that folded down out of the wall. My living room window faced the wall of the next building, with a ledge right there. I shit you not, one day I was sitting and reading, looked up and saw a ten-foot long boa constrictor slithering by on the ledge. I thought, “Did I really just see that, or am I tripping?” Moments later I heard a person in the lobby asking loudly, “Has anybody seen a boa constrictor? It got away.” OK, I wasn’t crazy. I told the guy, “It went that-a way.”
At the top of Whitely was an overgrown, empty lot where a big house once stood that had burned down years before. The foundation and the fence were still there. That spot had a spectacular panoramic view of L.A. I would hike up there with a book and joint and just hang out. Upon further investigation I found that the lot still had a mailbox attached to the fence, and it was completely stuffed with mail, some of which was new. I thought, “Maybe I can figure out who used to live here.” So, I took all of the mail, sat down in the lot and went through it. Most of the letters were fan mail addressed to Syd and Marty Kroftt. I first encountered the artistry of the Canadian Kroftt brothers at the same time as everybody else, with their first TV show, H.R. Pufnstuf (1969). I tuned in exclusively because the show starred Jack Wild, who had just appeared in the previous year’s Best Picture, Oliver! (1968). Even though I was only eleven years old, I was utterly aghast at how horrible it was – Jack Wild cavorting with people in ridiculous puppet outfits, singing bad songs – and thought, “Poor Jack Wild.” Well, the show was a big hit and spawned many more idiotic Syd and Marty Kroftt shows like: The Bugaloos, Lidsville and Land of the Lost, none of which I watched. Anyway, why was their business mail coming to this empty lot? The letters were addressed to that lot.
And for you longtime Newsletter readers, it was right in front of that building at 1933 N. Whitely where I found the one page of Alvin Sargent’s screenplay for Julia (1977), which I have framed on my wall. Wherein Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda) complains to Dashiell Hammett (Jason Robards) about how hard it is writing her first play and she can’t work at the beach. He says, “Then don’t work here, don’t work anyplace, it’s not as though you’ve written anything before. Nobody’ll miss you. It’s the perfect time to change jobs.”
And a new days begins.
Born in April 1965, H.R. Pufnstuf, The Bugaloos, Lidsville and Land of the Lost. I remember going to the Jolly Roger Drive-in with mom, brother, niece and aunt to watch the H.R. Pufnstuf movie. Now 50+ years later I certainly think Syd and Marty Kroftt enjoyed MANY joints and not novices to LSD either. Still, good memories.