Dead never means dead in Hollywood, which, I have discovered, is the Lazarus town of the west.
The promise of connecting with loved ones on the Other Side is ever alive, and an enormous volume of programming is devoted to it.
They don’t say the word “dead” here, though. Ever. It is too dramatic a sounding syllable; too final. They say “passed over”, which is more in the spirit of “Just nipped into the kitchen to put the kettle on”.
And, when you want to contact a loved one in said kitchen, you only have to talk to the right people – any number of psychics, whose speciality is conveying messages from the next room in order to comfort those left behind.
If you want to experience how the more glamorous corners of the other side operate, Psychic Hollywood is the show to watch and leads the field in its ability to contact the star-studded heavens.
Take Farrah Fawcett’s best mate, Alana Stewart. She was worried that Farrah might be feeling her friends had let her down and might be a bit stung about Michael Jackson’s death taking the limelight away from her own. She was also writing a book and wasn’t sure whether it would meet with approval.
Well, not to worry, psychic James Van Praagh was able to to talk to Farrah directly and come back with some answers.
No, she didn’t feel let down, no she didn’t mind about Michael Jackson, and she was thrilled about Alana’s book.
Lucky, that, because it reached the top of the New York Best Sellers' list. I wonder what would have happened if Farrah had replied in the negative; something tells me that Alana would not have shelved the project, psychic or no psychic.
Just to be on the safe side, James took Alana to a quiet place, where her friend allegedly told her: “Just scream at me in the air like you’ve been doing.”
This she did. Loudly. “It was like being with her!” cried an excited Alana. Phew. I’m glad I was never around Farrah’s place for a barbecue.
Psychic Hollywood also features Derek Ogilvie, who goes by the title “baby whisperer”. A man called Ryan came to him because his two-year old son Max was scribbling strange pictures and words.
Derek sensed “strange energy around the genital area” and was able to ascertain, from this, that Ryan had “intimacy issues”.
Derek wondered if he had been molested, but it transpired that Ryan had once had a tumour in one of his testicles.
Somehow, from this melee of information (and I’m still not sure quite how the connection was made), Derek and Ryan pinpointed the intimacy issues as having stemmed from Ryan’s childhood, when the family dog had to be put down.
I am now wondering whether any issues I have had in my adult life might be traced back to when Sally our Chihuahua and Tara our poodle paid their last visit to the vet’s.
It might explain a lot. Or not.
Derek sent Ryan and Max off to the park, where they were to address the intimacy thing that might explain Max’s drawings. After a group hug, Ryan tried to strike up a conversation. Max, however, had other ideas.
“Plane!” he cried, pointing to the sky.
For poor old Ryan, it was like pulling teeth. “I try to talk about the relationship issue . . . you just wanna look at aeroplanes,” he said, sorrowfully.
“Plane!” said Max, pointing to the sky once more. Ryan reported back to Derek that he thought Max wasn’t understanding what he was getting at.
He’s two, for goodness sake! I’m over 50 and I wasn’t getting it, either.
Derek’s speciality as a “baby whisperer” is helping people “use old knowledge for modern times”, and one aspect of this is clearing away negative spirits to make room for new energy. Having failed with Ryan (who he claimed had not done what he asked him to), he moved on to Mark.
“We’re gonna start off by sageing you”, he said, an operation that required calling forth the Archangel Michael, who would open Mark’s mouth and push the Jagwar spirit (whatever that is) through his body.
“Archangel Michael, push deeper into his body!” he cried. “Lock him down, angels! It’s really time for you to be who you’ve come to be!” I don’t know about Mark, but I was exhausted.
Mark insisted that he felt an “emotional connection” and something leaving his body. Miracle of miracles, Mark suddenly felt his fears subside and able to face life head on.
Quite what Farrah and Michael in the next room think about it all is anybody’s guess; but I suspect they are both in a safer place than a world inhabited by the likes of Derek and James.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Rumble In The Media Jungle: Leno vs Conan 2/2/10
You know when something is really big news here when the essence of the story can be reduced to just four words.
One of the hottest topics of recent weeks has been “Rain in Los Angeles”, a headline of such cataclysmic proportions, it dominated not only local news bulletins, but every dining table conversation within a 50 mile radius.
You would think the city had never seen water, let alone seen it pour from the heavens.
People caught unawares emerged from restaurants, staring blankly into the street like assistants of Dr Who arriving at a designated departure point, only to find that the Tardis had already gone.
Coming from Cardiff, one of the wettest cities in the UK, I was invariably one of the only people on the street with an umbrella (habit - I never go without one, even in LA), as soaked pedestrians gazed on enviously.
Ha! I thought. They hadn’t read their Bibles; I was all too aware of the parable of the ten virgins, five of whom hadn’t taken enough oil for their lamps, while waiting the arrival of the bridegroom.
Some say the story is a warning to people to be prepared for the day of reckoning; to me, it means never, ever, go without an umbrella, bridegroom or no bridegroom, so there.
“Will Brangelina break up?”
That’s been another four-word obsession and a topic for which people have an almost pathological obsession in Hollywood.
The ongoing saga about the celebrity couple’s marriage, and whether Brad Pitt will leave current wife Angelina Jolie to return to first wife Jennifer Aniston, is one of the major soap operas of the day.
At Sunday’s Grammy Awards, E! (Entertainment) Channel reliably informed us from the red carpet that the previous night, the couple had been seen very much “into” each other. Purely on this evidence alone, said an interviewee, they were definitely not going to be breaking up.
I don’t care two figs one way or the other, but I do wonder how Angelina manages to sleep at night next to Brad’s weird new beard. Waking up next to that facial yeti must put more of a dent in her love than ever our Jen could manage to do. To be honest, the only way I can see Angelina could get “into” Brad at the moment would be if she were to employ a topiarist to pave the way.
Even bigger than the rain and Brangelina, however, has been the “Jay Leno versus Conan” story. This plot has rumbled on for weeks, both on and off screen, and the network NBC, on which both men have shows (at the moment), continues to be strangely fascinating.
In brief: Veteran Jay Leno was hosting the Tonight Show at 11.35pm, and, when he moved to primetime last year, failed to attract the same ratings. Now, in March, he’s getting his old show back, while his replacement, Conan O’Brien, who didn’t want to move to a later slot (and why should he, having landed the top prize – it’s humiliating), is leaving with £20 million.
To be honest, in the humiliation stakes, I’d strip naked and allow myself to be pelted with cow dung (thrown by Sarah Palin) for that sort of dosh, but I’m new to LA and doubtless I will learn.
Humiliation? Drive it over here in that fleet of Ferraris.
But I can’t help noticing that successful US male hosts are known only by their surnames (Leno, Letterman), and the females by their first (Oprah, Ellen, Chelsea). In this, Conan was doomed from the start. He will doubtless rue the day he was not Christened a boy named Sue.
The Leno/Conan story has become one of the major sources of material for comedians, coast to coast. David Letterman, who hosts his late-night TV show from New York, is enjoying it hugely, reportedly never having forgiven Leno for taking over the Tonight Show from Johnny Carson when he so wanted it for himself (I wanted it for Letterman, too, but if I’d known the queue of adoring women was as long as we now know it to have been, I might have hitched my flag to another, er, pole, as it were – but that’s another story).
Meanwhile, in LA, Conan puts on a brave face, trying to make light of what is clearly a very hurtful situation.
Leno continues to milk it, sparing viewers no details about the whole history of the story, right down to the nitty-gritty of NBC executives’ part in the drama, adding that he bears Conan no animosity. I’ll bet he doesn’t.
It is inconceivable that any British TV host, in the light of such a debacle, would ever spend 15 minutes of their show making jokes at the expense of the network on which they were appearing. The most Jonathan Ross, for example, has ever managed, has been a couple of light-hearted jokes about what he can or cannot say in the light of “Sachsgate”, the now infamous phone-call he and comedian Russell Brand made to the actor Andrew Sachs.
Yet Leno, telling viewers that they had a right to know what had really been going on behind the scenes, made fun of NBC executives in the most extraordinary manner – after he knew he was being handed back the best gig.
It made a very funny story and he told it well - bemused, baffled, and, let's not deny it, faintly smug. The fact that he was allowed to tell it at all was, in itself, hilarious.
Viewing figures are, of course, important to any network, but in the US they are everything, and late night TV has a kudos here that it has never managed to acquire in the UK.
Quite why this particular story should be deemed to be a ratings puller is anathema to us Brits, yet O’Brien’s ratings have increased dramatically as the story has unfolded.
The difference is, that in the UK, our TV scandals are played out in our newspapers, especially where licence-payers’ money is concerned.
Personally, I think it’s a shame.
Leno versus Conan is the new Rumble in the Jungle, and I, along with millions of others, just can’t get enough of it. Leno? Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee, is my guess.
But the real winner? Letterman.
At least it’s distracted viewers from simply wondering why he can’t keep his flies done up.
One of the hottest topics of recent weeks has been “Rain in Los Angeles”, a headline of such cataclysmic proportions, it dominated not only local news bulletins, but every dining table conversation within a 50 mile radius.
You would think the city had never seen water, let alone seen it pour from the heavens.
People caught unawares emerged from restaurants, staring blankly into the street like assistants of Dr Who arriving at a designated departure point, only to find that the Tardis had already gone.
Coming from Cardiff, one of the wettest cities in the UK, I was invariably one of the only people on the street with an umbrella (habit - I never go without one, even in LA), as soaked pedestrians gazed on enviously.
Ha! I thought. They hadn’t read their Bibles; I was all too aware of the parable of the ten virgins, five of whom hadn’t taken enough oil for their lamps, while waiting the arrival of the bridegroom.
Some say the story is a warning to people to be prepared for the day of reckoning; to me, it means never, ever, go without an umbrella, bridegroom or no bridegroom, so there.
“Will Brangelina break up?”
That’s been another four-word obsession and a topic for which people have an almost pathological obsession in Hollywood.
The ongoing saga about the celebrity couple’s marriage, and whether Brad Pitt will leave current wife Angelina Jolie to return to first wife Jennifer Aniston, is one of the major soap operas of the day.
At Sunday’s Grammy Awards, E! (Entertainment) Channel reliably informed us from the red carpet that the previous night, the couple had been seen very much “into” each other. Purely on this evidence alone, said an interviewee, they were definitely not going to be breaking up.
I don’t care two figs one way or the other, but I do wonder how Angelina manages to sleep at night next to Brad’s weird new beard. Waking up next to that facial yeti must put more of a dent in her love than ever our Jen could manage to do. To be honest, the only way I can see Angelina could get “into” Brad at the moment would be if she were to employ a topiarist to pave the way.
Even bigger than the rain and Brangelina, however, has been the “Jay Leno versus Conan” story. This plot has rumbled on for weeks, both on and off screen, and the network NBC, on which both men have shows (at the moment), continues to be strangely fascinating.
In brief: Veteran Jay Leno was hosting the Tonight Show at 11.35pm, and, when he moved to primetime last year, failed to attract the same ratings. Now, in March, he’s getting his old show back, while his replacement, Conan O’Brien, who didn’t want to move to a later slot (and why should he, having landed the top prize – it’s humiliating), is leaving with £20 million.
To be honest, in the humiliation stakes, I’d strip naked and allow myself to be pelted with cow dung (thrown by Sarah Palin) for that sort of dosh, but I’m new to LA and doubtless I will learn.
Humiliation? Drive it over here in that fleet of Ferraris.
But I can’t help noticing that successful US male hosts are known only by their surnames (Leno, Letterman), and the females by their first (Oprah, Ellen, Chelsea). In this, Conan was doomed from the start. He will doubtless rue the day he was not Christened a boy named Sue.
The Leno/Conan story has become one of the major sources of material for comedians, coast to coast. David Letterman, who hosts his late-night TV show from New York, is enjoying it hugely, reportedly never having forgiven Leno for taking over the Tonight Show from Johnny Carson when he so wanted it for himself (I wanted it for Letterman, too, but if I’d known the queue of adoring women was as long as we now know it to have been, I might have hitched my flag to another, er, pole, as it were – but that’s another story).
Meanwhile, in LA, Conan puts on a brave face, trying to make light of what is clearly a very hurtful situation.
Leno continues to milk it, sparing viewers no details about the whole history of the story, right down to the nitty-gritty of NBC executives’ part in the drama, adding that he bears Conan no animosity. I’ll bet he doesn’t.
It is inconceivable that any British TV host, in the light of such a debacle, would ever spend 15 minutes of their show making jokes at the expense of the network on which they were appearing. The most Jonathan Ross, for example, has ever managed, has been a couple of light-hearted jokes about what he can or cannot say in the light of “Sachsgate”, the now infamous phone-call he and comedian Russell Brand made to the actor Andrew Sachs.
Yet Leno, telling viewers that they had a right to know what had really been going on behind the scenes, made fun of NBC executives in the most extraordinary manner – after he knew he was being handed back the best gig.
It made a very funny story and he told it well - bemused, baffled, and, let's not deny it, faintly smug. The fact that he was allowed to tell it at all was, in itself, hilarious.
Viewing figures are, of course, important to any network, but in the US they are everything, and late night TV has a kudos here that it has never managed to acquire in the UK.
Quite why this particular story should be deemed to be a ratings puller is anathema to us Brits, yet O’Brien’s ratings have increased dramatically as the story has unfolded.
The difference is, that in the UK, our TV scandals are played out in our newspapers, especially where licence-payers’ money is concerned.
Personally, I think it’s a shame.
Leno versus Conan is the new Rumble in the Jungle, and I, along with millions of others, just can’t get enough of it. Leno? Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee, is my guess.
But the real winner? Letterman.
At least it’s distracted viewers from simply wondering why he can’t keep his flies done up.
Monday, January 18, 2010
The Not So Golden Globes 1/18/10
How upset can a locker be?
What on Earth do you say to a locker to produce such an effect?
“You need a paint job”? “You smell of stale sneakers”? I mean, come on: even if upsetting filing cabinets were your number one aim in life, would you want to go and see a movie about it?
These were just some of the questions I asked (along with When did Tom Hanks get so fat? Has Martin Scorsese shrunk?) to pass the time through Sunday’s coverage of The Golden Globe Awards.
Having established that The Hurt Locker was not about a sensitive piece of storage furniture, but a bomb disposal unit in the Iraq war, I lay on the sofa and gave thanks that I wasn’t at the actual event a stone’s throw from my apartment.
There was a time when I would have carried out contract killings just to get into an awards ceremony. Back in my early days of journalism, I even managed to crash a few, one night taking a place on the South Pacific table at the Laurence Olivier Awards, oblivious to the fact that people had purchased tickets in advance for members of the company.
If the legitimate guests on the table were shocked or horrified, they were too polite to say so, and by the end of the night I was singing I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair like an old pro.
Sunday’s Golden Globes, which celebrate achievements in both film and television, were taking place at the Beverly Hills Hilton. From my apartment, I can see the hotel, where, for the big event, a plastic tent had been erected on the roof for the NBC/Universal post-show party.
The hotel was closed to the public for the weekend, and when once I would have taken wire cutters to the fence I know can quite easily get me to the pool area, I was happy to stay at home and watch the event on television.
Awards ceremonies US style are very different from those in the UK, not least because by the time you have cleared security to get in, you probably would have died of stress, or even old age.
To get into the Globes, journalists had to apply back in November, and the list of requirements and credentials was so long, I could have founded a newspaper and seen it go under in the time it took me to read the rules, let alone get round to acting upon them. Getting into the White House is easier – as people have discovered.
My friends who have been to the Oscars assure me that the event is not worth sitting through for the privilege of nursing a full bladder for eight hours; and even those with tickets to the Golden Globes said they were going for the experience of seeing Ricky Gervais live, rather than getting the chance to rub shoulders with the superstars.
There was, nevertheless, an air of excitement in the air that permeated the city, irrespective of whether one was attending the event. The Regent Beverly Wilshire, a short distance from the Hilton, and The Peninsula, which is even closer, were packed with celebrity spotters who looked to the door every time a new person entered (and, in my case, looked disappointingly away again).
After I watched the event on TV, I hung out at the Peninsula where, if you happen to have a miner’s lamp in your handbag, you might be able to make out a few faces in what has to be LA’s darkest bar.
Everyone who was no one was there. A university lecturer, a very drunk Estonian woman, whose head looked in immediate danger of separating itself from her body, and an even drunker man who introduced himself with the question: “D’you mess around?”
He also said that he was waiting for a call confirming that Quentin Tarantino was hosting a party nearby. It was now getting close to two in the morning, an hour when, for me, messing around always takes second place to tuning in to yet another interminable CSI marathon on the telly; but heck, this was Quentin - who knows, he could direct my movie - and if I had to kiss a boozed up guy in a penguin suit just to get to Quentin, what the hell.
In the event, I didn’t even have to debate the issue. The man received a call to say that there was no party, news that instantly turned me into the Mother Teresa of the night and telling the bloke where to get off. Inglourious Basterd as he was.
Meanwhile, the lecturer was telling the Estonian how interesting she was, while the management were trying to throw her out for losing touch with gravity. “Is she with you?” they asked me.
I was horror struck. “No!” I squealed, disgusted.
Even more horrifying, I remembered that that used to be me. But if there is one thing that LA has taught me, it’s that sitting at your desk, doing the work you care about, really is more enjoyable than falling about in bars, stalking celebs.
When I saw my final bill from the Peninsula, I realised that it’s cheaper, too.
What on Earth do you say to a locker to produce such an effect?
“You need a paint job”? “You smell of stale sneakers”? I mean, come on: even if upsetting filing cabinets were your number one aim in life, would you want to go and see a movie about it?
These were just some of the questions I asked (along with When did Tom Hanks get so fat? Has Martin Scorsese shrunk?) to pass the time through Sunday’s coverage of The Golden Globe Awards.
Having established that The Hurt Locker was not about a sensitive piece of storage furniture, but a bomb disposal unit in the Iraq war, I lay on the sofa and gave thanks that I wasn’t at the actual event a stone’s throw from my apartment.
There was a time when I would have carried out contract killings just to get into an awards ceremony. Back in my early days of journalism, I even managed to crash a few, one night taking a place on the South Pacific table at the Laurence Olivier Awards, oblivious to the fact that people had purchased tickets in advance for members of the company.
If the legitimate guests on the table were shocked or horrified, they were too polite to say so, and by the end of the night I was singing I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair like an old pro.
Sunday’s Golden Globes, which celebrate achievements in both film and television, were taking place at the Beverly Hills Hilton. From my apartment, I can see the hotel, where, for the big event, a plastic tent had been erected on the roof for the NBC/Universal post-show party.
The hotel was closed to the public for the weekend, and when once I would have taken wire cutters to the fence I know can quite easily get me to the pool area, I was happy to stay at home and watch the event on television.
Awards ceremonies US style are very different from those in the UK, not least because by the time you have cleared security to get in, you probably would have died of stress, or even old age.
To get into the Globes, journalists had to apply back in November, and the list of requirements and credentials was so long, I could have founded a newspaper and seen it go under in the time it took me to read the rules, let alone get round to acting upon them. Getting into the White House is easier – as people have discovered.
My friends who have been to the Oscars assure me that the event is not worth sitting through for the privilege of nursing a full bladder for eight hours; and even those with tickets to the Golden Globes said they were going for the experience of seeing Ricky Gervais live, rather than getting the chance to rub shoulders with the superstars.
There was, nevertheless, an air of excitement in the air that permeated the city, irrespective of whether one was attending the event. The Regent Beverly Wilshire, a short distance from the Hilton, and The Peninsula, which is even closer, were packed with celebrity spotters who looked to the door every time a new person entered (and, in my case, looked disappointingly away again).
After I watched the event on TV, I hung out at the Peninsula where, if you happen to have a miner’s lamp in your handbag, you might be able to make out a few faces in what has to be LA’s darkest bar.
Everyone who was no one was there. A university lecturer, a very drunk Estonian woman, whose head looked in immediate danger of separating itself from her body, and an even drunker man who introduced himself with the question: “D’you mess around?”
He also said that he was waiting for a call confirming that Quentin Tarantino was hosting a party nearby. It was now getting close to two in the morning, an hour when, for me, messing around always takes second place to tuning in to yet another interminable CSI marathon on the telly; but heck, this was Quentin - who knows, he could direct my movie - and if I had to kiss a boozed up guy in a penguin suit just to get to Quentin, what the hell.
In the event, I didn’t even have to debate the issue. The man received a call to say that there was no party, news that instantly turned me into the Mother Teresa of the night and telling the bloke where to get off. Inglourious Basterd as he was.
Meanwhile, the lecturer was telling the Estonian how interesting she was, while the management were trying to throw her out for losing touch with gravity. “Is she with you?” they asked me.
I was horror struck. “No!” I squealed, disgusted.
Even more horrifying, I remembered that that used to be me. But if there is one thing that LA has taught me, it’s that sitting at your desk, doing the work you care about, really is more enjoyable than falling about in bars, stalking celebs.
When I saw my final bill from the Peninsula, I realised that it’s cheaper, too.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Sunrise, Sunset 1/9/10
Above clouds, you can believe in anything.
Flying west to east, into daybreak, the sun is always rising; east to west, it sets in silence, always perfect.
Sometimes, I feel close to the heaven of my childhood imagination.
Up there. Beyond. Closer to the God I was told lived in the sky.
The transatlantic journeys that, just a year ago, were filled both with excitement at the prospect of change in a new country, or coming home to see family and friends, are now times of strange, intense reflection in a year that has seen so many loved ones disappear from my life.
My screenwriter friend Blake Snyder, who inspired me to come to LA, and who I have written about so much, died suddenly in August. My dear friend Keith Waterhouse died in September. Yes, he had enjoyed a long life, but that never makes a loss less keenly felt.
My Auntie Monica, who had known me since I was a baby, died suddenly in October. And, this week, my dear, beautiful and talented friend Angharad, who had been ill for some months, died, suspected of having taken her life at the age of just 47.
Each time I fly now, it is to attend a funeral, memorial service, or to be close to people with whom it is possible to share memories. This week, in particular, knowing the devastation that Angharad’s siblings and young daughter must be feeling back home, I just wanted to get on a plane again and head back to the UK.
Until I know what plans there are for any service, I am staying in LA, but have again been astounded by the enormous comfort Facebook has provided during this time.
I found out about Blake’s death on Facebook, and shocking (literally) as that was, over 600 people left messages on his page that made one feel part of a community united by a shared grief.
On Saturday, messages started to appear on Angharad’s Facebook page, too. A clever, funny and insightful woman, she still seems very much there, and it is hard to imagine the pain and desperation that brought about this tragic end.
Having spoken only to a couple of friends and left messages for one of her sisters, being such a long way away I felt able to make some kind of contact through Facebook, with strangers feeling just as helpless as I did.
The experience of these very personal losses is in stark contrast to death Hollywood style, and makes life here seem even more unreal. In 2009, the non-stop TV coverage of Michael Jackson’s death, and the way the town came to a standstill for what felt like weeks, turned death into the must-have accessory of the season. Some people have indeed turned their experience of the star’s passing into a full-time job.
Celebrity death is always big news here. Before Christmas, we saw the death of actress and singer Brittany Murphy and, last week, the Johnson and Johnson heiress Casey Johnson. TV cameras were outside the latter’s home for hours, continually reporting that there was no news and nothing to report. But that didn’t stop journalists standing outside the dead woman’s Hollywood home, continually reporting that there was (still) nothing to report.
Then, on Friday, there suddenly was. There was a fracas outside the home, from which Casey’s two small dogs were being taken, allegedly to be put down so that they could be buried with their owner. Casey’s girlfriend/fiancee Tila Tequila, was hysterical, as the pooches were bundled into another friend’s car.
Hollywood death is such big business here; there is even a site called hollywoodmemoir.com, which features “recently died famous Hollywood celebrities, actors’ health, accidents, and major news”. “Searching for Hollywood death?” says one headline, before pointing you in the direction of “Death Hollywood at Amazon”.
There are discussion boards and blogs to which you can contribute, too. “Is it just me?” asks one, “or are there almost no deaths in Hollywood lately?” Moral: never write a blog like this on 8th December.
Death can be a niche market, too: for example the section detailing “Wrestlers Who Died” (Bad News Brown, aged 63; Hercules, 46; Johnny Grunge of Public Enemy, 39 – of sleep apnea complications - there really is a Hollywood movie just crying out to be made here).
And should you wish to do your research according to method of passing rather than profession, you can just click on one of the headings under “Major Causes of Death”, which are: accidental, cancer, drug, heart attack, heart failure, lung, natural cause, suicide.
It all feels a far remove from the real thing, yet for every one of these Hollywood deaths, too, there is a band of friends and relatives mourning their loss.
Life doesn’t get any easier.
But above clouds, you can sometimes believe.
Flying west to east, into daybreak, the sun is always rising; east to west, it sets in silence, always perfect.
Sometimes, I feel close to the heaven of my childhood imagination.
Up there. Beyond. Closer to the God I was told lived in the sky.
The transatlantic journeys that, just a year ago, were filled both with excitement at the prospect of change in a new country, or coming home to see family and friends, are now times of strange, intense reflection in a year that has seen so many loved ones disappear from my life.
My screenwriter friend Blake Snyder, who inspired me to come to LA, and who I have written about so much, died suddenly in August. My dear friend Keith Waterhouse died in September. Yes, he had enjoyed a long life, but that never makes a loss less keenly felt.
My Auntie Monica, who had known me since I was a baby, died suddenly in October. And, this week, my dear, beautiful and talented friend Angharad, who had been ill for some months, died, suspected of having taken her life at the age of just 47.
Each time I fly now, it is to attend a funeral, memorial service, or to be close to people with whom it is possible to share memories. This week, in particular, knowing the devastation that Angharad’s siblings and young daughter must be feeling back home, I just wanted to get on a plane again and head back to the UK.
Until I know what plans there are for any service, I am staying in LA, but have again been astounded by the enormous comfort Facebook has provided during this time.
I found out about Blake’s death on Facebook, and shocking (literally) as that was, over 600 people left messages on his page that made one feel part of a community united by a shared grief.
On Saturday, messages started to appear on Angharad’s Facebook page, too. A clever, funny and insightful woman, she still seems very much there, and it is hard to imagine the pain and desperation that brought about this tragic end.
Having spoken only to a couple of friends and left messages for one of her sisters, being such a long way away I felt able to make some kind of contact through Facebook, with strangers feeling just as helpless as I did.
The experience of these very personal losses is in stark contrast to death Hollywood style, and makes life here seem even more unreal. In 2009, the non-stop TV coverage of Michael Jackson’s death, and the way the town came to a standstill for what felt like weeks, turned death into the must-have accessory of the season. Some people have indeed turned their experience of the star’s passing into a full-time job.
Celebrity death is always big news here. Before Christmas, we saw the death of actress and singer Brittany Murphy and, last week, the Johnson and Johnson heiress Casey Johnson. TV cameras were outside the latter’s home for hours, continually reporting that there was no news and nothing to report. But that didn’t stop journalists standing outside the dead woman’s Hollywood home, continually reporting that there was (still) nothing to report.
Then, on Friday, there suddenly was. There was a fracas outside the home, from which Casey’s two small dogs were being taken, allegedly to be put down so that they could be buried with their owner. Casey’s girlfriend/fiancee Tila Tequila, was hysterical, as the pooches were bundled into another friend’s car.
Hollywood death is such big business here; there is even a site called hollywoodmemoir.com, which features “recently died famous Hollywood celebrities, actors’ health, accidents, and major news”. “Searching for Hollywood death?” says one headline, before pointing you in the direction of “Death Hollywood at Amazon”.
There are discussion boards and blogs to which you can contribute, too. “Is it just me?” asks one, “or are there almost no deaths in Hollywood lately?” Moral: never write a blog like this on 8th December.
Death can be a niche market, too: for example the section detailing “Wrestlers Who Died” (Bad News Brown, aged 63; Hercules, 46; Johnny Grunge of Public Enemy, 39 – of sleep apnea complications - there really is a Hollywood movie just crying out to be made here).
And should you wish to do your research according to method of passing rather than profession, you can just click on one of the headings under “Major Causes of Death”, which are: accidental, cancer, drug, heart attack, heart failure, lung, natural cause, suicide.
It all feels a far remove from the real thing, yet for every one of these Hollywood deaths, too, there is a band of friends and relatives mourning their loss.
Life doesn’t get any easier.
But above clouds, you can sometimes believe.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
New Year Chimes At 4pm 1/3/10
Did everyone go to Barbados for New Year?
Simon Cowell, Sir Philip Green, Emma Forbes, Michael Winner . . . Oh, no, I forgot: Michael Winner decided, for the first time in 30 years, to spend it in Miami, with Michael Caine.
Knowing that neither of them would be in Barbados was the only thing that made the island sound remotely appealing to me, both men having been appallingly rude to me at various points in my career; but still, I was happy to be spending the festivities in LA.
I can’t ever remember a New Year’s Eve when I have been so hot, I thought I would have to don a bikini. As my friends froze in temperatures of minus six back at home, I delighted in texting them to inform them that I was off to Santa Monica to celebrate in Ye Olde King’s Head, a British pub near the beach.
Transport is so ridiculously cheap, not to mention efficient, here (the buses run 24/7), I still have no need of a car. The journey from Beverly Hills took just under half an hour and cost $1.25 (about 75p), and as a bus is going to be sitting in the same traffic as any car, it still seems to me the best way of getting around.
I also ensure that I make friends only with people who come to Beverly Hills in their cars, or who are on my bus route, or within walking distance of my home. So far, it’s worked out rather well.
Ye Olde King’s Head was so packed, I had to beg to gain entrance. It’s the place to go if you want to watch sport, too, although I didn’t make it to their 5am showing of Leeds United’s 1-0 FA Cup victory over Manchester United on Sunday morning.
A pity. I am a lifelong Leeds United supporter and remember their only FA Cup final win over Arsenal in 1972. I only became a Leeds supporter because they beat Manchester United in some game, and there was a big anti- Man U faction even in my day.
I adored Eddie Gray and when I met him in southern Spain last year, spent an hour reminiscing about the good old days. It’s just a pity that it was Andy Gray to whom I was chatting, and when I later realised my mistake, Andy confessed that he had been a tad confused as to why I had been banging on about Leeds for so long.
Clearly, after my Gareth Edwards/Tom Shanklin case of mistaken identity two weeks ago, I need to pay more attention to sports personalities’ photographs.
The sun was streaming into the YOKH as customers counted down the last minute to midnight/4pm local time, and that was really weird. In the UK I am usually wiping somebody’s vomit off my dress by that time, but YOKH was a very civilised affair, and I met some really terrific people – French, German, American, as well as Brits - in what appears to be quite a friendly community down in Santa Monica.
I returned to Beverly Hills, thinking what a strange year 2009 had been. I came to LA to do a writing course in March, and, encouraged by the screenwriter and teacher Blake Snyder, moved here on April 1st.
Under his guidance and support, I felt more creatively inspired than I had done in years. When he died suddenly on August 4th, I felt, and continue to feel, a hole in my life that makes me breathless with the disbelief of losing what once filled it with such joy and love.
I can only try to work as I know Blake would have wanted me to, and try to fulfil the potential he recognised and which had lain dormant for so much of my pre-LA life.
Blake’s third book on screenwriting has just come out (Save the Cat! Strikes Back), and I know that it will it inspire me just as much as his first two did.
I’ve also been reading Rilke (not in the original German, I hasten to add), a poet whose verses and prose are full of such wisdom and insight, it is impossible not to feel the stirrings of optimism, even in the face of grief.
In Letters to a Young Poet, he writes to Franz Xaver Kappus on the nature of sadness, a “new thing” that enters our hearts and changes us “as a house changes into which a guest has entered.” It is these moments, he says, in which “our future sets foot in us”, “in order to transform itself in us long before it happens.”
Blake believed in the power of transformation; it is what predominantly informed his life and the screenwriting techniques that he so brilliantly taught.
At the end of the decade, I regard my coming to LA and meeting him as one of the most transformative, blessed, and, yes, lucky, experiences of my life.
The American Dream may not be all it’s cracked up to be, but there are still some pretty good slumber parties to enjoy.
Welcome, 2010.
Simon Cowell, Sir Philip Green, Emma Forbes, Michael Winner . . . Oh, no, I forgot: Michael Winner decided, for the first time in 30 years, to spend it in Miami, with Michael Caine.
Knowing that neither of them would be in Barbados was the only thing that made the island sound remotely appealing to me, both men having been appallingly rude to me at various points in my career; but still, I was happy to be spending the festivities in LA.
I can’t ever remember a New Year’s Eve when I have been so hot, I thought I would have to don a bikini. As my friends froze in temperatures of minus six back at home, I delighted in texting them to inform them that I was off to Santa Monica to celebrate in Ye Olde King’s Head, a British pub near the beach.
Transport is so ridiculously cheap, not to mention efficient, here (the buses run 24/7), I still have no need of a car. The journey from Beverly Hills took just under half an hour and cost $1.25 (about 75p), and as a bus is going to be sitting in the same traffic as any car, it still seems to me the best way of getting around.
I also ensure that I make friends only with people who come to Beverly Hills in their cars, or who are on my bus route, or within walking distance of my home. So far, it’s worked out rather well.
Ye Olde King’s Head was so packed, I had to beg to gain entrance. It’s the place to go if you want to watch sport, too, although I didn’t make it to their 5am showing of Leeds United’s 1-0 FA Cup victory over Manchester United on Sunday morning.
A pity. I am a lifelong Leeds United supporter and remember their only FA Cup final win over Arsenal in 1972. I only became a Leeds supporter because they beat Manchester United in some game, and there was a big anti- Man U faction even in my day.
I adored Eddie Gray and when I met him in southern Spain last year, spent an hour reminiscing about the good old days. It’s just a pity that it was Andy Gray to whom I was chatting, and when I later realised my mistake, Andy confessed that he had been a tad confused as to why I had been banging on about Leeds for so long.
Clearly, after my Gareth Edwards/Tom Shanklin case of mistaken identity two weeks ago, I need to pay more attention to sports personalities’ photographs.
The sun was streaming into the YOKH as customers counted down the last minute to midnight/4pm local time, and that was really weird. In the UK I am usually wiping somebody’s vomit off my dress by that time, but YOKH was a very civilised affair, and I met some really terrific people – French, German, American, as well as Brits - in what appears to be quite a friendly community down in Santa Monica.
I returned to Beverly Hills, thinking what a strange year 2009 had been. I came to LA to do a writing course in March, and, encouraged by the screenwriter and teacher Blake Snyder, moved here on April 1st.
Under his guidance and support, I felt more creatively inspired than I had done in years. When he died suddenly on August 4th, I felt, and continue to feel, a hole in my life that makes me breathless with the disbelief of losing what once filled it with such joy and love.
I can only try to work as I know Blake would have wanted me to, and try to fulfil the potential he recognised and which had lain dormant for so much of my pre-LA life.
Blake’s third book on screenwriting has just come out (Save the Cat! Strikes Back), and I know that it will it inspire me just as much as his first two did.
I’ve also been reading Rilke (not in the original German, I hasten to add), a poet whose verses and prose are full of such wisdom and insight, it is impossible not to feel the stirrings of optimism, even in the face of grief.
In Letters to a Young Poet, he writes to Franz Xaver Kappus on the nature of sadness, a “new thing” that enters our hearts and changes us “as a house changes into which a guest has entered.” It is these moments, he says, in which “our future sets foot in us”, “in order to transform itself in us long before it happens.”
Blake believed in the power of transformation; it is what predominantly informed his life and the screenwriting techniques that he so brilliantly taught.
At the end of the decade, I regard my coming to LA and meeting him as one of the most transformative, blessed, and, yes, lucky, experiences of my life.
The American Dream may not be all it’s cracked up to be, but there are still some pretty good slumber parties to enjoy.
Welcome, 2010.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Another Year, Another Decade 12/27/2009
As 1999 moved towards the new Millennium, I was sitting down for a New Year’s dinner with my mother and brother in the St David’s Hotel in Cardiff.
This year, I will be spending it in LA with a whole new set of friends that I didn’t even know at the start of the decade. Heck, I didn’t even know them at the start of the year.
Isn’t life strange?
I’m still not sure what I’ll be doing on Thursday night. I’ve always found New Year’s Eve a bit depressing, but if there is one thing worse than paying over-the-top prices for a bad meal and clinging to strangers as the chimes strike, it’s sitting alone watching people do the same on TV – especially if the post-midnight revelry is taking place in Scotland to the tune of bagpipes.
Was there ever a more hideous sounding musical instrument? I swear that the bagpipes are the suicide watch of the musical world, and I am just praying that LA will be a bagpipe-free zone for the festivities.
I suspect that I may not be able to escape them if I go to Ye Olde King’s Head in Santa Monica. This is a British pub that, at 4pm, is celebrating the UK New Year, which will be followed at midnight by the LA one.
I quite fancy celebrating the New Year in daylight, which might make it marginally less depressing than it normally is, although if they have bagpipes on the telly, I might be reaching for that razor blade and not even make it to my first US New Year.
I mustn’t be too horrible about Scotland’s national instrument, because a man called Jim from Scotland saved me from the razor blade on Christmas Eve.
I arrived back in the UK to discover that my Sky Plus box had gone kaput. Now, for a TV critic to be without TV at all is bad enough, but at Christmas, with several couch potatoes to keep happy, it is an event of monumental devastation.
I phoned Sky – no one was available until well after the New Year. I wailed, I cried, all to no avail. Despite having paid for a special plan in case of breakdown (my own, in addition to the equipment, I had presumed), there was just no one around.
Hurumph! The Sky’s the limitations I screamed at my family, munching peanuts and staring hopefully at the blank screen in the corner of the room.
I tracked down Sky’s VIP service, on whose list I had once been, but they couldn’t help because I didn’t have a special code from the “plan” department. So it was back to them. Back to VIP with the code, only to discover I am no longer a VIP.
“You’re going to lose a very good customer,” I whimpered.
“I’m very sorry about that,” said Scottish Jim.
Then Scottish Jim rang me back. He was going to see what he could do. Suddenly, I wanted to marry Scottish Jim; then I wanted to marry Welsh Kevin, who was on my door within half an hour, taking away the defunct box and replacing it amid such screams of delight that have not been heard since the Wise Men delivered their gold, frankincense and myrrh to a woman who, a couple of hours before, didn’t have a Marriott Reward point to her name.
Fair play, that was great service. Having constantly praised LA service as being infinitely superior to its UK counterparts, I have to say that Sky surpassed itself. I might even take up the bagpipes as a tribute to Scottish Jim.
For the most part, my LA life allows me to stay in the UK loop. Rolling news on the internet, and also Facebook, mean that I am never out of touch with anything or anyone for very long. Oh, yes – and Sky! Lovely, lovely Sky!
But ten hours on a plane is a long time out of the loop, as I discovered when I arrived back home for Christmas and was instantly told by my uncle that: “Gareth Edwards has come out as being gay.” Apparently, he said, it had broken up his marriage, and he had also contemplated suicide.
‘GARETH EDWARDS?!” I screamed. The great Welsh rugby scrum half of the Eighties? “No wonder he never fancied me.”
I reached for my phone to text Gareth, offer support, blah blah, while trying to conceal my delight at hearing the most exciting news to have come out of Wales since . . . Well, Henry VII’s ascension to the throne, to be honest.
I rang my brother with the bulletin. “No,” he said. “Gareth Thomas.”
Oh, good grief. That wasn’t news. The ex-Welsh captain? Those of us in the rugby world had known that for years. Still, I was pleased for Gareth and thought his coming out in the macho world of rugby, and also Wales, was an incredibly brave move on his part.
So much so, that I went up to him in my local club, the Cameo, to tell him when I saw him there before Christmas. All well and good – had it not been his lookalike team-mate (well, both balding) Tom Shanklin.
Apparently, in the bus on the way back from Cardiff Blues’ match against Toulouse before Christmas, Gareth received a call from Elton John. The team celebrated by singing Candle in the Wind for the remainder of the journey.
Much as I am looking forward to celebrating my first New Year in LA, there are some things about home that you just can’t beat.
This year, I will be spending it in LA with a whole new set of friends that I didn’t even know at the start of the decade. Heck, I didn’t even know them at the start of the year.
Isn’t life strange?
I’m still not sure what I’ll be doing on Thursday night. I’ve always found New Year’s Eve a bit depressing, but if there is one thing worse than paying over-the-top prices for a bad meal and clinging to strangers as the chimes strike, it’s sitting alone watching people do the same on TV – especially if the post-midnight revelry is taking place in Scotland to the tune of bagpipes.
Was there ever a more hideous sounding musical instrument? I swear that the bagpipes are the suicide watch of the musical world, and I am just praying that LA will be a bagpipe-free zone for the festivities.
I suspect that I may not be able to escape them if I go to Ye Olde King’s Head in Santa Monica. This is a British pub that, at 4pm, is celebrating the UK New Year, which will be followed at midnight by the LA one.
I quite fancy celebrating the New Year in daylight, which might make it marginally less depressing than it normally is, although if they have bagpipes on the telly, I might be reaching for that razor blade and not even make it to my first US New Year.
I mustn’t be too horrible about Scotland’s national instrument, because a man called Jim from Scotland saved me from the razor blade on Christmas Eve.
I arrived back in the UK to discover that my Sky Plus box had gone kaput. Now, for a TV critic to be without TV at all is bad enough, but at Christmas, with several couch potatoes to keep happy, it is an event of monumental devastation.
I phoned Sky – no one was available until well after the New Year. I wailed, I cried, all to no avail. Despite having paid for a special plan in case of breakdown (my own, in addition to the equipment, I had presumed), there was just no one around.
Hurumph! The Sky’s the limitations I screamed at my family, munching peanuts and staring hopefully at the blank screen in the corner of the room.
I tracked down Sky’s VIP service, on whose list I had once been, but they couldn’t help because I didn’t have a special code from the “plan” department. So it was back to them. Back to VIP with the code, only to discover I am no longer a VIP.
“You’re going to lose a very good customer,” I whimpered.
“I’m very sorry about that,” said Scottish Jim.
Then Scottish Jim rang me back. He was going to see what he could do. Suddenly, I wanted to marry Scottish Jim; then I wanted to marry Welsh Kevin, who was on my door within half an hour, taking away the defunct box and replacing it amid such screams of delight that have not been heard since the Wise Men delivered their gold, frankincense and myrrh to a woman who, a couple of hours before, didn’t have a Marriott Reward point to her name.
Fair play, that was great service. Having constantly praised LA service as being infinitely superior to its UK counterparts, I have to say that Sky surpassed itself. I might even take up the bagpipes as a tribute to Scottish Jim.
For the most part, my LA life allows me to stay in the UK loop. Rolling news on the internet, and also Facebook, mean that I am never out of touch with anything or anyone for very long. Oh, yes – and Sky! Lovely, lovely Sky!
But ten hours on a plane is a long time out of the loop, as I discovered when I arrived back home for Christmas and was instantly told by my uncle that: “Gareth Edwards has come out as being gay.” Apparently, he said, it had broken up his marriage, and he had also contemplated suicide.
‘GARETH EDWARDS?!” I screamed. The great Welsh rugby scrum half of the Eighties? “No wonder he never fancied me.”
I reached for my phone to text Gareth, offer support, blah blah, while trying to conceal my delight at hearing the most exciting news to have come out of Wales since . . . Well, Henry VII’s ascension to the throne, to be honest.
I rang my brother with the bulletin. “No,” he said. “Gareth Thomas.”
Oh, good grief. That wasn’t news. The ex-Welsh captain? Those of us in the rugby world had known that for years. Still, I was pleased for Gareth and thought his coming out in the macho world of rugby, and also Wales, was an incredibly brave move on his part.
So much so, that I went up to him in my local club, the Cameo, to tell him when I saw him there before Christmas. All well and good – had it not been his lookalike team-mate (well, both balding) Tom Shanklin.
Apparently, in the bus on the way back from Cardiff Blues’ match against Toulouse before Christmas, Gareth received a call from Elton John. The team celebrated by singing Candle in the Wind for the remainder of the journey.
Much as I am looking forward to celebrating my first New Year in LA, there are some things about home that you just can’t beat.
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