Wednesday, 14 July 1999

RANTING & RAVING

When I left Los Angeles for New York this week, it was the first time that I didn't have a visceral excitement about arriving in the City That Never Sleeps. I suppose that was, in part, because after 11 years plus, Los Angeles is finally my home. It's an odd thing, admitting one is an Angelino. Especially for an east coast guy who truly loves New York. When I arrived, I smelled the garbage. I saw the homeless, who are not as tan and fit (surreal, huh?) as in L.A. And, more to the point, we in L.A. don't see the Santa Monica homeless unless we work downtown. And, if we do work downtown, we leave for our westside homes and wash the memory out of our clothes with air conditioning, a 10-CD car stereo and a cellular fax machine in the back seat.

But New York has a way of catching you by the lapels when you least expect and giving you a big, wet, dirty kiss that makes you fall in love with it all over again. Well, at least it does for me. Mine came on Monday. I am here primarily to cover the premiere of The Blair Witch Project. (Go to the chat page to review the chat transcript.) So, I start by not getting to sleep until 5 a.m. because of the time difference. Then, I am awakened at 7 a.m. by garbage men, kids at the school across the street, a screaming homeless guy, etc, etc, etc. I love New York, right? I get up, do the column for Tuesday and jump in the shower. No hot water. So here I am, in a tiny three bedroom that costs $1500 a month, with no hot water, that my cousin, who has made a fair amount of money in the music business, thinks is a steal, freezing my aging butt off after 24 hours of nothing but sweat, wondering when I can get back home.

I have a few hours to kill and I'm sure not hanging out here. So, I grab a cab (impossible and impossibly expensive in L.A.) and head uptown. Eventually I land at the Paris Theater, where Francis Veber's The Dinner Game is playing. I don't have time to eat and watch, so I grab a hot dog from a vendor across the street. Not very good, but somehow it melts in my mouth like fine chocolate. I go into the theater after paying a matinee price for a 4 p.m. movie (can't do that in many L.A. theaters) and the place is half full. In the middle of a weekday. For a French-language comedy. True, most of these are older people. (We don't have older people in L.A. At 55, you are put into a "Logan's Run"-like program where either you remarry a 27-year-old who wants a baby NOW or you are sent to Arizona or La Jolla.) But, this was midtown Manhattan and there they were, enjoying a wonderful, silly bedroom farce that Moliereé or Wilde would have been happy to have been credited with. (Had only Veber directed Noises Off, it might have been as wonderful on film as it was on stage. Maybe.) If you don't understand the tacit joy in the gales of laughter from a mid-afternoon weekday crowd for a movie that would be ghettoized (as we do these films) as a difficult sell, then you may never know the joy of New York.

From there, on to the premiere. Now, I'm still not quite in regular New York mode. There are still a couple of people walking faster than me. My physical armor against the world is a bit shaky, with my hair not quite clean enough after the shower debacle and my Hawaiian shirt getting a little more attention than any true New Yorker wants. But when I arrive at The Beekman, a thousand adolescenthood memories flood back to me. Woody Allen premieres...rushing to see the first N.Y. showing of Brazil (and Howard The Duck, for that matter) at the theater across the street...working just a few blocks away at Jim Henson's company...romantic fights long forgotten...movies that brought me joy...the Angelica Houston character walking to her home/death in Crimes & Misdemeanors.

Suddenly, New York seemed such a long ago part of my life. But there, in front of me, was the present. An all too familiar present. Camera people jammed into small spaces, hanging out and telling stories before the smash and grab of the 15 minutes of a premiere that will pay their rent. Publicists circling around like buzzards, protecting the turf as they wait for the meat, hungry for the feast, but able only to prepare until the "guests" arrive, tense in that knowledge. I remember why I don't cover premieres every time I cover one.

The palpable edge was broken a little by a few of the publicists. And here's where I tell you a little secret. I actually like a lot of publicists. Don't tell them, but they aren't more or less human than any other group of people. And what I love about them is that some of them are actually working for a living. They work with passion and intensity and a purpose, even if that purpose is to make someone who doesn't deserve to look good look good or to make my job hell. And at the smaller premieres, of which this was one, they aren't so much like an army as they are individual troops, fighting a battle together, all the while looking fabulous in cremes and grays and blacks.

But still, we sit there in a bunch, tense for the moments of value and sure that they will pass too soon. Or in this case, not come at all, as a serious event photographer keeps grumbling about not having anyone worth selling photos of, unless someone ends up murdered or worse. Funny business.

And that moment passes like a short paragraph, lingering in its lack of weight while not being obtrusive enough to bother the person experiencing it. And with the passing, the humanity comes back to the buzzards. (So cruel and unfair, but such a great metaphor.) Those who still own their humanity can let it shine through. It's safe again. And you're riding through the streets of Manhattan, crammed into a limo, your brains still whirring and the electricity of the moment still fresh. So fresh that your heart gets a boost from the static. (Clear!) And the woman sitting across from you is just a beautiful young woman again. And the woman sitting next to you is just a well-intended person trying to make others happy. And there is grace.

And as we enter the Central Park boathouse, there is yet another moment of pause for me as I look at that lake...a lake I loved years ago. A lake where I could believe in the romanticism that I still often dream of, unwilling to give up hope. That lake was a metaphor for my life. There could be no greater calm in the city of New York than a warm day and a loved one in the middle of a lake in the middle of Central Park with only the sound of stretching muscles and the noise of human life as you propelled yourself into the dream. And as you float there, you know that chaos flies so fast and furiously up and down the nearby streets. And none of that matters because you are floating in your inner peace and will return to the chaos stronger and happier for the trip.

PAGE TWO: "More Premiere Issues and Some Great Reader Movies Ideas"