Hollywood Days and Night(mare)s: Mr. Orange’s Mountaintop

I have a little rule when it comes to interacting with celebrities in public, and it’s one I’ve tried to impart to others.  Call it EFA’s Law of Unmutual Attraction.  It basically goes like thus:

Ask yourself this question: If places were switched, would you want to be pestered?

More colloquially, it comes down to basic manners.  I’ve been out at a number of restaurants in Hollywood where celebs frequently dine.  Most of them are too haughty for my tastes, but one of them, Koi, in West Hollywood, I’ve been privileged to dine in free of charge (or nearly free of charge) a handful of times over the years thanks to my friends David Schoner and Heather Colache.  It’s a long story, but they made the acquaintance of the general manager, Mark, at a film commission expo in Santa Monica.  He had, at the time, an idea for a television show about Atlantic City during Prohibition.  If this concept sounds familiar, it’s because his “partner” in the creative process was none other than Mark Wahlberg, who then—or so I’ve been told—ran off with the concept to Scorsese and HBO, and the rest is history.  Mark the Manager was left in the lurch and, last I’d heard, he and Marky Mark were no longer speaking; he has since left Koi. 

Anyway, Koi is one of those spots where paparazzi basically stake out the sidewalks on La Cienega Blvd. awaiting the famosos inside to perform the oh-so-photo-worthy act of handing their tickets to the valet and thereafter driving off in their Porsches/Mercedezes/DeLoreans.  I once saw Cindy Crawford exiting Koi, the incessant flashbulbs washing out her skin as she and her date made their way to the getaway car.

Now imagine having that happen to you daily, or even several times a day.  Don’t get me wrong, movie stars and other celebrities are paid handsomely—and then some—for the relatively little amount of work they actually do, but on a humanistic kind of level, I actually do find myself sympathizing when they go on talk shows and bemoan constantly being hounded by photogs and gossip columnists (did I actually just use the term “gossip columnist” like it’s the 1930s????) and have bottom-feeders digging through their trash in the search for used dong bags and incriminating love letters from politicians on a constant basis.  There’s no privacy, no anonymity.  You can’t even go to Target to buy a Nerf ball for your million-dollar test-tube baby without being followed by a coterie of Perez Hilton’s minions. 

As much of my personality as I air in public, there’s still a large side of my life that I keep just for myself.  It seems nearly impossible to imagine dodging cameras and microphones everywhere you go, all asking the same banal questions and capturing the same lame Kodak moments in the hopes that you’ll spill your coffee and be captured for all time in an awkward “oh-fuck-that-burns” grimace.  I actually kind of understand guys like Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn when they finally just lose their shit and punch out a paparazzo.  (Remember what Michael Jackson once sang: “Leave me alone!!!!”)  It’s also a reason why I understand and respect the odd celebs who up and leave behind the hubs of L.A. and New York.  Sandra Bullock spends most of her year in Austin, where she is considered a part of the community rather than community property. 

So back to my initial premise, being at Koi: Even though I knew that Cindy Crawford, whose poster I had in my bedroom when I was 14, was dining mere tables away, it never even occurred to me to try and say hello.  Restaurant managers in L.A. live and die by their discretion and keeping the “undesirables” at bay; I’m a veteran (and current soldier) in the restaurant industry, and there’s a certain code of honor when it comes to making guests feel welcomed and comfortable.  This goes doubly for the famous and the infamous.  The one and only thing that matters in that situation is the color green, i.e., the better your treatment of the guest not because they’re a celebrity but because they are your guest means bigger tips and more return business.  This is true for any customer, but celeb-handling is a delicate game in the hospitality industries.  They know that you know who they are, so it need not be said.  Nor do they need to be fawned over.  They get fawned over all day long by flatterers and fans who kiss their asses; sometimes they just want a good meal with their “real friends” without being gawked at by the plebs.  L.A. and NYC restauranteurs who understand this enjoy repeat business and generous tips.  So it is with Koi. 

So I say an emphatic no to bothering someone when they’re dining.  If you want to show your appreciation to a celeb for all the joy and/or masturbatory fantasies they’ve brought you over the years, do what I’ve done: send em a drink (the story of sending Norm MacDonald a cocktail will be posted another day).  If you get waved over in thanks, then you can go say hi, Cindy.  The same goes for stalking someone’s home or office.  It’s rude and obnoxious and will ultimately result in your not getting to meet the person.  If you live in L.A. the odds are so in your favor of running into a celebrity casually that you don’t even need to stalk!  Just live your sunny California life, and I guarantee you that sooner or later, you’ll probably find yourself at the deli next to Ben Stein (that happened to me) or have Christian Slater come into the toy store you’re working at and he being kind enough to sign your girlfriend’s birthday card (which happened to my friend Tiberius). 

(My favorite all-time strangest celeb run-in was encountering Max Weinberg, of all places, on a shark cage tour on Oahu’s North Shore, but that too is for another time.)

I’ve been fortunate enough not only to bump into celebrities on the street or backstage at shows, but also to work with them, be in plays and productions with them, to say I was “on the same bill” as George Wendt, William Atherton, Malcolm McDowell, Michael York.  All incredibly friendly, polite gentleman, all of whom had great stories in answer to my questions about working with Stanley Kubrick, being on the giant set of Day of the Locust, etc.  People love it when you ask them about their work.  Don’t you like it when someone at a party inquires after your business or trade craft?  Why should actors and famous musicians be any different?  Actually, I’d wager they welcome pointed, thoughtful questions far more than the typical Oh my god, I loved you in Carnivore Flying Fish From Mars 6: The Spawning! What was it like to be eaten by mutated, laser-shooting piranhas?  How awesome was it that you got to fondle Susan St. Patricia’s boobs onscreen and get paid for it? 

Those can be fun stories too, but you gotta know when to time em.  Bring that up later in the conversation, and chances are Malcolm McDowell will spin yarns about filming the orgy scene from A Clockwork Orange that will make your fucking head spin.  He told me about it, and some other day I’ll tell you about it too.

Maybe. 

To sum up, then, I firmly believe that saying hi or engaging a celebrity in conversation is contextual.  (Paul Newman infamously talked about being asked for an autograph while taking a leak by the guy in the urinal next to him.)  Be polite and friendly.  Of course, deep down they’re mostly narcissistic, insecure little children whose mommies never loved them and whose daddies got drunk and beat the shit out of them, which is why they do what they do in order to attain the accolades and love of millions in surrogacy, but remember, they’re people too, who sometimes are truly interested in telling you how great they are, but at others time just wish to be left the hell alone. 

Enter me.  Sometime in 2008 or 2009, when I lived in Altadena, I used to take hikes up above the top of Lake Ave., which abuts against the foothills of the lovely San Gabriel Mountains.  There are miles and miles and miles of trails in those foothills that go up as high as Mt. Wilson, at 5,712, and the site from which most of Southern California’s television and radio is broadcast.  The trailhead at the Cobb Estate atop Lake Ave. was about a mile and a half from the “Love Shack” where I lived for seven-plus years at Lake and Altadena Dr., so I used to hike up into the San Gabes from the Cobb Estate on a fairly regular basis and trudge up to the site of the long-demolished “White City” on Echo Mountain.  A hotel was built there in the late 19th century, a marvel of engineering for the time, but time, the fires and the remoteness soon took their toll, leaving behind only a few fragments of the hotel’s foundation, tennis course and tracks for the electric rail line that shuttled guests up and down Rubio Canyon. 

My absolute favorite time of day to be there was later on, especially in the spring and fall, when, on a clear day, you can see as far away as the San Bernardino Mountains to the east, south across the San Gabriel Valley all the way to the spires of distant Long Beach, and west to Palos Verdes and even Catalina Island, a good 30 miles offshore from Santa Monica.  The sun descending over the Pacific turns the distant waters red and orange as the dry winds mellow in the mountainous altitudes.  The view is truly something to see, especially when Los Angeles’s notorious smog layers take the day off.  

One such evening, I pulled my wagon up to Echo Mountain just as the sun was converging with the waters out beyond the Channel Islands.  I’d made good time, but I was puffing and thankful I’d make it to my favorite spot at the top of an old, broken stone staircase in time for sunset. 

As I walked toward the staircase I noticed a lone man seated on a slab of concrete that once served as the loading platform for the incline train that ferried visitors to the White City up Rubio Canyon.  The angle of body and the repose of his face clearly indicated that he was in contemplative, mindfully peaceful mode.  His forehead was high, the skin of his face slightly weathered and taut, but his look betrayed a practiced calmness.  His eyes had a keenness about them that was both piercing and familiar. 

Very familiar, as it turned out. 

The man’s eyes turned to me as I approached.  I’d seen him in many films.  Films I loved.  Filmed I would have given anything to ask about. 

His visage betrayed the realization of knowing that I knew who he was. 

I simply nodded my head and said hello.  He gave a quick “hi” in response.  I continued on past him and ambled up the steps to my favorite spot.  I unslung the backpack from my shoulders and pulled out a bottle of water.  As I settled into my spot, angled myself towards the west, the sun fired the ocean.  It was just the two of us at this particularly busy spot, the only sounds of human activity the constant stream of traffic passing along the 210 freeway in the valley below.

If I were Tim Roth, the absolute last place I’d ever want to be harried would be atop Echo Mountain at sunset. 

And so we two, a fine English star of screen and stage, and a New Jerseyan just trying to make an honest buck or two, sat not 30 feet apart, separately but equally human, and sharing silently this elegiac experience of another’s day finity.  Probably contemplating the same things: life, love, death, art, family, sex, the meaning of it all. 

If Mr. Orange had just shut his mouth at the end of Reservoir Dogs, maybe Harvey Keitel wouldn’t have shot him in the head.  Maybe he’d even have lived long enough to get to a hospital. 

Maybe. 

Maybe not.

A view from my "special seat" atop Echo Mountain taken at another date. Photo by Eric Althoff.

Postscript:

Not long afterwards, I pitched a story to Pasadena Magazine about interviewing Tim Roth, who by then, I had learned, was indeed a fellow Pasadena resident.  His turn as the villainous Emil Blonsky in the The Incredible Hulk was soon to hit theaters.  My editor, Sarah, gave me her blessing and go-ahead.  I was able to track down Mr. Roth’s publicist and sent a press inquiry…which was respectfully declined.  (I was actually scooped by Los Angeles magazine, whose profile of Roth ran the following week.)  Had I gotten the chance to actually do the interview, I would have brought up the time we “met” atop Echo Mountain.  Maybe someday I will get the chance.  

A Sensei’s Lessons

The land that gave me birth and raised me disappears beneath as the edifice of steel enforced by rocket fuel kicks away from terra firma and the dark, cold asphalt of Newark.  I was here to bury my sensei, Raymond J. Salapka, who taught me not only how to defend myself and how to better myself, but also of honor, integrity, the warrior code.  My friends I made in the dojo were there too, culled from all walks of life and socioeconomic status—a brotherhood (and sisterhood) of warrior spirit and conditioned respect.  His body was thin and frail, like an old, old man’s rather than a late-middle-aged man’s.  The cancer had taken him away—his warrior’s body, his indomitable spirit and joy for lite beer, sailing and discussing politics and religion late into the evenings. 

His experience was unlike what I knew growing up in the rural central New Jersey farm country.  He was a working-class guy from Hoboken who served in the National Guard, worked as a prison guard at a women’s penitentiary, loaded trucks overnights while collecting his pension.  Always his love for karate and passing on the traditions.  Always the aphorisms: “Remember where you came from” and “A man without honor is walking dead.” 

I made third-degree black belt under his tutelage and guidance.  I appreciated his dojo for its emphasis on discipline.  He cared for us.  He called us black belts his “trophies.”  He had little need for plastic-metal accolades; his students—especially his black belts—were his rewards.  (“You make black belt from me, you know you did something in your life.”)  He never lowered the requirements for that exalted rank, maintaining always that child black belts were a joke, that there was no possible way they could stand up against teenage or adult black belts in both stature and breadth of knowledge. 

He taught us to adapt to any situation.  Most of us are right-handed, but what if you’re attacked from the left?  (“You can’t say, ‘Excuse me, but can you wait until I get you on my good side so I can better parry your attack?’”)  In the days after his passing I found myself using my left hand more: to eat, to brush my teeth, to text my various dating partners. 

Be aware of your surroundings, he always said.  I grew up in the country, whiter than white, where the worst danger was bullying.  I was bullied often but never found the courage to fight back until I was older.  Now people know better.  I can disarm them with a look or a properly wittified remark.  Sun Tsu once said the fight is over before the first arrow flies.  As an adult I’ve lived in some dicey neighborhoods and found myself in some questionable areas in my travels.  I emulated Sensei’s teachings: look like you belong, don’t make yourself a mark. 

Be aware. 

Be ready for anything.  Including the fact that I might be called upon to move to a college town in the middle of a state that is flatter and colder than anything in my experience.  I’m an east coaster who came to adulthood in the sunny California climes.  Always a major airport at the ready to go elsewhere.  Now the nearest major airport to my address is 150 miles north and two-plus hours by car.  It’s not my town; it’s not where I belong. 

But it’s where I am.  I must accept and adapt.  My blood has thickened against the onslaught of winter’s cries descending from Lake Michigan, blanketing the Plains with the wrath of winter and the snows of nuclear whiteout.  Mother Nature cares not that where I grew up it was never this cold; she pays no heed to the fact that the lion’s share of my adult life was spent in Paradise, where a chilly day meant the fifties, where there was no such thing as a rain date or a snow delay. 

I can elect to fight the river’s course or go with it.  I can plant my feet into the mud at its bottom and curse the rapids, or I can allow it to take me to where I must be.  I can look for ports along the way, for bends and twists in its marathon.  When time to move, I can swim to shore or take the fork. 

But for now I must remain in this university town, so far removed from what I know and expect.  I must adapt. 

I must pay my bills. 

“Stay out of this debt shit,” he always told me.  That’s one I have failed at, Sensei.  Two years out of college and I was in 12 grand’s worth of credit card debt.  It took years, but I killed it.  Then it killed me again and returned to the same degree.  Jobs were hard to come by—long-term ones even harder.  I was laid off four times in less than 24 months from 2011-2013.  My savings vaporized.  My stomach again shrinking afore the unceasing tide of penury.  It was a member of Jersey Bushido Kai who took me in, gave me a place to rest my head during one of those bouts of unemployment, asking not for rent but only for help with utilities.

“The time to strike is when the opportunity presents itself,” as the code of karate goes.  A message came in back in November from this town in southern Illinois that housed the largest university in the state.  Would I be interested in coming to work for them?  Here was a full-time offer.  With benefits.  But in a place unfamiliar and unknown.  Away from all and everyone I had known.

At 17 I left New Jersey for California without knowing a soul west of the Mississippi.  I was younger then.  I figured it out.  I stayed for 15 years.  I can do it again now. 

I’ll keep watching for the next opportunity, continue to plug away.  I will go with the current, Sensei.  Southern Illinois is where I’m supposed to be right now.  Maybe not forever, but for now.  Paying my bills is good.  Getting out of debt is even better. 

I am, as Neil Diamond sang, caught between two shores—not in my home state of New Jersey nor in my adopted home state of California.  I’m somewhere else, somewhere new.  Finding my way and allowing it to find me. 

Hours before the call that Sensei had died, I dreamt I was back in the dojo.  All of the other black belts had students to promote; I had none.  I have never taught, never yet carried on the traditions to others.  Most of what I know I keep for myself but for the times of intercourse and intellectual discourse with others.  But I have yet to “pass on” what I know or any traditions from the past.  I have not married or procreated—nor do I wish to.  What I am stays with me.  When I am gone, nothing need be left behind.

Is that being selfish?  Shouldn’t I pass on his lessons?  The knowledge?  The kata (forms), the art of martial science and the techniques honed over 30 years in my gi (uniform)?  I look back on that dream differently now: I need not have students, but I can comport myself in an honorable fashion and rather be the example of the bushido warrior.  Influence by action and deed and bearing rather than through lecture and elocution. 

Like Sensei, I too am a sailor, having embarked on vessels onto both the Atlantic and Pacific.  While listening to one of Sensei’s black belts deliver the eulogy, I regretted that I never had the chance to sail with him on the lake in Pennsylvania in his beloved sailboat, but I imagined myself with my bow pointed towards the horizon, the hull cutting the waves and him beside me, laughing at the tomfoolery of the other sailors nearby us who weren’t having as much fun. 

I’m going to miss him.  All those fun times and the workouts at his old home in Phillipsburg and all the lessons in his basement dojo and all the beers consumed in his garage in Easton.  His senior-ranking student held to Sensei’s wishes and helped take everything down from his dojo walls to be spread among his black belts.  My inheritance is his plaque commemorating his promotion to third-degree black belt and dedicated by his students.  The other is a framed credo of the bushido warrior’s code as interpreted by Sensei.  It shall hang in my bedroom in Urbana, Illinois, to give me reflection and guidance each morning and evening…to allow me to refocus amidst the rather libertine lifestyle I have fashioned for myself as an often heedless, self-centered voluptuary. 

Take the dojo with you.  Take the honor and his lessons, kid.  You can still be yourself, but remember what you’ve learned.  Take New Jersey and California and karate with you in your heart to where you now return.  Place is less important than placement.  What I bring to my current home is the sum of my experiences and knowledge, to be exchanged and refined and expounded upon with those with whom I interact in the Midwest.  It will make me better.  My education continues.

As shall my life in martial arts.  Sensei promoted me to third-degree black belt in December 2006—the same degree he was when his students gave him the plaque that I now own.  It was to be the last promotion I will ever take from him.  I’m far less concerned with future feathers in my cap than with enjoying life and growing as a person.  I’ll study more karate.  More music.  Learn more, converse more, travel more in accordance with one final bromide:

“The ultimate aim of karate lies not in victory or defeat but in the perfection of one’s character.”

I aim.  With your help, Sensei, even shall I never achieve it, I will continue to try.

Hollywood Days and Night(mare)s: Being SWAT-ed

In the spring of 2003 I was working as a production assistant--or PA--for a TV production company at the Hollywood Center Studios.  For those who aren't familiar with that acronym, a PA might more commonly be referred to as a gopher, as in "go for" shit that people who make more money than you request (the animal equivalent of this is the game of fetch).  This can be anything from a run to Staples for office supplies, hitting up Smart & Final for food for the drones and ogres who make the "magic" of TV happen (this was my specialty, actually) or simply driving about the greater L.A. area on whatever menial tasks need doing.

Whatever euphemisms you might choose to apply, PA-ing is basically the bottom rung on the Hollywood ladder.  (Even interns get to leave whenever they want for the simple reason that they don't get paid.)  It's long hours for little pay and even less recognition.  (However, I did get to move up, but more on that another day.)  If you don't want to do the work, there are a hundred others fresh off the bus from nowhere who will do it just for the chance to work in "the Industry."

Actually, I didn't so much mind going on "runs."  I'm a car guy, and alone on the roads of L.A. I could commune with the music, Howard Stern or my own thoughts and get paid a token mileage stipend for driving around town on official business.  (Funny how the actual mileage traveled was more than frequently artificially inflated on reports by myself and the other bottom feeders.)  It was also a great way to get to know the megalopolis of the Los Angeles area and discover all of the nooks, crannies and byways heretofore unknown even to someone who had been in town for over six years.  Plus, runs provided a way to escape, even if for a few precious minutes, the egomaniacs, wastoids, burnouts and fuckheads back at the office who constitute the backbone of the entertainment business.

One schematically sunny Southern California day, I was sent across the hills to the ABC/Disney HQ in Burbank on an errand whose purpose I have long since lost to the entropy of time.  So I navigated north in my 1993 teal-blue Toyota Paseo out of Hollywood along Cahuenga Blvd., turning right on Barham, which turned into Forest Lawn as it snaked past the eponymous cemetary, and through the hills above Burbank and down onto Riverside Drive next to the 134 freeway.

The ABC headquarters is, to my eyes, a rather dyspeptic edifice that tries too hard to make you think of their Disney overlords with its Mickey hat from Fantasia crowning the front entrance and general sprinkling of the fairy dust from Walt's loins reminding you that you are, in fact, in Tinseltown.  That said, the lobby of the building actually boasts a rather decent collection of vintage photos of the construction of various studios in and around Burbank in the last century.  I recall looking at a B&W  photo of some important-looking men in business attire turning up earth at the groundbreaking for some facility and thought to myself, "They're all dead."

Anyway, after parking my Paseo in the delivery area of the parking structure, for some strange reason I found the door where I'd entered the facility on previous runs for some reason blocked to pedestrian traffic.  I recalled that there was a large footbridge from the parking structure to the corporate offices, so I traversed the raised pathway.  To my relief, the door at the end of the bridgeway was unlocked.  I pulled it open and...

...my eyes beheld the backs of a group of men in SWAT gear, assault rifles drawn.  My brain tried to find logical explanation for this, but all my synapses can fire upon is that I have stumbled inadvertently into a police hostage situation.

Then I hear, from just down the hall, "OK, go!"

The men of the SWAT team began marching in formation down the hallway before turning a corner, their weapons still drawn.

No police situation.  No armed insurrection against Walt's progeny or their hangers-on.  Nope, I'd just stumbled, rather inadvertently, onto the filming of an episode of Alias.  It had been an AD (assistant director) telling the actors in SWAT attire to begin their march for a take.

Fortunately, no one saw me, and I was able to slink away and back to the garage to ask the attendant where I should go for the long-forgotten task for which I had been dispatched from the other side of the hills.

Let that be a lesson: In Hollywood, nothing is as it seems.  But in nearby Burbank, clearly the locations departments sometimes forgets to block off a hot set.

On This Whole Aging Thing

Today is my 35th birthday.  Maybe 11 or possibly 12 years ago, I began a little ritual of sitting down and just writing for an hour every year on the anniversary of my birth about whatever comes to mind.  Topics typically range from work, to life, love, death, friendship, sex, philosophy and the general state of my affairs.  I haven’t exactly been the best student at keeping up with this self-imposed tradition, but since this is one of the “big ones”—and because I actually have some things on my mind to say—I thought that as I celebrate the end of my 35th go-round of this little blue ball floating out in the ether for reasons we know not, I figured it was high time to pick up the quill and again ruminate on all things that face me as I stare down the beginning of year 36 of EFA. 

As with everyone else, perhaps one of the surest signs of age I perceive is in my physical appearance.  A few more gray hairs, a few more wrinkles, more of a beer-saving compartment at my midsection than there used to be.  Losing weight is harder than before (although I am typing during the midst of an 11-day cleanse, which is helping in that particular regard), I’ve now been dealing with a bad lower back for six years, I seem to sleep more and get tired just a little bit more easily.

Honestly, other than that, things are pretty good, and for my health I’m thankful.  My friends and I have been grousing about the descent of our bodies from the tip-top peak shape of our early twenties for close to a decade now.  With medication, exercise, yoga and various other methodologies, I’ve been able to get by reasonably well in spite of my two herniated discs and ankylosing spondylitis—a rare form of arthritis that typically manifests when a male is in his late twenties (mine popped up at 29).  My jogging days are long since behind me thanks to these maladies, but I can still hike, bike, walk fast and do a little bit of running within reason.  My heart rate gets up several times a week, and I’m beginning to eat a little better.  Partly because I don’t burn off calories as briskly as I used to, partly because I just want to live a little healthier as I careen towards my “middle ages.” 

I’ve been on mood-altering medication for over three years at this point.  I’ve suffered panic episodes and depression off and on since I was 15.  Three years ago, while working at “the magazine” and things went to shit, it got so bad that I could no longer function healthily.  I started out on the lowest possible dose of an SSRI, and thus far have only had to up the dosage once (although, for various reasons, I may be due for another upage).  Without question, this has wrought a major, positive change in my life.  I’m still me, I still get down in the dumps sometimes, still sometimes wring my hands in agitation on occasion, but generally things have leveled off to a far more manageable degree, and I’m not going through daily life a walking wreck anymore—as I was before the meds started. 

And join the club.  Many or most of my friends are now—or have been at some point—on mood-altering medications of some order.  I firmly believe the stigma has gone away, and there’s greater compassion nowadays for the very real phenomenon that unbalanced brain chemistry can be as hazardous a premise as cooking up Walter White’s “blue”: Handled haphazardly and incorrectly, stuff’s gonna ‘splode.  (And just look to such sad events as Newtown, the Navy Yard, the Colorado “Joker” shootings and elsewhere for what can—and does—happen when potentially dangerously imbalanced individuals don’t get the help they need.) 

My career has been on a slow, intermittent burn since I went full-time freelance three years ago.  I’ve made enough to survive, if not to thrive.  Flush times invariably are followed by the fallow.  At present, things are fallow: I was laid off from my most recent contract editing job middle of August and have had absolutely no income in a month and a half’s time.  Last I checked (and I need to recheck) I will not qualify for unemployment again until after Thanksgiving.  If I can’t get work in my virtuosity fields of editing, writing, film and TV production or vocal arts, by the holidays I’ll most likely be taking your order at Ruby Tuesday’s. 

I’m not “above it.”  In my life I’ve done absolutely every possibly low-paying, thankless job you can think of.  I’ve stuffed envelopes for two consecutive days for $8 an hour.  I’ve bussed tables, sold my soul to focus groups, given cheap tours of my alma mater, laid sod in the hot California sun and even worked for a medical company that produced anal probes.

Seriously.

Sure, I have a college degree; so what?  That makes me no more special than the two of diamonds.  I happened to enter the workforce right after the dot.com bubble burst, and then came 9/11, Enron, Iraq, the global financial crisis, outsourcing and the implosion of the print industry at the hands of the Interwebs.  Before I ever went to college, I worked decidedly thankless, blue-collar jobs for not much money.  I’ve never had too much pride to do it again to make ends meet. 

As a friend of mine once said, the world doesn’t owe you a damn thing.

My only solid job prospect at present is in Washington, DC.  I interviewed there three weeks ago, was told nine days ago I’d made it to the next round and would soon hear more, and have since heard nothing.  My daily grind consists of sending out upwards of 20, sometimes 30, resumes per day. 

Do the math yourself.

I’ll get by.  I always do.  And there are many, many others out there who are far worse off than myself.  I’m in the enviable position of having to provide solely for myself.  I’m not married, I have no children (that I know of), no pets and my parents are still relatively with it and still working. 

Every year, my dad inevitably asks how I “feel” about turning another year older.  I always shrug: “It’s just a number.”  People who worry that they aren’t hitting certain goalposts by certain years are just setting themselves up for disappointment and surefire disquiet.  Yes, I’m closer to my end than this time a year ago, but I stand by my assertion that the thirties are way better than the twenties!  There’s more self-confidence, you care less about lots of the little things, have an easier time letting some things go, and certainly more ease with casting out those negative influences in your life.  I have no time for negativity and Debbie Downers.  I’m not your therapist; get a fucking shrink. 

Listen, we all get down now and again, but I’m not talking about garden-variety depression.  I’m talking about people who never, ever can be happy, even for a moment.  You know the type…you can show up at their house with a giant chocolate cake studded with diamonds and covered with hundred-dollar bills and they’d still find something to complain about.  These are the same people who never have anything to add to the conversation that doesn't directly revolve around themselves and their own neuroses.  Who keep recycling the same five uninteresting stories and bitch and moan about the exact same shit year after year after year after year without ever making any steps whatsoever to change their lot—people whose 2013 incarnations you could swap out for their 2003 incarnations without any noticeable difference…the two versions would likely even yap the same shit in unison. 

George Carlin put it best: “God, people are fucking boring!”

Fortunately, I was blessed with ADD, meaning that I’m perfectly capable of tuning you out if you start boring me, even though it appears that I’m still paying attention.  All you gotta day is repeat back a few phrases the other person says and they’ll think you care.  Meanwhile, I can go on thinking about organizing my sock drawer or what movie I’m going to watch that night while you prattle on incessantly about how you can never get enough together to move out of your parents’ house. 

I think I’m gonna stop doing that, however.  Get ready for more honesty than you ever wanted. 

Ten years ago, I certainly believed I’d be married by 35.  Such has not proven the case for a whole host of reasons.  For one, I’m picky and bore easily.  If she doesn’t fascinate me, I’m certainly not going to pretend.  I’ve been in love and in extreme like many times over the past half-decade.  For various reasons, none of those persons were willing to go the distance with me.  Or even try.  I was in a relationship for the last few years of my twenties; that person and I currently do not speak. 

Since the Ex and I split, I’ve enjoyed a few unbridled years of serial dating and a playboy mindset.  My attitude after 30 was come one, come me…I mean, er, come all.  I gave anyone a chance for a few years.  Partly to get some experience under my belt, partly to see if there were others out there with whom I could genuinely connect.  There were a few contenders, ones with whom I felt a serious connection and desire to up the level from cas to something more meaningful and ditch all other comers.  This may sound arrogant, but in every such instance, it was all…their…fault.  I’ve been at fault a number of times in my dating life, but whenever, in the past five years, I’ve expressed a serious desire to build something more serious, the woman has been the one to put the kibosh on anything. 

I was raised with the premise that men are commitment-phobic, and that women want to settle down and get serious.  While there’s definitely some truth to that, what most women don’t realize is that when a guy finds the right girl, he’ll move heaven and earth (and occasionally hell) to make it happen.  I did my best in a number of instances these past few years to move the universe, to give and give and be accommodating and meet halfway.  Each time I was met with outright rejection and a lack of even the willingness to attempt a compromise. 

So I continued my playboy life.  That is, until about a month or so ago.  Granted, I’m unemployed and could be moving anywhere for a new job, but while on a date last month, I basically decided that I’d had enough.  Not because of anything this person said or did, but largely because the conversation was entirely her-centric, she asked me no questions, and I felt like I was only there to validate all of the sordid tales of her previous dating experiences.  She didn’t do anything improper or piss me off in any serious way, but I basically didn’t care.  I just wasn’t into the game anymore. 

I came home that night and deleted all of my online profiles.  I no longer pursue or “play the game.”  Honestly, I’ve had my fun.  I’ve been out of that previous relationship for five years.  I had a specific number in mind of people I wanted to hook up with before my next serious relationship.  Not only did I meet my number, I’ve more than doubled it. 

So what?  Well, for its own sake, the experiences were fun, great for the stories, great for themselves.  Sex is usually fun (although not always, but those are tales for another day).  I learned more about myself as a person and as a potential companion.

More importantly, I learned what I don’t want in a partner.

So now I enter an age where most of my contemporaries are married, remarried, divorced or in long-term relationships.  The same people are single season after season for their own reasons.  I’ve tried.  I really, really tried to get into a relationship many times since I turned 30 and became a serial dater. 

I also realized something more existential of late.  Someone asked me recently where I pictured myself in five or ten years.  I rattled off the list of accomplishments: successful author, maybe with a few short films produced under my belt, singing with a cover band, maybe going back to California to live in Santa Barbara, more travel, more fun, more adventures, trying out more new beers wherever I go.  Basically, more or less what I do now.

It occurred to me in the telling, however, that at no point did I mention a significant other being in the equation.  At first I thought that I should be sad about that, but then I pulled myself back from that brink.  It’s OK.  Actually, it’s better than OK.  First of all, as I mentioned earlier, at 25 I forecast I’d be married by now.  Making projections about your future is a fruitless endeavor given that no one can see his or her own destiny in advance. 

But more than that, I think of late I’m beginning to come to some semblance of peace with the notion that for the here and now, I can’t see a mate really adding anything significant to my life.  All of my major trips of the past few years (Australia, New England and Canada, California on several occasions) have been on my own, without friend or family of any kind by my side.  I get to make all of the decisions and do what I want to do when I want to do it.  There’s no jostling for consensus or jousting for position.  It’s I, me, mine, all the time. 

And I meet people along the way.  One of the best things about traveling alone is picking up with strangers in strange lands for activities and impromptu fun.  Or visiting friends of yore and grabbing a bed or a couch for the night without having the baggage of a second person to bunk.  For my 32nd birthday I flew up from home in L.A. to Eugene, Oregon, to visit a girl I was seeing at the time.  For my 33rd birthday two years ago, I snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef off of Cairns on the first full day of the three-week tour; that night, several of my tourmates and I went out for drinks and painted the town red (I got absolutely awful food poisoning from that night’s dinner, but that’s for another time). 

The fun is wherever I go.  It requires no preparation or suitcases of party aids. 

Look magazine once published an article with sociological data that claimed that if a man does not marry by 35, the odds are he never will. Rather than huff and puff at this, I choose to see it another way: I am the patron saint of bachelorhood!  Boys, you be boys as long as you want to, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.

Our society haaaaaates single people with a passion.  Don’t believe me?  Try going to a wedding alone, and the questions range from “Where is your wife or girlfriend?” to “Are you gay?” My answer to all such inquiries is the same: fuuuuuuuucccck you!!!!  I don’t need to explain myself to you.  If my being solo here makes you uncomfortable, then maybe you should keep a better eye on your date.  After all, they have been known to be found with me doing shots at the bar.  I’m just sayin’. 

I guess I’m just dealing with a different mode of thinking at present.  For so many years I’ve been focused on finding “the one” but still taking time out for “the ONES” who came along in the meantime.  But I’m tired of the search.  Honestly, I do pretty well at rockin’ and rollin’ on my own.  If I need to scratch the proverbial libidinous itch on occasion, I can—and will.  That’s not been a problem since I pulled myself out of that self-hating morass of my twenties and into the “here I come” modality of my thirties. 

To wrap things up on a slightly more morbid note, last month I read a story on CNN about a Kansas City sportswriter who, on his 60th birthday,put a gun in his mouth.  He was healthy, successful, not depressed, in no physical pain and had no terminal disease.  He basically decided that 60 was…enough.  Better to go out then, he reasoned, than to become old and infirm and losing his mind to senescence. 

Now before you all race to the phone with your fingers above the “9” and the “1” keys, let me just say out loud that I have no intention whatsoever of doing harm to myself.  Firstly, doing such a thing is simply not my style.  Secondly, there are still, as Walt said on Breaking Bad two weeks back, “things I have to do.”  Like finish my book, which is alllllmost done!  I want to publish it, tour with it, talk about it, and then move on to something else.  There’s plenty of projects left for my time and efforts.

But here at 35, I find myself looking backwards instead of forwards.  Most of the goals I ever set for myself have been met.  Items have fallen off the bucket list like dried rice on flypaper.  I’ve been to 39 states.  I’ve traveled to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium and Mexico.  I’ve been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Oktoberfest in Munich (and next month, the Great American Brewfest in Denver).  I’ve been in plays with major movie stars.  I’ve sung at the Hollywood Bowl.  I’ve been on TV and in the newspapers.  I’ve written for newspapers and national magazines.  I got up on stage with a cover band in front of dozens of my high school classmates at our 15-year reunion in 2011 to sing “American Girl” and was the belle of the ball.  I’ve been at a party where there were 100 naked women just walking about.  I’ve dated a lot of women.  Read tons of books and seen even more movies.  I’ve met several of my heroes, including Bill Maher, Conan O’Brien and Jeff Bridges.  Been to well over a hundred rock shows.  Lived on both coasts.  Met oodles of rock stars, movie stars and various other celebrities.  Made friends by the boatload. 

I’ve had sushi and sake in Salt Lake City, for fuck’s sake. 

Some people never do a damn thing; I’ve done so much.  I could go out today like that Kansas City sportscaster a happy man.  I have no desire to procreate—and have taken proactive steps to ensure that end.  I lack the egocentric premise of “passing on” items and traditions to a new generation.  When in the Outback, I learned that when someone in the Aboriginal community dies, there is a week of wailing and mourning, after which point the departed is never spoken of again.  Ever. 

Why do we feel this need to be immortal by procreating beyond ourselves?  Personally, I’d rather tear out my path while I’m here and do as much damage while I’m here.  No one ever need follow or pick up the pieces in my wake. 

To answer my father’s question, no, I am not bothered by 35 any more than I was by 34 or 30 or 22.  Life is a journey, and I’m enjoying mine.  Even though I look at my past as fulfilled, I realize I’m still peaking.  There’s much left to be done.  Much left to see.  Much left to do. 

More stories for me to share with the rest of you.

And now I have written for one hour and 40 minutes.  I think this year’s birthday goal has been accomplished. 

See you at 36.  

Hollywood Days and Night(mare)s: The Princess Kiss

I've encountered a fair number of celebrities in my day, through working in the television and film industries, living in Los Angeles for a decade and a half--where celeb run-ins are part of daily life--and just through the luck of the draw and being in the right place at the right time.  I've been fortunate to meet several of my heroes, including Conan O'Brien, Bill Maher, Jeff Bridges and Weird Al Yankovic, and to work in professional capacities on shows and films with folks like Greg Proops and Rachel Hunter.  I've been an actor in plays with such luminaries as Malcolm McDowell, George Wendt and William Atherton.  During my four-year tenure at Hustler, because the entertainment editor Keith Valcourt had the office next to mine, he invited me along to many a photo op with rockers and movie stars.  I have dozens of pictures to back it up, but all of that is surface glitz and basking in refracted glory of the famous.

I like stories, and I like sharing good stories.  I've got some good ones from my years in Tinseltown as both a working professional and simply just from hanging around long enough to rub elbows with the rich and the famous (and, in some cases, the infamous).  I thought it was high time I started putting down some of these tales to share.  Some are harrowing, some are horrifying, all are fascinating.

And so begins a new "blog miniseries," "Hollywood Days and Night(mare)s" chronicling some of my more memorable encounters with the stars of television, film, stage and the dial.  Some were assholes, some were plain awesome, some are just like you and me but for their millions of dollars.

And to be clear, these stories are defined as "encounters" versus "sightings," which I've had innumerable and are defined as simply seeing someone famous out and about doing the normal things like eating dinner--an activity wherein I personally would find it profane to be pestered were I in their shoes.  (Ask yourself this the next time you see a famous person: Are they doing something that, were you doing the same, you would want to be bothered by a fan?)  To me, having dinner out at a restaurant with family should be off-limits, whereas someone in a coffee shop, walking the street or just doing normal people shit is fair game for saying hey.

And if you are in a fortunate enough capacity, as I have been, to chat with some of them for longer than two minutes, then you can wrack up the photo ops.

So without further ado, let us begin with the story "The Princess Kiss."

****

In spring 1999 I was in my third year at USC.  My roommate Steve, whom I knew from growing up together in New Jersey, was a year ahead of me and in his final year of film school.  As often happens, he and a bunch of his colleagues were invited to a film premiere.  He brought me along to the Universal Amphitheater in Universal City for the premiere of USC film school alum Ron Howard's comedy "EDtv," a satirical take on the then-nascent 24-hour reality phenomenon, with Matthew McConaughey as the eponymous San Franicscan Ed.  On the way into the theater, there was the entire red carpet affair, replete with paparazzi and stars in tuxedos, etc.  Stars of the film Dennis Hopper, Rob Reiner and of course Opie himself were on hand (who of course was mobbed by some current students for a group photo op).

Steve and myself and some of his film school cronies were walking up the red carpet in our jackets and ties towards the entrance to the theater.  We were certainly no one of importance, but it was just the way into the damn theater.  Steve and I were chatting about something forgettable when, out of the corner of our eyes, we see a man and a woman, up on a small dais, locking lips.  The woman quickly broke the kiss, came down from the platform, and briskly walked away.

"Hey, that was fucking Carrie Fisher, wasn't it?"

Sure enough, it was the second-generation Hollywood royalty, making off towards parts unknown and away from the paramour.  But who was this mystery kisser????

Steve and I turned back to the dais, and there stood a youngish, good-looking fellow with too-blond hair and a million-dollar smile.  He locked eyes with the two of us, beaming out the whitest of teeth.

"Did you guys see that?" he enthused to Steve and myself.  "I just kissed Princess Leia!"

That man's name was Ryan Seacrest, then just 24.

Now remember, this was early 1999, a full three-plus years before he got the gig cohosting American Idol with Brian Dunkleman--which of course he would take solo reins of the following year, vaulting him to the Seacrest-mania that has continued unabated ever since.  At that time he was a little-known former Atlanta radio host who cut his jib hosting forgettable fare in the late '90s after moving to L.A.  One such gig was filling for Talk Soup host John Henson on occasion--a show Steve and I were frequent watchers of.  During the 98-99 season, we'd seen Mr. Seacrest doing a decent-enough job with the comedy recap show of the week's talk show greatest hits and misses.  

The next time we saw him, he was locking lips with Princess Leia.

It was as good an omen for the man's career as anything.

Seacrest out.

The Ah-ssential Ahnold

I grew up watching Arnold Schwarzenegger flicks.  He was the ultimate joker/badass who blew away bad guys and quipped while doing so.  Roger Ebert once said it was Arnold’s everyman appeal—this despite his godlike physique—the increased his star power and box office appeal.  Doubtless this was at least partly due to his funny accent and unique pronunciation, such as when he was governor of “Cawl-ee-fore-nee-a.”  Part of his appeal, I also believe, was this fish-out-of-water phenomenon—a tall, bronzed Austrian dude wasting coiffed goons with more exact diction.

Whatever the defining appeal or Mr. Schwarzenegger, fact is that homebody made a few totally awesome flicks, some lesser but decent entertainment as well as some absolute dreck in his career.  Like Sly and “Billis,” of late he’s been trying to recapture that ‘80s action bonanza many of us grew up loving, and reliving it to varying degrees of enjoyable mediocrity (see The Expendables).  Fact is, the action genre was of its time and place…possible only thanks to the Reagan Revolution and its attendant fear of bad guys and “fer-ners.”  (Think about it: Almost all ‘80s action flicks pitted our heroes against funny-sounding assers from other parts of the globe.)  This sheer exuberation of jingoistic xenophobia made Arnold’s contemporary flicks both enjoyable and ironic. 

(I plan to one day expound upon all of this in my as-yet-unwritten book about masculinity in cinema since 1970, devoting entire chapters to the conservatively minded ‘80s action opuses of men small on talk but large on bullet-ridden adventures—arguably, just like Mr. Reagan’s image itself.) 

For the uninitiated—if you’re out there—here’s a primer on the must-see of Ahnold cinema, as well as a guide on some of his lesser-but-enjoyable fare and, finally, a warning about his flaming turds to avoid at all costs.

THE CLASSICS

 

The Terminator (1984)

Arnold’s career as the ultimate '80s action über-Herr kicked into high gear thanks to this low-budge sci-fi thriller from wunderkind Canadian asshole extraordinaire James Cameron.  After cutting his teeth under schlockmeister Roger Corman, Cameron and his producer/wife Gale Anne Hurd (whom I once met at her wine bar in Pasadena, but that’s another story) scraped together a measly $7 million to tell the tale of a walking, talking-for-some-reason-in-an-Austrian-accent, one-man-army cyborg from the year 2029 whose mission is to travel back in time to then-current 1984 to off the mother of mankind’s future resistance leader against “the machines.”  A high-concept, laughable premise before such terms were ever coined, The Terminator is nonetheless as chilling and mesmerizing now as it was 30 years ago, largely due to its cool lack or irony and bleak sensibility.  Linda Hamilton (later, Mrs. Cameron #3) is Sarah Connor, the 19-year-old waitress with bad ‘80s bleached blond hair who is protected by future badass soldier Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) against the Terminator.  But for the rather dated stop-motion special effects once the Terminator’s “true form” is revealed, the chuckle-worthy hairstyles and trippy ‘80s techno soundtrack, the film’s themes of the inescapability of the future (the Terminator itself could be said to be a stand-in for death itself or the fear of death) and Cameron’s theme-de-rigueur—the dehumanizing and subservience of humanity to the mechanistic—keep it fresh even now.

Arnold’s “performance,” such as it is, is largely limited to looking creepy and keeping it minimalistic thanks to the cyborg’s needing to only fit in just enough among real humans well enough to get close to its target.  Arnold looks menacing and mean and deadly without really doing anything or saying much, which makes the villain of the flick that much scarier.  The Terminator feels no pain or remorse; it simply does what it does: kill without thought.

This is both a solid action flick as well as sci-fi of the best stripe that makes you actually think in the midst of the mayhem. 

Best moments: Cameron stages some decent action set pieces despite the limited budget, including a truly terrifying truck chase and the climactic battle in the factory.  He would of course go on to refine his action technique with Aliens, T2, True Lies and, of course, Titanic.  Arnold buying up weapons in the sporting goods store from the drunken neighbor from Gremlins ends in a chillingly funny way. Also, there’s a pretty hot love scene between Hamilton and Biehn.  Ah for the days when movies unapologetically put tits on display. 

Best Ahnold moment: “I’ll be back.”  Just before crashing through the police station windows with a truck, Arnold delivered the first utterance of his ubiquitous catchphrase, which, for better or worse, has dogged him ever since.  (The original scripted line was “I’ll be right back.”) 

What else to watch for: Cameron regulars Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton pop up in smaller roles, as does Rick Rossovich, or “Slider” from Top Gun.

Interesting factoid: Sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison sued, and won against, the producers for bogarting ideas from several of his short stories without crediting him.  Subsequent printings now give him “special thanks.” 

 

Commando (1985)

Is Commando a good movie?  No, but it is an awesome movie, which is not the same thing. (In fact, my friend Dave goes out on a limb to say it is the epitome of cinema.)

This film is basically the apogee of all things Arnold.  Switching from villain to hero after Terminator, Arnold plays John Matrix, a former special forces soldier whose daughter (a prepubescent, pre-Who’s the Boss? Alyssa Milano) is kidnapped by one of his former colleagues.  In exchange for her release, Matrix must assassinate the president of a fictional (and never named) South American country so that perennial sleazeball Dan Hedaya can rule over it with his iron frown and bushy eyebrows. 

Again, we don’t watch these flicks for their ingenious plots.

Commando is so over-the-top that it could actually have veered into the realm of the ridiculous were it not for the fact that it is played completely straight, with no winking at the audience and absolutely zero apologizing for the buckets of gourmet gore in the last 30 minutes as Matrix slaughters an entire armada of brown-skinned guerrillas single-handedly before boxing it out with bad guy Bennett (Australian Vernon Wells), culminating with Matrix impaling Bennett with a fuckin’ steam pipe!  (Quip: “Let off some steam, Bennett!”)

You gotta love the rah-rah Americanism of it all.  The bad guys are once again darker-skinned fer-ners from nondescript south-of-the-border countries and led by a bug-eyed, psychotic Australian mercenary with just a bit too much of a burning homoerotic subtext for Matrix. 

“Come on [Bennett], let the girl go.  Just between you and me.  Don’t deprive yourself of some pleasure. Come on Bennett, let's party!”

To be read: “Stick it in me, bitch!” 

Commando also marked the beginning of Arnold’s penchant for one-liners in all their corniness.  Hitchcock said humor was needed to relieve tension, but the phenomenon of an action hero delivering cringe-worthily constructed quips after disposing of a foe pretty much can be traced back to Commando—at least for Arnold. 

Commando is also genuinely funny, thanks largely to the addition of the fish-out-of-water character played by Rae Dawn Chong—yes, the progeny of perennial stoner Tommy—whom Matrix ropes into assisting him rescue his daughter.  Fish-out-of-water characters, especially in absurd films like these, are meant to be the avatars for the audience and ask the logical questions that we as moviewatchers do while watching.  Such as “Why the fuck did this guy just tear the passenger seat out of my convertible?????” Chong’s performance is actually far better than the material has a right to, and her addition to the narrative elevates the flick from pure action schlock to slyly ironic wit. 

Best moments: Too many to list, but the moment when Commando definitively takes it to 11 is when Matrix leaps from an ascending jetliner leaving LAX, lands in a swamp (having lived in L.A. for 15 years, I assure you there are no such Dagobah-ish delights anywhere in that particular airport’s vicinity), rolls over, stands up, brushes himself off, and starts the countdown on his watch.  It must be seen to be suspendedly disbelieved. 

Best Ahnold moment: In the one-liner sweepstakes, it’s between “Don’t disturb my friend here; he’s dead tired” and “I eat Green Berets for breakfast. And right now, I'm very hungry!”

What else to watch for: Bill Duke, who would later costar in Predator, is Cooke, one of Bennett’s henchmen.  Duke and Schwarzenegger’s fight in the hotel room—and their ludicrous macho banter while trading blows—only works because of Rae Dawn Chong’s side-splitting asides.   

Interesting factoid: The never-realized sequel to Commando wound up morphing into the first Die Hard movie.

 

Predator (1987)

Arguably Arnold’s most “legit” film, Predator is so fucking badass that its replay value remains undaunted after a quarter-century.  The story is pure machismo on steroids, with a platoon of hardened American commandos sent into the Central America jungles to rescue a diplomat.  In the grand tradition of cinema, things don’t go according to plan, and the team encounters a hostile extraterrestrial sportsman whose aim is to hunt them down one by one, taking their skulls as his trophies. 

What’s interesting here is that the cast included many of the baddest mofos of the day, including Carl “Apollo Creed” Weathers, Sonny Landham and two—count ‘em, two!—future governors in Arnold and real-life former Navy SEAL and professional wrestler Jesse “the Body” Ventura!  I’ve always appreciated that this film thematically brings these hardened warriors to their knees before a superior foe, i.e., all of their muscles and combat training and machine guns can’t protect them and don’t mean shit against this sneaky motherfucker who leaps from trees like gravity don’t exist and, to boot, utilizes a cloaking device.  It’s a great allegory for…whatever.  But just like Aliens the year before, it showcases a pack of warriors who get their proverbial asses handed to them by an intellectually inferior species.  (Interestingly, James Cameron believed Aliens to be a metaphor for the Vietnam conflict.)  The characters are forced to use their wits and cunning to try to defeat the monster rather than bullets alone. 

Also totally cool is that the film doesn’t even become a soldiers-versus-alien flick until nearly 60 minutes in, with the first hour devoted entirely to an arguably tossaway plot about the rescue of the diplomat…who, wouldn’t cha know it, turns out to be a CIA operative in league with Carl Weathers and his superiors in Washington.  All of this stuff is actually interesting in and of itself and moves the plot forward rather than simply being a flimsy screenwriting smokescreen excuse to get the grunts into the jungle and up against the Predator monster as quickly as possible.

That said, the sequence of the commandos wrecking the shit out of the enemy guerilla compound is one of the most enervating set pieces in late-‘80s action cinema.  Jesse Ventura picks up a fucking mini-gun for Chrissakes!!!!  (And you guessed it, the bad guys are once again brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking types, in keeping with the general meta-theme of jingoism.) 

Then the Predator shows up and shit gets real.  Yes, there are lame clichés, such as the Native American character of course being in tune with the spirit world, and dude knows, just knows, that something ain’t right out there.  You know, just once I’d like to see the nerdy character (played by screenwriter Shane Black in Predator) be the one who is down with the spirit world rather than the hackneyed Indian trope. 

And yes, once it gets going, Predator borrows some rather standard slasher flick beats, but it works. 
There’s never been anything like it before, though it’s been imitated to far lesser results ever since.  This is sci-fi/action/horror at its very best!

Best moments: The raid on the village is drool-worthy.  In a movie as slam-bang as this, a little quiet time can also be both suspenseful and memorable.  After the unintentionally homoerotic steroid commercial where the bare-shirted commandos set up the trap in the woods, there’s about a ten-minute stretch of everyone simply…waiting for the creature to show up.  During the same sequence, Elpidia Carillo, the film’s only woman, has the one and only monologue in the film, delivering a speech about how in the hottest years, a mysterious demon returns to her native village in Mexico to collect human trophies—a creature she refers to as El cazador trofeo de los hombres, or “the demon who makes trophies of man.”

Best Ahnold moment: Arnold impales a poor bastard by tossing his machete through his body.  “Stick around!” he smirks. 

What else to watch for: Screenwriter/director Shane Black, whose script for Lethal Weapon was filmed the same year, is Hawkins, the dorky, socially aloof, bespectacled soldier in the platoon.  He was initially brought on to brush up some dialogue but wound up being cast due to his improv skills.  Indeed, many of Hawkins’ lines, including his notoriously off-color jokes about the u-s-s-y, were ad libbed by Black.  

Interesting factoid: A young, unknown Jean-Claude Van Damme was initially cast as the Predator, but upon learning he would be entirely replaced by a special effect in post, the Muscles from Brussels up and quit to do…well, whatever menial job he was manning at the time.   

Total Recall (1990)

When I first saw this film in a Chicago theater in August of 1990 with my mother, brother and aunt…it pretty much scared the hell out of 11-year-old me.  Not the crazy mutant-and-creature stuff on Mars, but rather the implosion of Douglas Quaid’s (Arnie) daily world after a trip to the “memory service” company called ReKall, which implants phony memories into your noggin that are “cheaper, safer and better than the real thing.”  Doug starts out as a mild-mannered—though still Arnold-rific—construction worker in a near future who has recurring (not reoccurring, for you grammar Nazis out there!) nightmares about the Red Planet next door to us.  He holds down a working class job, a nice apartment and has a real hottie for a wife (a pre-beaver-displaying Sharon Stone).  But those thoughts of Mars won’t leave him alone.  So he does what anyone would do: Heads to ReKall to be implanted with a “memory package.”  The swarmy salesman/doctor (funny how even in the future, the word “doctor” is used loosely), suggests Doug try the “Ego Trip,” which allows the implanted memory to be not just Doug as construction worker, but as a playboy or a famous jock or a…

“…secret agent!  How much is that?”

I remember smiling in that air-conditioned comfort against the bitter Chicago summer at that moment, knowing that I had just been hooked.  This shit just got real!  Wouldn’t you know it, the memory implant goes awry, Doug wakes up in a Johnny Cab taxi (voiced by Robert Picardo, he of the holographic doctor persona on Star Trek: Voyager), and before he knows it, his friends, coworkers and even his wife are trying to kill him.  Mysterious spies are right behind.  And Doug realizes he has innate combat skills that would make even Jason Bourne look like a pussy. 

That was what scared me!  The notion of what we perceive as our daily reality is a self-imposed cushion against both chaos and insanity.  And to have that security suddenly upended and taken away was about the most terrifying thing I could imagine at that tender age.  Doug does what any of us would: resist and fight to put meaning to it all.  It’s an existential premise if ever there were one.    

But enough about little EFA and his nightmares.  The fact is that Total Recall is an effin’ good flick.  Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, it toys with both the notions of reality and perception: Are you in fact the sum of your memories, or do your current choices negate what you know about yourself…or are told about yourself?  It tinkers with the very idea of solipsistic self-determination and free will.  This is heady stuff, and a decent enough premise for a summer action flick that could easily have gone off the rails had it not been handled as well as it was. 

In his review of the film, Roger Ebert maintained that it was Arnold’s performance that was central to selling the film.  Despite Arnold/Quaid’s physique, Schwarzenegger “isn't a superman this time, although he fights like one. He's a confused and frightened innocent, a man betrayed by the structure of reality itself. And in his vulnerability, he opens the way for Total Recall to be more than simply an action, violence and special effects extravaganza.” This vulnerability of Quaid’s, and Arnold’s believability in embodying same, is key to the film’s success.  It is Arnold playing against his own type—not a commando or soldier, but just a guy who finds out more about himself than he’d dared imagine. 

And the film is fun.  Quaid’s journey takes him to Mars, where he meets the woman of his dreams (literally) as well as a planetful of mutants, psychics and, of course, the three-breasted prostitute.  The revelations of the plot are secondary to Quaid’s internal struggle with who he is or isn’t, what is real or imaginary and whether or not he can “control” his own fantasy (if it is a fantasy, that is). 

It looks cool, it’s entertaining, overly violent, great special effects, and the ride is well worth the price of admission.  The fact that it’s actually thematically deep and invites the viewer to determine what really happens is bonus to this killer sci-fi mystery. 

(Oh, and if you want to listen to one of the most hilarious DVD commentaries ever, toss on the flick and listen to Arnold and Dutch director Paul Verhoeven explain away the movie in dueling European accents.)

Best moments: Expanding and exploding Rob Bottin dummies becoming puffy when characters are exposed to Mars’ low-oxygen atmosphere.  It’s scientifically beyond bogus, but it’s damn entertaining to behold. 

Best Ahnold moment: This film has numerous one-liners, but the most politically incorrect—and therefore best—has to be when Quaid plugs Sharon Stone in the forehead and then quips, “Consider dat a de-vorce.” 

What else to watch for: Marshall Bell, who plays Kuato’s “host,” appeared as the villainous Webster only a year prior in Arnold’s comedy Twins. 

Interesting factoid: The film sat in development hell for years, during which time the part of Douglas Quaid was tailored for Patrick Swayze.  Due to numerous delays and rewrites—not the least of which being that Act III continued to be a problem, with the alien air machine being the ultimate “solution” reached—years passed.  Arnold’s schedule opened up, while P-Swayz (ironically) moved on to Ghost.

THE MINOR CLASSICS

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (aka T2) (1991)

I rewatched this seminal work about a month back, and I gotta say…it hasn’t aged well, mostly because of its attempts to be funny rather than just being awesome.  This time around Ahnold goes from heavy to hero, with the second Terminator 800 sent back to 1994 to protect young John Connor from the T-1000, the crazy-awesome liquid metal Terminator played by the underappreciated Robert Patrick. Granted, the effects still look killer (it was the film to see in that magical summer of ’91), the lengthy action sequences are top-notch, James Cameron transformed Sarah Connor from a hapless waitress into a cray-cray female Rambo…but I found the viewing experience to be, well, not as it once was. 

For me anyway, the tone is not quite right compared to its predecessor.  It’s not nearly as dark and bleak as the original, and the timbre of the picture is tempered with too much dopey humor.  What made the original so fucking creepy was the sheer vacancy of the machine’s empathy.  But now we gotta sit through a nearly three-hour machine-attempting-to-act-like-people play, which *does* produce some genuine laughs—including a scene in the extended director’s cut where the Terminator attempts to smile, with side-splitting results (and if Arnold never teased his kids with that face, they had a deprived childhood indeed)—but mostly brings the level of awesomeness down from the sublime to the ridiculous.  (And am I the only one who’s weary of the premise that robots can be “just like people”?)

Plus, I firmly believe that T2 marked the beginning of the inevitable downturn in Arnold’s action career.  Dude was 43 when the film was shot, and while still in tip-top physical shape, the subtext of the movie is that the T-800, like Ahnold himself, is rapidly becoming outdated and obsolete.  Nowhere is this more summed up than after the climactic fight with the T-1000 (whose destruction in the molten metal tank is guaranteed to give you nightmares) when the Terminator, busted up after being shot, stabbed, blown up, run over, burned, chilled, smashed in the face with a steel girder, had his metallic arm shredded to bits in a gear AND impaled with a steel pole, wearily moans, “I need a vacation.” 

With those four words, Arnold, knowingly or otherwise, entered the descent of his career as action superman.  Everything has been downhill ever since, with the macho, invincible paragon persona he cultivated in the ‘80s torn apart and brought down to earth in increasingly subpar attempts at keeping himself relevant into his fifties and beyond. 

T2 truly was the last of the “great” Arnold movies.

Granted, the film still works from start to finish, and the state-of-the-art special effects still look convincing 20-plus years later.  It’s solid action/sci-fi entertainment all around, but if given the choice, I will take the original Terminator—even with its creaky and dated stop-motion effects—every time.   

True Lies (1994)

Reteaming with Jimbo Cameron for the third go-round, the dynamic duo went full-bore action-comedy in this little gem that starred Schwarzenegger as Harry Tasker, a secret superspy whose wife (a well-utilized Jamie Lee Curtis) believes him to be nothing more than a boring office drone.  As with all things Cameron, it’s big and overblown, but that’s why we like his shiz.  The comedy works for the most part, despite (or perhaps because of) its none-too-subtle bite of misogyny.  (For a filmmaker who frequently places strong women at the center of his work, Cameron can be a bit of a woman-hater.)  Cameron regular Bill Paxton shows up in the priceless minor role of a used car salesman out to seduce Harry’s wife with the cover story that he’s some kind of spy (is there really much difference in those two lines of work anyway?). 

Continuing the trend of Arnold in decline, Harry is portrayed as sexually vacuous, with his unsatisfied wife out to get some action (pun intended) of both the nookie and adventure varieties once Harry’s real occupation is made known to her.  It makes for good comedy when Jamie Lee joins the fun and of course is both clumsy and unwittingly pulls a Homer by dropping an Uzi down a flight of steps, taking out multiple bad guys (this time of the Middle East variety, so apparently we’re giving those Central and South Americans a break) in the process. 

This being a Cameron movie, there are enormous set action pieces, not the least of which is a car/helicopter chase through a Florida waterway, with an actual former highway bridge blowed to smithereenies by Harrier jets in the process.  This is followed by Jamie Lee Curtis dangling from said helicopter.  That’s no stuntwoman; that’s really Janet Leigh’s daughter hanging off a flying metal heap and screaming for her life.

 

Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Conan the Destroyer (1984)

This character was tailor-made for Arnold at the height of his bodybuilding days.  A strongman warrior who says little and hacks to bits creatures and other humans alike with a broadsword, both of these films are appreciable in their own way.  Personally, I prefer the Destroyer because it’s more fun and also funnier all around.  The Barbarian is more a serious, Wagnerian, Baroque tale of a child rising from nothing to become the über-Mensch and vanquishing great evil.  Barbarian is elevated from schmaltz thanks to a truly chilling performance by James Earl Jones as cult leader Thulsa Doom.  In one crucial scene, the voice of Vader entreats one of his minions to leap 200 feet to her death just because he fucking says so.  “That…is power!” that impossibly rich basso profundo informs Conan before commanding “Crucify him at the Tree of Woe.” 

I know I’m in the minority for preferring Destroyer, but sometimes you just want an adventure with plenty of good laughs, which Destroyer has in spades, thus beginning the showcasing of Arnold’s ample comic talents. 

THE DECENT

Red Heat (1988)

An Austrian guy trying to speak with a Russian accent is just plain funny.  So is teaming him up with devil-may-care Chicago cop James Belushi to take down a Russian drug czar (or tsar, depending on which style guide you prefer).  Best scene is right at the start, when Arnold blasts his way through a Soviet-era spa and punches out a baddie in Moscoviansnowdrifts while in the buff.  Sadly, stuntman Bernie E. Dobbins, who fought Arnie in said nudie boxing match, contracted pneumonia and passed away from complications not longer after.  Red Heat was dedicated to his memory. 

The Running Man (1987)

Yet another dystopian cautionary tale, this one about a futuristic game show where players actually fight for their lives against the show’s resident mercenaries.  Quite ahead of its time (c’mon, how far off are most contemporary reality shows?), the casting people pulled off a coup by landing former Family Feud host Richard Dawson to portray slimeball MC Damon Killian.  This was pretty much the nadir of Arnold’s one-liner films, with Arnie dropping one tailor-made for each successive killing of his nemeses.  And, of course, the requisite “I’ll be back.” 

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)

Much better than you’ve heard and a decent entry in the series despite the notable absence of James Cameron.  Then in his mid-fifties, Arnold fought the biological clock and got back to his T2-era musculature in order to reprise the titular killer yet again.  Scrumptious, teutonic blond-later-turned-lesbian Kristiana Loken was the Terminatrix, or TX, who not only turns her arms into various firing weapons but also increases her boob size in a key size in order to distract a cop (yep).  This was Arnold’s final film before his stint as Governator of California, and pretty much the close of the bronze age of his career (not to be confused with his “bronzed” younger age).  It also features Arnie delivering the cringeworthy line “Basic psychology is among my sub-routines” as well as the laughably serious line “Your confusion is not rational. She is a healthy female of breeding age” directed at no-longer-quite-so-young John Connor (Nick Stahl) in reference to future mate (hottie Claire Danes).  T3 was also noteworthy for retracting the hopeful ending of T2 in favor of a grimmer, apocalyptic finale—that war with the machines is not only inevitable, but Judgment Day will happen before the end credits roll.

IF YOU HAVE TIME

Eraser (1996)

If nothing else, skip to the CGI alligators that tear apart bad guys at about the midway point.  Arnold caps one and then drops the fabulous bon mot, “You’re luggage.”

Last Action Hero (1993)

It’s not without its charm.  Despite its overall failure at the box office and among critics, there are some good ideas here about the “rights” of fictional characters as well as a few decent scenes, most notably a postmodern car chase in the “movie within a movie” that parodies all of the clichés of car chase movies in the process.  Self-reflexive cinema before Scream, LAH was a decent enough idea that needed about another year of script rewrites and the exfiltration of annoying kiddie star Austin O’Brien. 

Collateral Damage (2002)

Arnold’s first post-9/11 actioner was delayed by six months in the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington due to some elements of the plot being a bit too close to home for comfort (including an attack on DC). 

Kindergarten Cop (1991)/Twins (1989)

Arnold’s “comedies” were by turns entertaining or excruciating to behold—sometimes at the same moment.  These two entries were fine in their own way, but neither is great cinema.

The 6^th Day (2000)

I include this film for one reason only: It features Arnold’s best one-liner EVER.  “[Well, Drucker] Ihope they clone you before I kill you…so you can go fuck yourself.”  I’ve laughed that hard in a movie theater maybe three times in my life. 

AND…THE DREGS

End of Days (1999)

Arnold fights the Devil on the eve of the millennium.  A movie no one wanted to see (or make, judging by its overall sloppiness).

Raw Deal (1985)

This Arnold-versus-the-Chicago-Mob film is so embarrassingly terrible it defies explanation how it was ever greenlit.  When Arnie actually pauses to put “Satisfaction”by the Stones into his car’s tape deck just before blasting his way into the bad guys’ hideout, there was no going back to even turkey status.

 

Batman and Robin (1997)

Arnold is Mr. Freeze and…ah, fuck it.

Jingle All the Way (1996)

“Arnold Schwarzenegger stars in Jingle All the Way.”  And with those eight words, his career was officially over.