Running in the Family

When I was in 4th grade, I decided to write a teleplay. I'm not sure what possessed me.

Oh, who am I kidding: I know exactly why I did it. This was in the mid-1970s, the apex of the fascinating (infernal? as in Towering Inferno?) disaster-movie period in our pop culture, when you couldn't walk into a theater without being subjected to an earthquake, skyscraper fire, or crisis in a tin bird at 35,000 feet. I wanted to write one of those. Except, apparently, I believed that I couldn't start at the top with a screenplay. It made more sense to me to start with a TV movie.

Also, one of my best friends, David Hitchings (a 4th-grader), was many hundreds of pages into his first novel (the main characters were Gumby and Pokey -- it was my earliest contact with what we now call "fan fiction"), and I wanted a piece of that action too.

So I wrote the teleplay for Flashflood! (For those of you who experienced the Universal Studios tour in the 1970s, you know exactly what inspired me.) I lived in the mountain community of Idyllwild at the time, and up in the highest reaches of Fern Valley, on the edge of the San Jacinto National Forest, several large water tanks collected the water the town used. My disaster scenario hinged on all these tanks rupturing at once, and the escaping water rushed downhill, practically wiping out our little village.

Fortunately, my main character -- a 4th-grade boy who looked and sounded suspiciously like me -- was a fast thinker: he was able to collect his dog, throw it in the back of the family car, and drive down off the mountain to safety. I have no clue what became of that boy's family, but you can bet his dog was going to make it out alive. I remember carefully considering the issues of a 9-year-old behind the wheel: he had studied how his father and mother drove and imitated them. I delayed the flashflood just long enough to give the kid enough time to push the driver's seat up as far as it would go and adjust the mirrors accordingly. And I made sure the boy was a really bad driver at first, careening all over the road, braking and accelerating too quickly, until finally he got the hang of it and got himself down the long, winding road to nearby Banning.

I have no idea whatever happened to my teleplay. (My assumption is that it's lost amongst the papers that make up Irwin Allen's estate.) But I remember several days of dedication to this endeavor -- and I remember my 4th-grade teacher, Doris Lombard, giving me the room to "go with it" and do this to the best of my ability. Great teacher, that Mrs. Lombard. She also introduced me to Shakespeare, reading Macbeth to our class. A great lover of reading and writing. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a teacher like her.

***

Laura and I had our fall parent-teacher conference with Piper's second-grade teacher, Mrs. Fiamingo, this past week. Other than her penchant for tardiness at the beginning of the school day (this comes as no surprise to anyone who knows our family), her school year is going along swimmingly. Especially, apparently, when it comes to Piper's writing.

This doesn't surprise me too much; she has been showing a strong interest in writing from early on. When I took on NaNoWriMo two years ago, Piper picked up on that vibe and asked me if she could start writing her own story. So when I wasn't using the computer to knock out my daily word allotment, she was at plugging away on Meet Frederick the Squirrel. The process went like this: she would dictate to me a few sentences of the story and I would print them with pen on paper. Then I'd give her the paper and a blank Microsoft Word screen ... and away she'd go, transferring my writing with her hunt-and-pecking. She probably got a good 250 words into it before she changed the main character's name from Frederick to Piper, which held her interest a little better. And then finally she abandoned the story. But it was fun to watch her working on it.

Piper's class is unlike any second-grade class I've ever heard of. There is a remarkable focus on effective storytelling. They talk about theatricality when reading out loud. They talk about story structure. They have publication parties on the days that the students complete writing projects (complete with mugs of cocoa!). Mrs. Fiamingo told us how PJ struggled mightily with the concept of first drafts, how things didn't need to be -- indeed, couldn't be -- perfect the first time you hammer out your story, and that it would take several rewrites to get it a finished product. (I considered suggesting Mrs. Fiamingo read to the class the chapter from Anne LaMott's Bird By Bird called "Shitty First Drafts," but my finely honed sense of propriety figured out that this might not be a good call.)

And she talked about how much PJ is going to love a new idea they're going to introduce in the coming weeks: showing without telling. They're going to have the students act different emotions without speaking, notice the physical changes in the way they act and look, and write a character that exhibits these emotions physically and emotionally without explicitly saying the way the character acts.

Second grade, I remind you. There are college-level classes working on this idea. Hell, I'm still working on this idea daily! Would that I had this kind of exposure to the process when I was seven years old!

***

I was hurriedly ironing a shirt a couple of mornings ago as we were going through our usual, stress-filled weekday morning. (Piper would be late to school again.) Zuzu, already prepared to leave and with some free time on her hands, was creating a scene on the ottoman behind me, casting a couple of kitchen utensils with funny arms and legs as her actors. One of the absolute delights in Laura's and my life is to hear Zuzu weave one of these "scenes." Normally, there is armhair-raising peril involved -- someone is drowning in an ocean of lava (read: carpet) or dangerously hanging over a precipice (read: radiator cover), and a rescue team of Bitty Babies™ and Legos™ are needed at once to ensure a safe rescue. But this morning's scene was notable for its banality:

French Whip: Look what I found!

Spoon: What is it?

French Whip: A book!

Spoon: Wow! Are you going to read it?

French Whip: Yes! I'm going to take it home!

Spoon: You can't do that!

French Whip: Why not?

Spoon: It might belong to someone else!

French Whip: You're right! Maybe we should find out who it belongs to!

Suddenly, as if she'd forgotten something important, she threw down the utensils, boarded her Razor scooter -- who has time for walking around the house? -- and tore down the hallway to the bathroom.

"Mom!" she insisted. "You shouldn't take things that aren't yours!"

And after receiving her mother's agreement/confirmation, she re-boarded her vehicle and kick-pushed down to the living room.

I was overcome briefly with awe. It was a whole different kind of storytelling: the moral tale, acted out right in front of me (well, okay, behind me), complete with the moral stated distinctly to an audience at the end.

Susannah may not have the same inclinations toward writing that Piper has shown, but there is no question that we are a family of storytellers.

On Michael Jackson's This Is It

I caught Michael Jackson's This Is It today. I hadn't initially planned to see this, at least not in theaters. I figured I'm really over Michael and his overexposure at this point. Don't we all feel that way by now? But my mom-in-law wanted to see it on her birthday, so we took the whole family, and ... and ... and apparently I'm totally wrong about being over the MJ thing, because I was genuinely moved by the film.

I haven't been starstruck by Jackson in years. When he slipped off the deep end and became a pop-culture joke, it was hard to look at his physical appearance and not just shake your head, remembering What Once Was. But I had the same experience that so many people my age had after his death when we were all subjected -- or in my case subjected myself to -- a couple of days of nonstop Michael music: Damn. A lot of the songs from his peak in the 80s are truly amazing and just about give him the ammunition to live up to his self-proclaimed pop royalty. The nice thing about this movie is that it once again reminds you of Jackson's brand of genius, and it does it in a way that no other Jackson-related product ever has.

By chronicling an unfinished MJ product, This Is It has a quality that Jackson had seemingly become incapable of supplying: subtlety. We see where he was going with these London concerts (and when you realize the sheer scope of the spectacle, you ache for what we'll never experience), but if Jackson had lived to perform those concerts and release the inevitable DVD/movie of the concert experience, it would be glossy, slick, Teflon, and lacking in soul. Instead, we get this cinematically static (which turns out to be refreshing) series of small moments showing the sometime-banality of Jackson at work.

You sense his clear vision -- a singularity that I'm certain goes hand-in-hand with many of his other "eccentricities." He knows precisely what he wants from the concert, especially the music. He gives clear direction on precisely when a drum fill should occur (usually on his personal cue) because he has an innate sense of the best timing for the theatricality of the moment. Finding just the right feel for a keyboard line or a bass riff ... working with his backup dancers on refining a unique move ... all of it is done his way, period. No one questions him. Most of the time they bend over backwards to give him precisely what he has asked for. Jackson wielded an extraordinary amount of power on stage.

Considering that, it was nice to see that, like so many perfectionist genius monarchs, Jackson wasn't a dick to his fellow performers: all criticism and direction is imparted with love and a tender reminder that "we'll get there" or "that's why we have rehearsals." The closest he comes to an explosion is his frustration with new in-ear monitors that are causing him great discomfort.

Another key player in this movie is his supporting performers. We have always been fascinated with Jackson's fans, watching their theatrical crying and passing out in his presence. But there is no audience for these performances, save the crew and, on a number of occasions, backup dancers who are not needed on stage at that moment. From my own experience, I would expect performers on break to be doing anything but paying attention to what's going on onstage. But it's a different story at MJ rehearsals: if Jackson is on stage, those dancers are right there in the "pit," swaying, singing, screaming, hanging on Michael's every note (even though he is preserving his voice and barely whispering many passages) and move (even though he is clearly still getting a feel for his personal choreography). It's almost as if they knew that their time with him was short, and they were going to savor every moment in his presence. Watching the insanity of teenage-girl screaming in Jackson's presence never communicated to me his rapport; but the looks on these dancers' faces finally got across to me the palpable sense of Jackson's magnetism.

(It's also difficult to shake the creeping sense of devastation, knowing that these poor dancers, some of whom dropped what they were doing from halfway around the world to perform with Jackson, never got to take the stage with him in front of a paying audience.)

In this month when I'm thinking about process, perfectionism, artistry, This Is It turned out to be surprisingly relevant. To watch Jackson work is to see the devotion one needs to one craft in order to realize it as fully as possible. It also puts me square in front of the man in my mirror, asking him if he still has what it takes to guide his own vision to a finished product.

First of all, I'm mad at Amanda.

Amanda is majorly cool. For two reasons. First of all, she's my niece and she's older than me. Yeah, I was born an uncle. Ridiculously cool, and I owe it all to her. Part B of Reason 1 is that she made me a great-uncle at the tender age of 22. Needless to say, this fact is more than just a great ice-breaker at parties -- it really reels in the ladies.

Secondly, Amanda is amazing with words, which, if you know me, is all you need to score coolness points on my court. I worshipped Amanda when I was a kid. She was the sister I never had. I was thrilled when I got to spend a day on the Santa Monica Beach with her, didn't mind at all getting stranded on the smoggy Golden State Freeway, doubled over in laughter at Chavez Ravine as we sat in "Baker's Field." I envied her crazy-quick wit; a high percentage of my sense of humor was shaped by her sharp delivery. (Yes, you have her to blame.) Amanda and I haven't lived in the same state now for almost 30 years, but the Internet brought us back together in the last few years, and I gained a new appreciation for her wordsmithery these past few years as I discovered her beautiful gift for the written word. She is a truly brilliant writer.

But none of this matters now because I'm mad at her. You see, a couple of weeks ago, Amanda hinted to me that she was too busy to do NaNoWriMo. I was on the fence on whether to do it this year myself, but when she bailed on the idea, I thought, "Well, if my genius niece isn't going to do it, I can let this baby go!"

Except that I forgot about the flip side of that whole "big sister" thing: she can be mean. Suddenly, come November 1, she changed her mind and embraced NaNoWriMo, hanging me out to dry! So here I sit, composing these silly blog posts and reconsidering whether I want to go for a finished draft of the novel by 11/30.

Amanda, there's only one way to get back in my good graces: when your novel gets published, dedicate it to your dear, old uncle.

How Fitting.

No sooner had I decided to use NaNoWriMo month not for noveling but rather for focusing on The Art of Fiction, I've managed to lose the book. Sure, this is disturbing in that I wonder if my subconscious is actively working against me. (Can a subconscious be active?) But I'm also perturbed because this book had sentimental value: I carried it all over NYC during my time living there in the 1980s. PLUS the bookmark I was using was one of my last remaining of the set of bookmarks I had gotten at the long-gone-but-oft-lovingly-remembered best bookstore in NYC (for me anyway), Coliseum Books on 57th.

So while I was hoping to post a writing exercise today, that will have to be curtailed for the moment. If I have to, I will pick up the Gardner book at the library today until I can replace -- or hopefully find -- my old copy.

I've been thinking a lot today about the recent news that a "lost" Nabokov novel is to be published. One would think at first that this would be tremendously exciting, but it is a bit bothersome that Nabokov left explicit instructions that the novel was to be destroyed upon his death, and now, lo these years later, his son has decided to publish it anyway. Isn't this the stuff that curses are made of?

The book -- or whatever is going to pass as a book -- will probably be terrible. Sure, it may give us some insights into Nabokov's process, but does anyone really think that this is what he was hoping to impart when he started it? He wanted to tell a tale, not show us how he scratched out sections and rewrote sentences. I worry the same for any of the posthumous releases from David Foster Wallace, who infamously sweat bullets over every word, getting it just the way he wanted before he released it to the world. (That's hard to believe when you check in for a hernia operation after lifting Infinite Jest, but this is what "they" all say about his process.)

I, however, have no pretension to perfection. I'll show off my crappy prose, warts and all, at the drop of a hat. Perhaps this is why I'll never achieve that genius of Nabokov and Wallace. Or do I mean the mystery of those writers? The coolness? The X factor?

Tenacity and Bookmarks

Piper showed her entrepreneurial spirit today in a way I haven't seen recently. She noticed that a couple of (slightly older) girls a few doors down had set up their own business selling bookmarks on their front lawn. They would cut rectangles of 8-1/2 x 11 paper, colored them, and advertised them on the card table at 25, 50, or 75 cents, depending on how complex/pretty the bookmark was. (Zuzu and I each bought one.)

PJ asked Laura what she might be able to sell, and Laura drew her attention to her drawing skills. "You could do portraits," she suggested. PJ found this to be a fine idea, and immediately drafted me to be her muscle, carting the small table and chairs used on the occasion of eating meals in front of the television out to the driveway. She made up a page that described her product ("Dad, how do you spell 'portraits?'"), and then decided to expand the offerings: she would draw anything the customer requested. "Like, I could draw the street," she suggested. What to charge? A mere 10 cents. For a moment, I thought that she was cleverly undercutting her bookmarking competition -- and I think they were concerned about that: at one point, one of the bookmark girls wandered down to Piper's station and asked, "So how much are you charging?" and looked a little concerned when Piper told her.

Both Laura and I thought she was undervaluing her art, but this was all for fun anyway, so we didn't lobby for higher prices. It was going to be an uphill battle for her as it was: Bookmark, Inc. had spent quite a bit of time on advertising, posting flyers on trees up and down the block, and even going so far as to talk Zuzu into posting a sign on the front of her scooter she had been driving up and down the sidewalk.

I watched her business from a distance as I raked leaves on this perfect autumn day, and my hopes rose when I spied an elderly couple ambling down the street, smiling in anticipation at Piper. They looked kind; it appeared her first transaction might be positive. "Are you the girl selling bookmarks?" the woman asked Piper. No, Piper indicated, that that was those girls, and she waved in their direction. "So what are you doing?" the woman asked, and Piper explained her business ... in her typically machine-gun onslaught of words. The woman didn't understand and looked for me for help. I re-explained the picture biz, and she nodded kindly and then turned down the sidewalk to join her husband, who was already perusing the bookmarks down the street.

My heart fell. But I underestimated the business plan -- and her tenacity. As I worked around the yard and in the kitchen for the rest of the afternoon, Zuzu ran up to me on several occasions with excited updates on her sister's progress: "Dad -- people are coming!" And by dinnertime, Piper had made $2.50. Which was not to say that she'd made 25 pictures ... some people -- including a close out-of-town friend staying with us -- had clearly seen more valuable in their commissioned art and paid accordingly. Most impressive to me was how long she had stayed at it: she was probably out there working her table for well over two hours.

***

I've been thinking a lot about tenacity recently as National Novel Writing Month (not to mention National Blog Posting Month) approached again. I couldn't see how I was going to commit to either endeavor, and I even felt fiercely envious of friends who were launching into another novel today. When I did it in 2007, I had that same sticktoitiveness that I saw in my daughter today -- and for even less profit. (But who knows -- I'm still working on the novel.) I see her struggle all the time to finish projects, big and small, and I see myself in the worst way.

I started re-reading John Gardner's The Art of Fiction a couple of weeks ago, probably due to my subconscious awareness of NaNoWriMo's approach. Well, "re-reading" is a bit of a stretch. I attempted to read it more than 20 years ago, when I first attempted to write a novel (precociously titled The Long, Sudden-Ended Always) that failed in every way imaginable. The book was intimidating, largely because Gardner's voice could be so aggressive, opinionated, imposing. Unlike a lot of "You can do it!"-style how-tos, this book wants you to know that writing -- good writing -- is a bitch, and you better be prepared to wrestle, sweat, and take some serious blows if you're gonna get into it. I wasn't ready to hear it then.

But I know this now, and it makes the reading easier the second time through. Or, after getting past the first 35 pages, the first time through, as I am now in virgin territory. He has some fun writing exercises along the way, and I'm thinking about attempting them and posting them here, just for the fun of trying it out, exercising my muscles. I originally thought I would spend this November trying to finish the first draft of Son of A Saint, but I'm not so sure that's what I should be doing right now. I'm still in love with the book, still feel determined to finish it ... someday ... but facing it feels tense right now, and I'm feeling weak, easily psyched out. So maybe I can sneak up on it through these other writing exercises and slowly find my way into it.

And maybe next time Piper sets up a shop in our driveway, she'll give me some tablespace to sell opening chapters of my Great American Novel. Or maybe I should just take up making bookmarks. At least I could then say I'm part of the publishing industry.

The Buddy Chat

There is a family gathering in Winter Park, FL, for my uncle, Jess Gregg (known as "Buddy" to the family), this afternoon. Today would have been his 90th birthday. I wrote this piece to be read at that gathering.

In December 1985, Uncle Buddy called me while I was home for the holidays from college. “Why don’t you and I have a little chat?” he said in a voice that was amiable but filled with purpose.

The “Buddy chat” was a consistent element of my return visits to Winter Park. They carried a certain element of the unexpected — I never could guess what might be on his mind. I felt an air of mystery surrounding my uncle, the artist whose life was so different from that of anyone else I knew. He was an unlikely father figure to me, one of three patriarchs in my life. While my father gave me a love steeped in the kindness and selflessness more closely akin to a proud grandfather, and while Uncle Don strove to equip me with important life tools, Buddy’s role in my life seemed to be tending to my respect for family and its history.

For instance, the earliest Buddy chat that I can remember occurred at the original Ark, Dean B.’s house. Buddy called me to an upstairs room and pointed out some weaponry displayed on a wall — I believe it was a pistol — and told me what he knew of its history, how it had belonged to an ancestor in the Civil War who fought for the Union, and how he was shot through the wrist of an arm while holding the sword that directed his regiment into battle. A memorable story for a 9-year-old boy.

“Someday,” Buddy promised in conclusion, “when you’re old enough to take care of these things, this will be yours.” I think I understood even then that my uncle wasn’t giving me a gun or some family possession; he was entrusting me with an important piece of Gregg oral history.

There was a ritual to my visits with Buddy: the tea and cookies, of course, prepared and served lovingly by Leo. During this time I would catch them up on my life. And then Buddy would inevitably say: “Let’s take a little walk,” and out the door we would go, walking the quiet brick streets of the neighborhood, or heading down to the edge of the tiny lake in his back yard, his quiet, sonorous tones sharing a concern that had been on his mind, perhaps about me, perhaps about him, perhaps about Mom or Dad.

Like many artists, Buddy was concerned with what legacy he would leave behind, but more than that he was thinking about the Gregg, Ogilvie and Bailey legacies. He was aware that, on paper at least, this branch of the Gregg surname would die with him, and it was important that some of us in a younger generation understand what we could of its history.

+ + +

As it turned out, the visit in ‘85 had a different purpose. After the usual tea and cookies, Jess directed me me to sit on the edge of the bed in his and Leo’s bedroom. He presented me with a small manila envelope with the words “The Underground Kite” written in black Sharpie. It contained what appeared to be three poems. Buddy explained that a dramatic reading of a new play of his was to be produced in Orlando, and that the production needed three songs. He wanted me to write the music to his lyrics. He read them out loud to me, not singing but imbuing his voice with a musical rhythm. He talked about Leadbelly, the folk blues musician, whose style these songs should most closely resemble.

I accepted the task with some trepidation, mostly pride. I walked on air for the next few days, feeling like all of a sudden, rather than simply being a mentor he was inviting me to collaborate with him. Some of that fog of “mystery” surrounding him seemed to dissipate. This was an acknowledgement from my clearest pardigm of an artist that I too was an artist, that I deserved that respect.

I never got to see the production, but I did get a copy of the program with my songwriting credit. I’m pretty sure my music was not exactly what he was looking for: as much as I, a white, middle-class boy at a private midwestern college, tried, I was not going to capture the passion and craft of an early 20th-century black musician who spent years on chain gangs in the Deep South. But the experience served to mature my relationship with Jess, and it helped me carry my artistic self with more conviction.

And that conviction is perhaps the most important gift that Jess and Leo have both given me. My parents, of course, spent a great part of their lives in the arts, but for me they were “stuck” always being parents first. With the little bit of distance Jess and Leo had, they became for me the purest examples in this family of a life guided by art. Jess’s commitment to his writing has been a constant source of inspiration in my own artistic pursuits, most recently my writing. He’s shown me that it can be done. He has given me license to think of myself as a writer, an artist. I can’t think of a better legacy.

A couple of days ago, I was listening to an interview with the writer Dennis Palumbo. He spoke of the value of committing to a life of writing, and in his words I recognized Jess, hunched over his typewriter — or later, his laptop — summoning the muse.

Dennis said:

Writing is a lifelong pursuit. It’s very hard for writers to do this, but they have to take the long view — they have to take the view that they’re going to be doing this, year after year, for most of their life. And that fads and genres come and go, and overnight successes come and go, but the real beauty and sublime joy in writing is the day-to-day engagement with your creative self. To do that every day, you accumulate over the long haul a real sense of connection with yourself, and with what makes you human and makes everyone else a human.

I hope that Jess and I will continue our chats on a regular basis.

NaBloPoMo 10: A Tag, Not of the Skin Variety

Thanks, Parenthetical, for the tag — my first time being tagged on this blog.

Here's the goods on how this works:

1. Link to the person who tagged me. (That's what that link up above is, so I'm cruising right along in my directions.)
2. Post the rules on your blog. (Even as I type!)
3. Write six random things about yourself. (Comin' up.)
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up. (That seems redundant to step 5, but who am I to quibble with the powers that be.)

Okay. So. Six random things about me:

1. In high school, I had an addiction to tonic water ... so much so that at my 18th birthday (which doubled as a going-away party before I left for college), my friends gave me 25 1-liter bottles of the stuff. Canada Dry, I believe.
2. Valerie Harper (of Rhoda fame) introduced me on a nationally televised telethon to raise money for the victims of one of those Mississippi River floods in 1993. I performed my songs "Saving The Levee" and "Invisible Locket."
3. I am unbelievably excited that Piper is getting to be old enough to start watching some of my favorite movies when I was a kid (i.e., Star Wars, E.T., Xanadu ... Ohmygod, did I just say that last one out loud?). I can't imagine that every parent doesn't feel this way.*
4. The first movie I saw in a theater was Sleeping Beauty. I hid on the floor when the wicked queen turned into the dragon.
5. If I could do it all again, I would want to be a professional athlete, for the sole reason that I could give much better interviews than those dolts can ever give.
6. My wedding ring has a chip of Laura's birthstone in it, and Laura's has a chip of my birthstone. I know: it's disgusting, isn't it?

Okay, so I have to stick six other friends with the task of sharing their random thoughts of themselves. So ... Catharine Chronicles, Jason, Scandal of Particularity, Squidlicious, and ...

Uh oh. I don't read six other blogs. I'm sorry, but four is the best I can do. Don't hate me because I'm anti-social!


* An anecdotal addendum to #3 above: When I was about 12, a national network showed Gone With the Wind as one of those sweeps month "television events." GWTW is my mother's favorite movie, and she reallly wanted me to watch it. No, you're not hearing me: she really wanted me to watch it. I, however, did not want to waste a good night's television viewing (I'm sure there was a kickass episode of Happy Days on that night or something dramatically important like that) and rejected her pleas, opting instead to watch my shows on the tiny B&W TV and leave her with the color set. This upset Mom greatly. I held my ground, stubborn adolescent that I was. Finally, in desperation, she came to me and said, rather pathetically, "If you'll come watch the movie with me ... I will pay you $5.00." I just got this sick feeling in my stomach. "Oh, Mom!" I whined. "Fine, fine. I'll come and watch it." I didn't accept the money. I couldn't believe she had done that, but even moreso, I couldn't believe I had let it come to that.