I’m here. In Hollywood. In North Hollywood, specifically, but here nonetheless.
With little time and spare energy, I didn’t write in Phoenix and since I’ve arrived, I’ve been all over the place, either with stuff, or people, or just my head trying to wrap itself around it.
BUT! Let’s start from where we left off, shall we?
After heading out the door in New Mexico, I headed west and crossed into Arizona fairly early. I hit Meteor Crater sometime before noon, getting off the interstate and driving the six mile, tiny but well paved road up to the site itself. On the access road I thought the lousy roads had finally caught up to me my car was pulling to the left so bad. But as I made it to the parking lot, the reality became clear. There was nothing wrong with my alignment; it was just a solid and constant wall of wind.
I had been looking forward to hiking around the rim of the crater and taking some time just to enjoy being outside, in the footsteps of astronauts, letting the site soak through me and become one with the rock.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to commune with nature when she’s blowing at you hard enough to knock you down (or over a crater rim, depending). So, sadly, the wind, which was gusting at 70 and 75 mph, forced the cancellation of the outside tours and made being outside for any appreciable time an utterly miserable experience.
Nevertheless, I soldiered through to get some pictures, wandered through the museum and listened to the enthusiastic and friendly tour guide give the would-be tour inside.
After a quick lunch there, I started south again, headed for Phoenix. With my abbreviated time at Meteor Crater, I found myself still ahead of schedule. So when I passed a sign for Prescott, I decided to take a detour to see the other residential campus of my alma mater, Embry-Riddle. I haven’t yet commented here on the fact that I now have an iPhone, though anybody whose been around me since I’ve got it is sure to consider me an asshole for having it and, I’m certain, flaunting it. But certainly, without this little device and its access to GoogleMaps, I never would’ve found my way to the off-the-beat-and-path Prescott campus and never, never, never have found my way back. Even so, it took me awhile to find, and I had to be at the Phoenix airport in time to pick up Ryan, Phoenix still a solid two hours south.
But find it I did, and I walked around a bit, talked with people in the newspaper office (there’s always people in the newspaper office, especially before publication day), walked through a couple of buildings, balked at the enormously superior quality of food available to them over Daytona Beach’s campus, and headed out again.
From there, I typed in the “Phoenix Airport” in the destination field of GoogleMaps and set off, supremely confident in the certitude of my directions. A couple hours later, I’m in the Phoenix area, the sun has set and I’m closing in on Phoenix Airport, with forty-five minutes to spare before Ryan’s plane lands. Except, coming off the interstate, there were no signs for what surely is a major international airport. I press on and close to the end, sure enough, spot a control tower, though again, there seems a remarkable lack of signage for a major travel way. The destination is an “Airport Blvd,” which after missing and turning around, I start to head down, a narrow dead end kind of a road with nothing but hangers and storage buildings on the other side of a chain link fence. The road lasts about a mile and when it ends…well, it ends. There’s a gate and that’s about it. This, surely, is not Phoenix International Airport. Out comes the phone again and this time I google “Phoenix International Airport” to get its proper name – Sky Harbor International Airport. After plugging that into GoogleMaps, I get my true destination – forty-five minutes south.
Back onto the interstate and headed south again, I arrive at Sky Harbor and get to the end of security with but a few minutes to spare. After picking up Ryan, we head further south still to his parents’ place, with pizza waiting. The Schiles’ hospitality cannot go understated here, with a comfy bed, great food (both pizza and an excellent pot roast the next evening), and open arms. And to his credit, Mr. Schile only asked once how Martians was coming, a true credit to an actor waiting on demo reel material. That first night we did nothing much but relax and take it easy, starting the work that Ryan had come down to do the next day.
After a breakfast of reheated pizza, we set to work, with a makeshift recording studio set up in his parents’ closet. We recorded all of my lines before taking a break, our break consisting of a trip over to his sister’s place to record foley. Somewhere here we learned of Heath Ledger’s death, which Ryan took a bit harder then I, but is nevertheless unnerving to learn while you’re working on your own Batman movie with the Joker.
Foley and lunch done, we headed back to his parents’ and after breaking through a mental block (thanks to Ryan’s astute direction), I was finally able to give a satisfactorily evil and Joker-ish laugh. A great home-cooked meal and some playtime with Ryan’s nephew afterwards, and the day was done.
The next morning, I was up and antsy by eight, hung around until around ten and bid my farewells (and, again, much credit to the Schiles’ for all their wonderfulness) and headed west one last time.
I crossed some desert, then the California border, then more desert, paid some outrageous amount of money for gas near the General Patton museum, more desert, and eventually, the outlying area of Los Angeles.
Somewhere along the way (near another spectacular wind farm), Dustin called and we caught up for awhile, him driving south from Little Rock towards Dallas while I drove west from Phoenix towards Los Angeles.
As I approached the outskirts of the City of Angels, rain reared its dreary head again, and by the time I hit my very first freeway traffic jam ever, it was coming down steadily and has been ever since.
I made it to my new home by about three and met Chad, an Internet friend turned roommate. I hauled in the little amount of stuff in my car and started the long process of settling in. Chad and I talked for a bit, I shuffled the things I had around, made some phone calls to Mom, Ryan, and Tony, and eventually went out to eat with Chad. Afterwards, we drove around, Chad giving me the lay of the land as much as was possible through the rain clouds and black of night.
Back “home,” Fig had returned from work along with his girlfriend. After unwinding and talking for a while, I headed to bed, which for the time being was an old mattress pad and a couple of blankets. This was my first day in Hollywood.
The next day, I was up by eight and headed out the door for some furniture shopping. I left my desk, chair, and mattress behind in Florida, unable to fit them in the moving container I had packed up to be driven across the country by a moving service. A realization that Ikea doesn’t open until ten and an hour and a half of roaming around North Hollywood and Burbank later, I bought some affordable Swedish crap and headed back to the apartment.
I met Mark, Chad’s friend who works until 11 every night, and set to putting together my furniture. I made it through my chair and most of my dresser before the moving service finally arrived (several hours after the appointed time). The guy maneuvered his truck and the forklift through some very tight spaces, taking an understandable amount of time to do so. After his departure, I started the unloading, getting everything except the body of the coach, which requires two people.
At this point, I’m thoroughly soaked and tired and take a minute just to sit and catch my breath. Fig comes home from work and I enlist his help to move the couch upstairs. I wish I had something clever to say about how much it sucks to move couches, even small ones, but I don’t. It just sucks. But it’s done, and the container is empty and waiting to be picked up, which please god let them do soon so it will be out of the way and never again have to piss off the neighbors.
Somewhere in the cracks of all of this, Tony called to hang out. After a quick collusion of Fig and Chloe’s plans with Tony’s and mine, we settle on dinner in Hollywood – deciding on Micelli’s on Hollywood Blvd on the way (iPhone for the win!). I call Tony and tell him where to meet us and Fig, Chloe, and I proceed there. Tony, unfortunately, gets into a car accident on the way, bumping into a taxi and scraping his door in the process. He’s fine, though not in the best of spirits by the time he makes it to the restaurant, forty-five minutes or so later. We eat and laugh and share pairs of inside jokes between us (Fig and I, Chloe and Fig, and Tony and I). At the end, Fig and Chloe head off for her place and Tony and I come back to the apartment. We talk, we commiserate, we sit on the newly moved couch for a bit before he goes home. I move my finished dresser into the closet and call it a night. This is my first full day in Hollywood.
This is all plainly utilitarian, and there’s more in my head than just the events. But there’s so much still to be done, that to even sit here for this long to transcribe the naked events is a challenge of focus and sitting still.
I’m trying to wrap my head around this place. Around the differences and the similarities. Around the familiar and the alien and those unsettling things that can be both when in a city I’ve seen a million times but never set foot in before.
Aside from a million things to do, I have a million pictures of my trip out, mostly taken with one hand at 80 mph. Since so few made it into the posts proper, for time, energy, and hard drive reasons, I’ve settled on doing a separate post – the illustrated journey, if you will, to come at some point.
But for now, I have a million things to do.