Helms Man, Watermelon Man ... Redux

Good people work hard. They work hard and rear their families as best they can, whether making $125,000 or $25,000. I've known one family making a million dollars per annum, with salt-of-the-earth parents and great kids (Hollywood types), and another family with a dad who quite literally collects recycled materials and hauls trash to make ends meet (Hauling types). Both of these families have a few things in common: they own their homes, with children who attend private/religious schools, and both are credits to their neighborhoods.

Good people work hard, and to work is a blessing from a good God, so says the Puritan work ethic and King Solomon in Ecclesiastes (before everything became vanity). Occasionally my sons will ask me about the men we see waiting by Home Depot for work. "Dad, why are some of the workers dirty? Are they from countries that are dirty?" I tell them that these men put many of the men in suits on the same LA streets to shame with their amazing work ethic and indefatigable spirit to make a living. And, yes, they may be dirty, but their day-laborer métier is a badge of honor. That's what I tell my sons. If I had their work ethic, thick skin and stamina, then I'd be Richard Branson successful (see Ex Libris ... 2009, right) of Virgin Group fame.

When I was a kid -- 4 and 5 years old -- the Helms Man used to come through our neighborhood regularly. I can still hear the distinct "wooot, wooot" whistle of the Helms truck telling all who had ears to hear that calorie-loaded goodness was drawing nigh. And, like any good childhood memory, there was food involved.

Many times as I was walking to kindergarten (when children still walked to school), I would wave down the Helms Man and he'd stop and give me a chocolate chip cookie and a bag of M&Ms. I'd put it on our tab and then he'd charge my mom (since she always slept-in, she could not stop such mid-morning gastronomical tomfoolery). The yellow truck was modified with all sorts of doors that opened, revealing still more drawers, some which were very narrow and long, or very flat and wide. In these drawers and behind those doors were the time-tested still-warm goodies of a bygone era: pastries, doughnuts, cookies, and some store-bought candy all within steps of your home or on your way to kindergarten.

Lots of memories from that time have stayed with me: the feel-good aroma that poured out of the Helms truck every time those doors opened (like the perfume scented memory of loving grandma's bakery hug). Or, the sonic memory of clanking bottles (both full and empty) when the milkman would drop off the milk on his morning round -- which occasionally included a bottle of thick-n-rich chocolate milk after my little brother and I would mark up the order card with an extra 'X' in the box. Which I suppose was appropriate as we were the beginning of the generation tagged with moniker 'X'.

Helms Bakery at its height of popularity was a 24-hour-a-day factory that cranked out fresh baked goods, and then loaded up hundreds of trucks around SoCal for daily delivery. Helms established the brand after landing the contract to supply the 1932 Olympics. Drivers like the Helms guys, and individuals like them, made a living by working the oil rigs, doing time on the assembly line, or walking a beat in Southern California. These guys are called the "greatest generation" because of their ability to see something that had to be done, and then going about their doing it without any fanfare whatsoever (like stopping some of the grossest evils mankind has ever seen in Nazi Germany, Imperialist Japan or despotic fascist Italy). They believed in duties, not rights.

Just this last week, I heard the call of the Watermelon Man. I hear it occasionally, maybe four times in the last five years. "Watermelon Man. Fresh, cold melons. Get your melons. Watermelon man. " I can hear the octogenarian driver as he barely above a whisper calls to his former clients over his loud speaker, many who are either no longer alive, no longer hear, or have moved out of the ole neighborhood. I'm not sure what's the bigger surprise, that his truck still operates, or that he's still working at 82? What doesn't surprise me, is that good people from all walks of life work hard, and find tremendous satisfaction in a job well done. Especially if that job helps men and women with calloused hands meet the needs of their families in a very expensive City of Angels.

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Mountain Tops and Malibu Canyon

We’ve all had those wonderful moments of being away from home and literally finding ourselves encamped in some (fairly) remote mountain top respite where neither work nor ex-spouses, bill collectors or pressures from law school, can intrude upon our time, sanity, and personal space. It’s being in that new (or familiar) place overlooking the valley of the shadow of stress that allows one to recharge the ole battery and gray cells and to rethink the current (or lack of) direction of our lives. Sometimes we’re ensconced in a luxury pied a terre, and other times it’s the cozy quarters of a 2-person tent. Sometimes God takes us there, (“Er, Moses, let’s you and I have a chat”) and sometimes we find the nearest peak and climb to its apogee because, like Sir Edmund Hillary (woops!) George Mallory said, “it's there,” sitting in the midst of our vista, and we thought, “sod it all; I’ll have that finished before my afternoon cuppa.”

The mountain top experience offers a new perspective to those now ant-like problems (and people and cars) waaaaay down below. We can look at those pressures and problems anew, with a step-back, one-two-cha-cha move that gives us a new rhythm and quick step to looking at nagging problems or problem people who nag. With renewed vigor we make those tough decisions about leaving certain relationships behind and move onward toward tomorrow where each day is no longer filled with the same fights over the same issues. With fresh ideas from that great new book we finished in Lake Tahoe we attack work with the giddiness of a new-hire out of grad school. The mountain top is a good place (I’ve never had a bad experience above 5,000 ft -- unless of course you count a Southwest Airlines cattle car 3-stop at 35,000 ft.) and the mountain-top experience is usually a good thing.

Some mountain top experiences do stink, however. When I was a 9-yr old kid, I can remember Marlon Brando coming to my neighborhood to give away a large parcel of land to a local American Indian tribe. I hiked/pushed my bike around the rim of the canyon that over looked our housing development in the Santa Monica Mountains and from my lofty perch spied the news vans that drove from the freeway off ramp -- waaaaay over on the other side of the canyon -- as they meandered through the tract to finally line up with the other news wagons and vans replete with all sorts of cameramen and news guys and gals pulling on garish gold and brash blue jackets (the ones with 7’s or 4’s or 2’s on lapels indicating station and channel no.). After a quick check of a mirror hung on an open van door inspecting hair, teeth, and lipstick application, they were preening for the “important” news conference where Mr. Marlon Brando was announcing his “gift” to the American Indians.

In the crowd, if memory serves, were Robert Blake and also Iron Eyes Cody who did some commercials with a tear running down his cheek, crying over the horrible white people trashing “his” America. Even as a child I saw the hokum of this sort of PSA, though to this day I have a visceral reaction whenever I see anyone throw trash out a car window (especially a moving vehicle, where trash lands atop tasseled moccasins). In the 1940s, thirty years before and one mile away, Iron Eyes Cody was at another ceremony, where a Polish immigrant constructed a rather large, 10-ton cement statue sitting atop “Mt. Estrella” (which was actually a smallish rocky hill, a crag really), sculpted with flowing headdress. To this day, the statue of “Chief White Eagle” stands overlooking the 101 freeway (which was just a 2-laner back then). I wonder if ole Iron Eyes had any reservations about that ceremony as well? Either way, his hand and foot imprints are said to be at the base of the mini monument. I haven't been up there in 20 years, but I'll climb up there with my sons to confirm.

Back to Brando. Turns out that Marlon was actually unloading a crappy piece of land, that was for the most part, undevelopable as it had a mortgage of several hundred thousand dollars, plus there were some back taxes owed as well. Knowing the reputation of Brando, I have no doubt that he figured he’d give the land away, land some nice national pub for his efforts, and then let the banks and/or tax authorities try to take legal action against the tribes. Talk about your real definition of Indian giver; Brando embodied the ultimate tool who decided to hang an albatross around the necks of our native peoples with an indebted real property imbroglio. Jackass says “what?” “What?” That’s what I thought, Marlon.

Some mountain top experiences are long overdue; about a century overdue. Not far from the Brando fiasco, stands the formerly named “Old Negro Mountain.” This week the LA Times reported the mountain has been renamed in honor of the man who settled there in the late 1800’s, from whence it’s racial slur nickname was derived. Mr. Ballard, a former slave, first came to Los Angeles in the mid-1800s after getting his freedom from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. After successfully setting up a business and working in L.A., he finally settled in the Agoura area, and he and his daughter homesteaded two fairly large contiguous parcels of land. These weren’t Spanish Land Grants, mind you. But, to have a 2,000 foot mountain named after you is pretty cool, nonetheless. His descendants, some of whom were in their 80’s, made the trek out to the Seminole Hot Springs area in Agoura and participated in a ceremony that saw this mountain renamed to Ballard Mountain.

There are two main canyon roads that lead down to the Pacific Ocean and each have tunnels. Ballard Mountain is located right near the first tunnel off of Kanan Rd. On the first tunnel on Malibu Canyon is the former home to another local legend: "the Pink Lady." She was painted by a female artist above the entrance to the tunnel, and for a few days her naked visage caused traffic jams on Malibu Canyon road the likes of which haven’t been seen since. She was eventually painted over by the county, and even today there is still a pink hue atop that tunnel reminding us of her birthday suit strut.

"The Pink Lady" and John Ballard. Marlon Brando and 10-ton “Chief White Eagle” (they are sometimes confused one for the other). These the few colorful individuals that make up part of the history of a sleepy little burb nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains near some canyon leading to Malibu. Bonus points if you visit the area and can find two of the three, Dear Reader.

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"Great kid, don't get cocky!"

"Great kid, don't get cocky!" These the hard-earned, oh-so-wise words of Han Solo shouted down a transfer tube to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. Don't. Get. Cocky. Indeed. Han Solo had seen a thing or two in his day, and knew that when people gloat about a nice kill shot (as Luke had just fired off at an enemy ship), they tend get taught a lesson fairly quickly. It's a He who lives by the laser canon, shall likewise incinerate by the laser canon sort of thing.

We all know that "pride cometh before the fall." I think of the many wives or husbands who have looked down their noses at their fellow man (or woman) who were suffering the cuckold curse of marital betrayal, snickering with their friends over lunch or drinks ("Oh! Did you hear that Shelby's husband Rick was seen hoofing the walk-of-shame at 6am from her esthetician's condo?") only to walk in one afternoon to discover their own husband in high heels and white nursing hose bent over an ironing board with some tall blonde semi-nude, jackbooted Swede male-model whipping him with various kitchen utensils whilst their Pomeranian runs around in circles beneath yapping up a storm (wearing a doggie sweater that says, "little bitch"). This is what I'm talking about.

How many times do we catch ourselves thinking we're "all that"? Probably not enough times, I'll venture. I mean we're all of us in the gutter as Mr. Wilde says, and we need to remember that more often. Just this week I had an investor fly into L.A. for discussions to finalize a business relationship we've been discussing since I started a new company a few months ago. He'd like to put some money into this business and jump into the fray to help it grow -- all of which is great and terrific, and very much needed.

You might find this interesting, Dear Reader, that this investor was in fact once-upon-a-time my boss at a firm I worked for out of Austin, Texas. We were both down-sized along with about 21 others in 2009. And, now 9 months later, he is coming to work for me (actually, I just liked writing that, but not really. We'll be partners, and I can't even begin to tell you how much value he'll add to this company!). Sometimes it seems that when God closes a door, He throws you out the window. This is what I like to call "divine defenestration." And, that's what it felt like to me, and several others I am very close to during 2009. Free-falling with no net and mother earth fast approaching; and her arms are not outstretched to catch you. Tough times when you're out of work -- as many of you know personally -- and yet still have so very many payments to make ... and yet you can't.

I keep thinking to myself, "don't get cocky, kid!" and I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the bubble of good news and wonderful possibilities to pop. So, on a day when I waited for Dan Aykroyd's dad to cross the parking lot (with Dan watching concerned and waiting nearby), several of us went out to dinner at a hip little joint on Sunset in Beverly Hills (our new partner's treat, thank gawd), and we continued discussing the real value of this business.

The consultant that I invited to join us gave some very blunt opinions about what is the sine qua non or the essence of our business. Granted these were merely his opinions, but I invited him to join us because I valued his expertise and candor, and I received both for my troubles. I was a bit overwhelmed, but kept my cool throughout. We had, well, we had several drinks to lubricate the talks and then appetizers and dinner (including more drinks -- this was business after all) and heated conversations that lasted for 5 hours. Enough time for me to occasionally spy Oscar-winning Martin Landau enjoy his French cuisine curbside each time I went outside to take a deep breath and chat up the lovely British hostess that had befriended me earlier. Did I tell you I like to multi-task? Or is that my ADHD kicking in? Anyway, wait, what?

Oh, yeah, "don't get cocky!" is now my mantra. I am the antithesis of cocky. I am ... I am the embodiment of flaccidity. Keep moving! Nothing arrogant to see here! Proverbs says "Humility and fear of the Lord bring wealth and honor and life." That's exactly what I want: to stay humble and try to do good. I'll take whatever comes after that as a blessing!

After all was said and done over a few intense days of meetings, we're moving forward to correct the (turns out) minor glitch and are still heading toward our new business with fresh ideas and (very soon) an infusion of cash to get this thing really off the ground. Keep ya posted, Dear Readers. It appears I'm attempting one more business fraught with the perils of failing, and am reminded of Jules Renard's spot-on quote:

"Failure is not the only punishment for failure; there is also the success of others."

Fate favors the bold, y'all. Here goes!

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"A Single Man" Reviewed

Tom Ford's adaptation of the Isherwood novel of the same name is a thoughtful, somber piece, where he has adroitly assembled his players into a mise en scène that presages gay liberation amongst academia during the 1960's and 1970's (think of our favorite lesbian feminist, Camille Paglia). The curtain raises on fair Los Angeles. Our 1950's/1960's stage is set with beatnik students, gin-pickled former best-friends-with-benefits pining for players on the wrong side of the plate, homophobic neighbor, broken-hearted and erudite professors waxing eloquent about fear, and one ghost of a love, the paragon of love as all truly remarkable once-in-a-lifetime loves should be.

I think it can be said that Colin Firth never phones it in. Even in his performances in cotton candy roles as Amanda Bynes's father in What a Girl Wants, or as the charmster and all-around-good-guy Mark Darcy in Bridgett Jones's Diary, Colin Firth brings, if not his A-game, at least his B+ game. As professor George Falconer, he nails this role. Superb. If Firth were waiting on the beach to open his grades (a la the last scene in Paper Chase), and folded the unopened envelope into a paper airplane and threw it into the surf, there thrashing about the tangled kelp beds of the the Pacific shoreline would be the grade of A+ for this role. Firth occupies almost every shot, and the camera just

loves the guy (and so does director Tom Ford), in his sharp bespoke suits, well-coiffed hair, tan skin, and tall lean visage. Ford the fashion icon even has John Hamm from Mad Men -- that purveyor of all-things 50's cool -- phone-in a voice-over role, basically uninviting George to the funeral of his great love. The interesting choice of Hamm is that in Mad Men, his character tells the bi-sexual (or is it married-gay?) Sal that he's not just an ad man, but also a fine director. Tom Ford can direct as well, and he doesn't need Hamm or us to tell him so.

A Single Man presents a pivotal day in the life of Falconer who is barely coping with the death of his partner from a year earlier. Mathew Goode plays the dotting partner, Jim, subsumed to the arrangement of their union which must not be spoken, though is guessed by neighbors. Every morning is a struggle for George to just get out of bed and fake it through to the end of the day. There are bottles of scotch in desks, and calls from his friend Charlotte to help him get there. As Falconer moves about the city, we witness men and women eyeing him longingly; he is a catch to be sure, and even wives of angry homophobic men find him desirous, inviting him to drinks. Though, I'm not sure I like Falconer, Ford presents his life of elan and fine things as the sine qua non for the professorate. Who doesn't like that? He seems standoffish.

He's a loner for the most part, not very gregarious, and certainly not swimming in friendships, making his loss of Jim all that more poignant, propelling him further into loneliness. If Falconer were a single straight man, perhaps there wouldn't be much of a movie here. It's the difficulty that this British college professor has finding someone to love, who is his intellectual equal --as his partner, Jim, an architect, was -- and who knows the score of what can be said and done in public. Falconer's loss is epic, not just because the eligible population of gay men in the 50's is probably less than a tenth of a percent, but also because Falconer doesn't seem to suffer fools gladly -- gay or not. The title suggests not just Falconer's being a single man after the death of his partner, Jim, but also that this person was the single man that George found to make a life with.

There's a conversation that takes place out in the desert between Falconer and Jim; he is asked about his friend Charlotte, who is also from England. The redoubtable Julianne Moore has played this role before, and Charley is indeed a messed-up, boozy, disposable ex-wife with kids she no longer sees. He confesses that yes, he's slept with women, and that he and Charley dated for a bit, but now she is his best friend. It's interesting that today there is a disdain if a gay person references their "straightness" prior to their gay lifestyle or after. That somehow, taking a run at the straight life either early or later in one's life (witness Andy Dick, Anne Heche, or Alan Cummings) is met with a "make-up your mind already" retort and a sneer. Ford offers this exchange between these men with no judgment; they are having a frank conversation about an interloper of the opposite sex, and Falconer confirms his love and allegiance to his partner. The flip side of that conversation takes place over a decade later in Charlotte's living room, and Falconer confirms for his dear friend that his love for Jim was not an ersatz bohemian convenient lifestyle choice, but a soul-searing bond for life that was wrenched from his now empty life.

What makes a director great is having an opinion about the material being adapted. Here Ford reveals that opinion with bold choices, surrounding himself with top talent to execute his vision of cool hues of Falconer's now dull existence juxtaposed with moments of warm clarity and connectedness to his fellow man (and life). A connectedness that Falconer confesses he experiences less and less. Ford sparingly colors Firth's appearance (very much like Gary Ross coloring Joan Allen in Pleasantville) when he has one of these moments. He walks into the bank to clear out his safety-deposit box, setting "everything in its right place" (nod to RadioHead), and has a moment with his neighbor's child -- she appears seemingly out of nowhere with her robin's-egg bluest-of-blue shoes, dress, and eyes. Falconer's face and color warms, as he stares into not just a child's azure peepers, but into his own spirituality ... the eyes of a potential life. Earlier in the film, George explains to a student at the student store that blue is associated with spirituality, whilst red is associated with lust and anger. Here, Ford gives Firth's character a moment of pause, to connect once again to something outside of himself and, indeed, his pain. Too late. The moment's over, and the color has faded from his cheeks. The very next scene, Falconer pulls into the parking lot to purchase some gin for Charlotte, and he parks, this time staring directly into the eyes of death. Before him is a large ad for Hitchcock's Psycho, with Janet Leigh's eyes peering into Falconer's Mercedes. It's a nice touch.

Throughout A Single Man Ford allows the professor moments of remembrance, a form of animism or synesthesia perhaps, where his touch animates these objects or brings forth vivid images or memories. At the ringing of a phone, the scent of a Jack Russel terrier, a rose's texture, and we are transported with George to a moment in his life with Jim for further backstory or exposition into what makes George, George. We see where George and Jim met at "Starboard Side" (which I believe is the local watering hole Chez Jay on Ocean Ave.), with Jim still in the service, perhaps a jab against current "don't ask, don't tell" policy. We see Jim and George sitting, legs akimbo, on the couch with their terrier snoozing between them, arguing over whose turn it is to change the record. Poignant vignettes like that fill Single Man.

Any hunk of a professor must have a stalker or two, male and female, and the student stalking George is "Kenny" as played by Nicholas Hoult. You'll recall Hoult as the boy in About a Boy, produced and directed by the Weitz brothers. Chris Weitz produced this film as well, and enlisted Hoult for this role. Hoult is almost unrecognizable as the college-age, hard-bodied student enthralled by his professor. It now seems de rigueur that all former British child stars attempt to shed their boyish personas by taking roles that require romps or rides in the nude, e.g., Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliff atop Equus in the buff, and now Hoult in Single Man showing his buffed-out self. In the surf for a midnight skinny-dip, Kenny shouts to George "we're invisible!" as the professor worries about being seen in such a state. And, that, I think, is what the subtext of this film represents, a paean to no longer being invisible, but accepted and visible, and ultimately, ironically, invisible once again because no one notices two adult men in a loving, committed relationship. But, this will never happen; one's sexuality is so politicized (How many variants of "sex" are there now? Five or six? I can't recall) today, that the so-called "gay-mafia," liberal "thought police," religious extremists, and others with agendas will not hear the conversation the rest of us are trying to have above the din of disagreement and personal destruction. Admittedly, my "straightness" has colored my perspective, but I think I know when my faith, or straight lifestyle precludes a fair review of a film, book, or play. But, I guess that judgment is up to you, Dear Reader.

The ending of this film surprised me, and I found it satisfying. I think Ford found a hold on this material emanating from personal experience; it'll be interesting to see what Ford does with mainstream fare the next time he decides to direct.

For an excellent add'l read on this topic, please visit my friend Deb over at Dumbwit Tellher. Tell her we sent you!

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