yustyoking

 

            Reading through a hard copy of my blog, I realize that “Yikes! We’ve never even been properly introduced!” Like an Icelandic volcano, I just started spewing ash, smoke and lava at you! (Does this mean that every sentence I write hereafter will end with an exclamation point?!)

            My name is Kevin Feingold. I grew up in Oxburg, Maryland. I live with my 90-year-old mom, which kind of gives the game away: If she’s 90, I must be, like, really old, man. Feeling, acting and looking like I’m 40, I lead a chameleon existence. Only when pushed to anger, do I remind people who are disrespecting me that “I am 63 years old and, actually, retired from the military! Some of those precious freedoms you are enjoying, have been protected by me!” I always regret myself, wishing I hadn’t said that. It has never, ever swayed anyone in the slightest. People who like me continue to like me, people who think I’m a prick continue to abuse my presence.

             The point is, yes, I’m giving three days a week to the campaign of my dear, personal buddy Anna Bola, but that’s only a hobby.

             I’m a screenwriter. Retired from the military in 1999, I floundered a bit, until reconnecting and teaming up with my high school buddy Bruce. (At some point, I’ll get his permission to give you his last name. In the age of Google and Facebook, I’ve become very leery about giving out other peopIe’s vital statistics.) Almost immediately, I rechristened him “Boopsie,” which is what we called him at Oxburg High. When I get really angry or excited, I call him “The Boob.” He and I opened our writing bureau in 2007. Our glass-fronted office is in a strip mall, in what used to be a convenience store. The vacated premises next door once housed a video store. Am I coming through here? This is one desiccated property. Harvey Weingold (no relation), who owns the mall, has said quite honestly, “It’s a terrible time to own commercial real estate, especially mine, which depends on the retail trade. People ain’t buying squat, and the shopping arcades are emptying fast. Even after this so-called fantastic bailout, you can’t find new start-ups among retail establishments. Nobody’s stupid enough to open a business in these perilous times.

              “I don’t like you, I don’t need you, the goddam building can just as well stand empty for all I care! I’m that bummed out!

              “However, in the interest of decorum and good business practices, I would rather have you in my building than not. As a hedge against vandalism. To present a glimmer of commercial life, a semblance of a functioning mall. Thank God my dad never lived to see this day! A taquería and two Hollywood script writers my only tenants.

             “Enjoy, enjoy! Renovations, expansion, I am open to suggestion.

             “Just don’t do anything without telling me or I’ll throw your sorry asses out on the street before you know what hit you!”

              We love Harvey. Our rent is astronomically low.

              Let’s just say our section of Rockville Pike isn’t what it used to be. If it ever was.

              Three days a week at the campaign, four days a week at the office, when do I get a day off? Aha! Excellent question. At least once a week, I blow my stack at my mom over absolutely nothing, ranting, “Goddam it! When do I get a goddam day off around here?! I’m tired! TIRED, you hear?! I’m fucking exhausted. Screw this, I’m going to bed.”

              You can see that hanging around in June to play games with Miss Handjob, Carrie Ann Winslow, entailed more than time away from home. It also meant a total leave of absence from work work, from my profession. Playing hooky, for which I am rightly ashamed. When I’m not there, Boopsie works alone, but he doesn’t like it. Research takes many hours, from early morning until late at night. Screenwriting is the original all-consuming passion. I can only compare it to Latin monks transcribing books by hand or Torah writing. Tedious, exacting and forever. So my letting Carrie get her hooks into my soul like that weren’t too cool.    

              I will be glad when Anna’s campaign ends and I return to only a six-day work week. Anna’s husband Frank, an economics professor at U. of Maryland, mentioned his intention to retire now that Anna is heading to a position in Baltimore. “Don’t you dare!” I counseled him. “You won’t have a moment’s rest. The biggest mistake of my life was retiring from a full-time job. I’ve been chasing my tail ever since. At least with a 40-hour work week, you have something called leisure. Time off. Take that away, every day is a work day!”

              He thinks I’m being histrionic. I have not, however, heard any more talk about him resigning from teaching.

             As for screenwriting, this simply means that specific individuals at several major film studios trust us enough to give us a stab at writing or improving properties, to which they own the rights. Yes, in the Old Days you had to go out west to do that. Whether or not it was a Golden Age, that megillah ended with the arrival of telex machines. Since then, faxes, floppy discs, Fed-Ex and, of course, the Internet have dispersed the work load in all directions. If you have an arcane specialty—or know someone who does—Hollywood can probably use you in some way, shape or form. Having written treatments regarding “needle Nazis,” wolf urine and Tibetan horns, I can attest to how arcane Hollywood scripts can get.

              Boopsie and I also do our own production, on occasion, in the field of documentaries. Welcome to my world!

                                                                *

               The yearly Filmmakers’ Awards dinner is not your seminal event. J-Lo and Anistan rarely attend. We get no coverage on “Access Hollywood.” No one can even agree if it should be called the Filmmaker’s Awards or Filmmakers’ Awards, that’s what happens when people spend too much time in the cutting room editing out single frames of film. We’re not just focused on detail, we’re focused on details within the detail. Film grain. How do you make a high def, Blu-ray copy of a film like Top Gun, with its purposely prevalent use of grain and pushed film speed?

               This topic speaks volumes to Boopsie and me, the “documentary filmmakers” who’ve never learned proper lighting technique. “Throw a spot on it,” is Boopsie’s first and final suggestion when setting up. The Washington Monument? “Throw a spot on it.” The Hudson River. “Throw a spot on it.”

             “Boopsie, how do you throw a spotlight on the Hudson River?”

              That’s what they write shooting scripts for, so he can bury his head in the shooting script and not have to answer knotty tech questions.

             “I see our third shot entails nudity,” he’ll say, “making a statement” to cover his faulty skill set.

              You gotta laugh. “Boopsie, the Statue of Liberty is not a nude.”

              “The way I film it, it’ll look naked,” he insists. “That’s why they pay me the big bucks.”

              Pul-lease. Nobody ever pays us big bucks.

              We is at the awards din-din to (1) hear the presentation on conversion of back catalog to HD and (2) ostensibly to receive an award for our short Mirror Band, a doc that follows the angry, depraved wanderings of our receptionist Jacqueline—or “Jackie”— and her latest punk configuration.

             Naturally, since we don’t do lighting, the category of our award is “available light photography in a color presentation.”

              I told you, this is a group that focuses on the details.

             “Definitely one of the most oppressive films of the year,” Dwight Smith, the white-haired, red-faced Chairman of the Filmmakers Union, assures us. Dressed in a fine suit and swaying back and forth at the lectern, he shakes his shaggy, white hair at us. Even his tie says “Dapper Dan.”

             “He means impressive,” Boopsie tells everyone at our table. Turning to the surrounding tables, he calls out, “He means impressive!”

              “A film so oppressive,” Dwight continues, seemingly oblivious to Boopsie’s correction, “I took my young nieces to see it.”

             “See, he means impressive,” the Boob demands, all but jumping out of his seat.

             “You have to calm down your film producer friend,” Scott McCormick warns me ominously, leaning across our table and removing the flower display to the floor with a single brusque grab of his hand. Hey, you don’t fuck with Scott.

            “I can only try—“

            “Because,” Scott continues emphatically, “we all know what old Dwight is trying to say. ‘Impressive,’ ‘oppressive,’ who cares? Dwight was moved by your film.”

            “See, Boopsie,” I say, pulling on the tails of his tux. “Shush! Everybody knows Dwight gets a little gaga when he’s been drinking.”

             “Who’s been trinking?!” Dwight booms from the stage, all but toppling onto the nearest table. I guess my voice carried.

              “Did someone say ‘Lady Gaga’?” one of our compatriots calls from the crowd.

              “Here, here!” someone else shouts and begins to clap. He is quickly followed by almost everyone else in the room. If we can’t shut the Chairman up, we’ll drown him out with our applause.

                You’ll notice there aren’t any women there. Wither the women filmmakers of Washington, D.C.? Out working, while we laggards sit sweating in the ballroom of a swanky downtown hotel, blowing our annual dues on overpriced crab cakes with quiche Lorraine.

                                                                *

               “Where is your dear Jacqueline? Didn’t she accompany you?” Paul Raoul Sanchez asks us afterwards as we loiter in front of the hotel, waiting for the valet parking attendants to bring forth our vehicles.

              “Smoking dope in Brazil,” replies Boopsie, the worse for wear.

              “Nah,” I reassure Raoul, who after all is a friend, “that’s cool. They’re actually playing a gig. I’ll give you her regards.”

            “You’ll give who… my…?”

            Oops, Raoul’s English isn’t that good. “I’ll give her your regards.”

             “Playing a gig out of town?” he asks, pressing his mottled face against my shoulder. The crush of humanity on the sidewalk is fast becoming impossible. I wonder if Raoul is going to be a pest.

             “Actually, she’s performing at The Graveyard,” I tell him, instantly regretting the lapse. I try never to give away concrete details.

             “How quaint,” exclaims Raoul. “We must go there!”

            “We mustn’t go there,” I breathe in his ear. “I have to get Boopsie home to his lair before he demonstrates single-handedly the colloquial phrase ‘fighting drunk.’” Already, I am in the process of wrestling the glass award trophy from my business partner’s hand. I can distinctly hear him growling at the crowd.

              “We’ll do that,” says Raoul in the clipped tones of a European. It’s moments like these that endear him to us plebeians. He’s got his smart phone out, looking up the address of The Graveyard, like one of those dorks in the TV commercial. “My treat, my tab, my pleasure,” he insists, getting pushed into on-coming traffic.

            “Raoul, you naughty man,” I sigh, pulling him back from sudden death. “You have more moolah than you know what to do with.”

            Indeed, a very rich South American, he is even now tipping the Latino car attendants, the doorman, even the “Executive Manager” who is seeing us off, a black dude in an enviously high-end gray charcoal suit that puts most of us to shame. Raoul stuffs a $20 bill in each pocket in turn. The attendants smile toothily, say “Aw-right!” and run around in even bigger circles. Eventually someone goes to find his and my car.

            “Where is this graveyard of yours?” asks Raoul.

            We manhandle Boopsie into the front seat of my car and I take him home to Maryland. Raoul follows in his Maserati. By the time I reach the correct block, the Boob is comatose. I am glad to have Raoul’s help in lugging the man up the stairs to his second floor apartment. We dump him, unceremoniously, on the bed, lock the door on our way out and push the key through the mail slot.

            “The Graveyard is way over in Rosslyn, in Virginia,” I warn Raoul.

            “So?”

            “What?” I whine. “You want to go there?”

            “I insist!”

            “Roire jär lada.”

            “I don’t know what that means.”

            “Loaded and raring to go.”

              Looking at his watch, he pauses and adds, “Unless, of course, the show is over.”

            “Raoul, it’s The Graveyard. They don’t even open the doors until 11 o’clock at night.”

            We drive there in his Maserati, of course, watching vague shapes flit by in the inky black of a summer’s night. I feel like I’m lying in a bathtub, the car sits so low. Distracted by the sloping windshield, I am pressed back into my seat every time Raoul accelerates. Zero to 60 in 3.8 seconds, I’m told.

            And, of course, the rock club is a madhouse. I would never have gone there on my own. A sea of young people and college students populate the sidewalk, smoking. “Excuse me,” Raoul asks at his most diffident.

          “Huh?”

           “I’m sorry. We are entering this establishment.”

             The doormen eye his Giorgio Armani suit, his Gucci loafers with the trademark tassles, his hair, the $100 sunglasses. The $20 bill discreetly handed to each of them assures us quick entrance.

              Inside, a raucous crowd drinks beer in steins from one end of the wood-paneled room to the other. The chrome bar, buried in humanity, seems unattainable, but—Moses at the Red Sea—Raoul surges forward and I bump along in his wake.

              Many exceedingly touchable young women eye my companion. I am, as usual, virtually invisible.

              “Oh, shit,” I mutter.

              “What’s the matter?” Raoul calls over his shoulder, always solicitous.

              “I know the bartender! That’s Gary Price. We studied television technique together at the local public access station around the corner. Long story.”

              “O-kay,” Raoul replies, his arm wrapped affectionately around the shoulder of a panting, perspiring, smiling vixen. “What are you drinking, dahling?” he drawls. “And can I freshen it for you?”

             “Vodka tonic made with Kettel One,” she instructs him primly, running her ruby-red fingernails through his coal-black hair. A walking advert for the Latin Lover, Raoul’s clothes and accessories scream “Money!”

              Within minutes, he is drinking with Monica as if they’ve known one another a lifetime, his elbows anchoring the bar. I stand and eye the stage through the kaleidoscopic gloom.  

             Tired but resolute, I want to be home in bed.

             Raoul is just getting started.

             “You again!” Gary joshes, siphoning me a plain ginger ale with his handgun. “I’ll need to see an I.D.”

            “Yeah, right!”

             The bar area is a melee of madly thirsty customers, wet dollar bills of various denominations floating across the counter in a steady stream. Everyone shouts to be heard, chattering drunken innuendoes. Some girls have one of those flat, cherry-red, shirtpocket cameras out, video recording the scene.

           “What do you like about Explosive Plastic?” they ask me.

            “Me?” I answer, surprised. “You mean the band?”

             “The band playing here tonight. I hear they’re awesome!”

              “Well, I do know the singer. I’d have to call them noisy but tight. This is the third incarnation of this band. They change drummers and names once a month. I don’t know why. How old are you guys?”

              “We’re journalism majors at Moosegrave College… Why are you laughing?”

              “I was a journalism major at Moosegrave. Great school!” I shout. With the decibels reaching truly sonic heights, everything has to be spoken at Scream Level 3. I finally take pity on my poor hearing, rip up a napkin and stuff tissue in my ears. It doesn’t stop me from continuing the conversation.

              “When did you go to Moosegrave?” the girls ask, returning to me after carefully meandering up and down the bar, camera in hand. A tracking shot.

             “Back in the Stone Age. Black and white television. Analog transmissions. Mono recording. Teletype machines. All that good stuff!”

            “What’s a tell-a-type machine?”

             “Nothing you need to worry about,” I counsel them.

              They’re nice. Fresh, excited bundles of energy, smiling in a nano-second, waving their hands daintily while quaffing beer like sailors, they are caught in that awkward phase between waif and buxom: They have the angular faces of teenagers but the pudgy waistlines and wider buttocks of adults.

               Interpreting my appreciative glance, the dark-haired beauty tells me, “We’re not here to hook up. We’re just here to see the band.”

                Whoa!

                “Don’t bother with Clarisa,” her buddy interjects, physically placing herself between us. “She’s butch. No man can provide what she wants.” Red-haired, green-eyed and freckly, she smiles ruefully and jokingly shoves her hand down my trousers.

                 Whoa!!!

                 “Anybody home?”

                  It’s a relief when they get distracted by the appearance of the band!

                 Jacqueline is, as always, majestic. The black-eyed, evil temptress, she toys with the audience, howls, sings and prowls the stage. A thick, black microphone cord slinks after her like a tail. Retro, Jackie is all leather hip boots, frilly black blouse, leather vest, neon-colored plastic bangles on both arms, fingerless black leather gloves à la Michael Jackson and face paint à la Kiss.

             She also knows how to sing.

            The band is good. Maybe not mainstream Top 40 radio and record company good, but exciting. The new drummer stays sharp and percussive. The guitarist lays endless riffs on us, spiking the melody with rumbling flourishes that seem to say, “Anything less would be a waste of your time and mine!”

            Yngve Malmsteen guitar playing.

            A tight set, they nail it.

            The band is selling copies of their first and only single, of course, “Bathroom of Pain,” a 3-song e.p. for $5 each. Raoul immediately buys 20, stuffing a $100 bill adroitly into the young sales lady’s shirt pocket, avidly caressing her breast in the process. She smiles at him, accepting his frank admiration. “And your name?” he asks, shouting to be heard.

            “What?”

            “What.. is.. your…name?”

             “Mine?” she asks, surprised. “I’m J.C.”

             “Hello, J.C.!” he declares, stuffing a $20 bill in her blouse pocket as a tip, smiling shyly, and turning away before she can protest.

              She looks at me looking at her. “Is he your friend?” she asks. “He’s worse than Santa Claus. Everybody gets presents.”

              Walking slowly, making his way toward the stage, Raoul hands out free singles to all takers. I don’t need one. We used our office equipment to burn the copies on CD-R recordable discs.  Most of the kids are dancing. Confronted by Raoul, some shake their heads “no,” believing he’ll ask for payment.

            “All gone!” he smirks, minutes later, returning to join me by the bar. “Good band. Nice crowd, too! It’s not Caracas, but it’ll do to be getting on with.”

            The set ends. I applaud until my hands ache. “Let’s skedaddle!”

            “I want to stay!” Raoul protests.

            “Everyone’s leaving! Let’s skedaddle,” I say, no longer able to stifle my yawns. Still, it takes another 15 minutes to separate Raoul from the bar.

            We walk back to his car. There, half on the sidewalk and half on the street, stand J.C. and her friends. A whole squad of gay young women, they smoke cigarettes and admire Raoul’s Maserati. After all, it is canary yellow.

            “I knew it was you!” J.C. bursts out laughing at our approach.

            “I have to give the young lady a ride in my car,” he tells me.

            “Raoul, they’re gay.”

            “I have to give the young lady a ride in my car,” he repeats, frowning mischievously. “I am an equal opportunity heterosexual. I seduce all women regardless of sexual orientation.”

            A girl named “Ankhi” gives me a lift in her car. We follow J.C. and Raoul in the Maserati. I can’t believe it, but he lets her drive! Talk about liberated. Or perhaps just admirably insured.  We drive to an all-night diner that doubles as a pizzeria. Five car-loads of us. Worse than a flash mob, Raoul, the girls and I flood the place. “Pizza! Pizza!” they shout, hopping on the counter top, climbing on the chairs, marching in and out through the swinging doors to the kitchen. “We want Mario! We want Mario! Where is Salvatore?!”

            “Hokay, hokay already,” a heavy, bearded, very dark Sicilian announces, coming through the doors from the kitchen holding an enormous wooden spatula. “You wreck mah place, I hitchu wid dis!” He waves the spatula threateningly.

            “Booo-ooo-oo! ‘Ray-y-y-y!” the girls razz him.

            “Shaddup an’ sit down, little ladies, I bring you pizza!” he declares.

            As obediently and quietly as sheep, they sit at the tables, although they do throw the paper napkins on the floor and spill salt on the table tops.

            “We’ve been here before,” J.C. assures us, smiling tartly.

            “Do tell,” I say.

            “They know us.”

            “Apparently.” I take the opportunity to count heads. An astonishing 17 of us fill the tables. Raoul and I are the only guys.

            “My treat. My tab!” insists Raoul.

            “No way, José!… Don’t put your con on us, gent!… That’s so Old School! Try another one!… Boo-oo-oo!” they chorus.

            “I don’t think you’re going to get to pay,” I tell him, as the Sicilian runs back and forth to the kitchen bringing us tray after steaming tray of piping hot pizza.

            “These are too hot to eat. Let’s go outside,” the girls decide. In the lot behind the diner, there is a basketball court. J.C. and her crew know where the light switch is and where the b-balls are stored. Waiting for the pizzas to cool, they play a pickup game.

            “You see the way those guys left the diner?” Raoul asks, smiling but sweating, watching the game. “The other customers. You see that? Mass exodus.”

            “I think our crowd kind of frightened them off.”

            “Yeah, whatever,” Raoul marvels. I suddenly realize that this is a whole new American experience for him.

            “The Lizzie scene really isn’t my thing,” I tell him.

            “I’m impressed, is all. Very tough, competent ladies. They are not like I expected, at all.”

            “Fuck it, I’m going in for pizza,” I say and leave them to their game.

            Burning my tongue, I am soon joined by the gang, who troop back into the diner, raid the soft drink cooler and devour everything in sight.

            Raoul goes into the kitchen and arranges payment. None of us say anything, but the girls look happy, grateful and satiated. It’s late. We all wear tomato sauce moustaches.

            “What does that guy do for a living?” one of them asks me. I like women individually, but in these numbers, I don’t know where to look.

            “His family owns, like, half of Argentina.”

             “Oh.” She shrugs.

              Impressed? Unimpressed? Can she pinpoint Argentina on a map of the world? They are in their 20’s, but except for frequenting punk clubs, storming eateries, playing night basketball and being gay, I don’t get these ladies at all.

              “You guys are way out of my league,” I tell her.

               “Oh.” She shrugs, busy with a crumpled napkin, wiping away tomato sauce.

                Screw this. My brain shut down an hour ago. Everything and everybody looks green and in high contrast under the fluorescent lights. Eventually, we say good night to the ladies and Raoul drives me back to Maryland.

               Wild summer nights.

*