I went out at night with dirty hair.
I saw this very funny comedian on instagram and I was like who is this guy, he could be Clark in my Lewis and Clark. I could picture his face in western gear but maybe I picture everyone that way. So I look him up and he's doing a play in Santa Monica, Air BnB the Musical, and it's 15 bucks and there's one ticket left. I hesitate. I would have to DRIVE to Santa Monica at night and find parking.
I can't decide. I look him up again and hesitate. It's at NIGHT. I never go anywhere and I hate people. But they say to sell your writing you have to try doing something differently, because the way you're doing things now is not working. (I'm doing nothing, so they're right.)
I read a tiny bit more about him and he's from Maryland. I buy the ticket.
Maybe I shouldn't go alone. So let's make it fun. I take Bess and her friend to drop them at the pier while I'm in the play. I grew up in Santa Monica and this place is not the place I grew up. This is like boutiquey La Jolla now. It is packed, it's like Italy, traffic and swarms of people and cars. I'm telling the girls as I slow down the car worrying if anyone is doing something weird to you just start screaming this is my mothering, and then I kick them out of the car at a stoplight. This is not what I do, this is opposite of the parent I am, but this is showbiz baby. Don't we want to have a gay Lewis and Clark series?
I feel gross leaving my kids, but what can I do see you in hell. I find the parking across from the playhouse and I go down and across the street and that's the address and there's nobody.
I go into the courtyard and nobody. It's like Hagrid's library, all brick and I never watched any Harry Potter I don't think Hagrid was a reader but it's very magical nooky in there, rows of wooden doors and half inside half out and stairs and bookshelves and I hear people singing and I'm thinking did I miss the play why is nobody here
I check my ticket and it says 8 and it's only 730 and that is the date. Right? It is.
So I finally just sit down on a brick shelf. An asian girl wanders into the courtyard and looks the same as I did a minute ago. She's like I think I'm lost
I said yeah I thought I was too
This is the play right? she says
Yes! I am relieved. Nobody's here, I say
She says I think we're early
Oh I hope so, but isn't it at 8? How is nobody here. And what is that singing.
We peek in the door. I think they're rehearsing. We retreat back to the brick bench. I don't wanna ruin the play. She say I'm Emily. I say hi. She says how do you know Bill
I say I don't know Bill. I'm just a stalker from instagram. Also I think I'm here for Mattie
Ohhh, she laughs Mattie is Bill's roommate. This is their play.
I'm already glad I left my house to dump my kids with crowded strangers and have this random talk with 30 year old Emily who is in finance and just moved here from SF and knows Bill from college where they both graduated in 2012. TWENTY TWELVE. I swallow, considering putting my huge sweatshirt on to try and cover up my age but I didn't bring my age defying sportswear. I decide knotting it around the waist is better since my shirt is fresh light blue from goodwill and who cares if I'm freezing and old. I tell Emily I'm a mom and I never go out, but I have this short film I wrote and Mattie would be a good Clark. Maybe. So I wanted to see his face. Also I never go anywhere. But Covid has made it so going anywhere is weird for all of us.
A nerdy small guy walks into the courtyard. Also looking lost. We watch him. He looks at us. I think I'm lost, he says.
We laugh
I'm Mike. I'm from Maine.
He shakes our hands. We talk about how far he is. He sits on our brick bench. How do you know Bill he says to us.
He is Bill's old college roommate. Mike says he's from Maryland but moved to Maine a few years ago because his parents retired there. His parents thought he was weird to be 30 and living at home so he finally got his own place and he lives on an island in Maine and he says I have the world's best job. I work the front desk at the Y. He knows the whole island because everyone comes through the Y to exercise. And he has plenty of time to finish his masters in economics. And he also djs on Saturdays at the only club on the island, called Lompoc. He says if it wasn't for him, there would be no nightlife on the island. He is it. He says glowing want to join my instagram? I have SEVEN FOLLOWERS
Absolutely I do.
He says Bill is having him do the tickets for the show. He says his fiance is getting her degree at the same college as him. She's alot younger than me, he says. I'm thinking what is she, TWELVE
An older guy wanders into the courtyard. I have a delivery of beer, where should I put it
The three of us look at him. We're nobody, we say
Turns out he's Bill's dad. Bill's dad is bringing the beer for the show.
I am loving this whole thing. This scene is so funny already and I haven't even seen the play. We tell him well you might as well put the beer right here so he goes to get it.
Emily tells me the play is a true story of what happened when Bill and Mattie moved to LA and stayed in an Air BnB here the first month. It was such a bad experience that they did what everyone would do, they said, they wrote a musical
More people start to come. The courtyard that was once just mine with some far off singing is now filled with Bill's people. I may be the only person not related to Bill or a college friend. Last night's performance was mostly Mattie's people.
Mike has to run the ticket desk which Bill brings out and sets up. This is just like Coffeehouse Theater we used to run back in Maryland. Or any small theater group situation. Emily said they booked the playhouse and you don't have to have any credentials. Bill said they don't care, pay the money and go ahead and embarrass yourselves.
So we check in at the ticket table with Mike, and Emily and her friend Marilyn (who showed up) and I go inside and Mike says to save him a seat. It's a tiny 100 seat theater and we're 3rd row from the front. There's a cheerful rumble of talking none of us have had since covid, it's bewildering to be out really. Everyone is talking about it and not talking about it, tired of talking about it but it still lingers there.
Mike comes in just as the lights are going down and sits next to me. As the play starts up there are two air mattresses brought on stage. Mike leans over to me, excited I'll be sleeping on one of those later
The play is 7 songs from famous musicals with the lyrics changed to fit the story of a bad Air BnB experience. So there is a Les Miz song, a Rent song, an Aladdin song. It's funny and inane and the guy I came to see is not as good as the girl back up singer in the 3 girl chorus. She is electrifying, like my college girl Emma, she is beautiful, loud, bawdy and self assured. You can't not like the play, though, it's only 45 minutes. I'd say Bill who created the show isn't much of a writer but it doesn't matter it's creative with the music and the space and the true story. My guy Mattie is funnier on instagram. We are all singing together at some point. Flowers are thrown onto the stage at the end because the stage is a little bigger than our bathrooms at home. We belong to these actors, and they belong to us.
Afterwards the courtyard is christmas light lit and not cold even though we're at the beach and there's all of us poured out into there. The girl from the background singers, Madeline, passes us and we grab her hey you are magnetic onstage, we tell her. She is so young, she is Venus. I admire these girls like Emma, who are strong but idiotic. They find themselves in their comedy and these days, you do your comedy on your phone and people watch you. Later I found out she has 300,000 followers. A covid lockdown where all you had was a screen and some comedy ideas was good for this girl. She is shocked that we thought she was so good. She follows the guy I liked, Mattie on Instagram because he was funny, and he liked her comedy, and a week ago he messaged her (they had never met or spoken) and said hey our actor dropped out you wanna step in? So she met him for coffee and one week later she's doing the show. And we saw her, and she is the shiniest thing in the play.
Bess texts me that they're done at the pier, and I have not forgotten, ever, that I have two teenagers loose a few blocks away, in fact as a mom I might be at this play but a layer of me is always anxious someone will die and there's my Alzheimer's mom that I put in bed to run out here I hope she's okay. I'm not exactly FREE, but I did SHOW UP.
So I am about to head out and say bye to my first friend Emily who says WAIT you have to meet Mattie and she introduces me to Bill and Mattie, the stars. I tell him I emailed him, he says HEYYY I GOT THAT and I tell him I have this Lewis and Clark and we talk about Maryland and he knows the tiny town where I lived with Will, he knows Cadle Creek Road and the wide river there. Maryland winds around us. As we're talking I'm thinking well Mattie I don't think you're experienced enough to hold up my Clark and also I'm not sure what I'm doing here but I did meet these two cool people Mike and Emily and they took care of an old mom seeing a play with dirty hair.
I am glad to see that people are DOING IT, and risking everything although at 30 what are they risking really. It is fun to PLAY and see play happening, and hear people laughing and do something I don't normally do. I'm dipping my toe in the producing pond, I'm seeing how I can make my stuff happen. Even if this isn't even the way, I am mingling with the way. I'm still a duck, paddling from Europe, now into this new area. To take a look. It's still early. I have a few years, I still have a daughter at home to tend to, and I don't want to miss that. Best to start now just looking though.
Maybe you build your future just by looking at first.
I get out of there and up the parking structure while talking to my friend who I wake up in Arizona because she will never be half the producer I already am. I have good role models, my dad and B. They're producer demi-gods. The omnipotent. Is that the right word? But my Arizona friend makes me laugh and sees the whimsy which is why I always call her.
I pick up the girls and get them chicken nuggets and drive back in the black from the town I used to live in into the town I live in now where we have horses.
Meeting those people I had the same feeling as the time when I was 22 and dressed like saloon girls with my friend Karen Fern and it was near Halloween. We were going to a party in Marina del Rey, all dressed up and we could NOT find the party, we were driving around forever and finally we just rolled down the windows and listened for ANY party and there was a back gate open and a party going on so we parked and went in and that was seriously (except for Dirk's parties) the best party I've ever been to in my life. Everyone was in costumes and we knew nobody of course and there were 5 guys there dressed as a sandwich and we had a great conversation with one of the breads. After awhile we told them we didn't know anyone we just couldn't find our party and we took a picture with the whole crowd of everyone because it was so funny.
Before we get on the freeway I pull over and get out of my car at Pico and Cloverfield to take a picture of the dive bar The Daily Pint that we called the Daily Pit, across the street from the warehouse where we shot Critters. I told Bess in the car, I came to a job interview at this warehouse when I was 25. I worked for two producers and one of the actors was Leo DiCaprio. We would walk over to this bar after work and play pool. One of those producers was your dad. If I hadn't gone to that job interview you wouldn't be here, I said.
I videoed the now closed Daily Pit which has of course closed since it's been 30 years and it was bad even back then. But the sign was still there. The parking lot that was a Critters warehouse is now a parking lot with trees.
Driving home I realized how thick my life is, it isn't that I haven't focused on my writing it's that I wanted to raise my kids completely with them. Taking care of my mom, this makes me rich, not poor. I have a soul sandwich from the love I have gotten from all the care into the people around me. I am flourishing. So I came into that silly play already full.
And the empty courtyard before and the packed courtyard after, Mike from Maine, that was the play anyway, wasn't it. We weren't lost, any of us, and I was right on time.
Why is it always a surprise.
The pier, the saloon girls, the pit, and especially the laughing.
