California Dreaming.

In Michigan, all the leaves are green, but the sky is indeed grey. Spring has been tenuous, though the blossoms prevalent due to rain. It’s a curious mix and most Detroiters are feeling as though summer will never come, or, if it does that it will be straight to 90 degrees with humidity to match. Normally departing our fair city in May is madness as it is one of our most glorious months, but I promised to attend a friend’s graduation, so to Los Angeles did I go. It has been two years since I packed up the Honda and headed east, or ‘home’ as I called it. At the time, I was at the beginning of entertaining a major redefinition of priorities. The first step was to leave a secure job with a secure if not magical income, and depart a city I had never really developed an affection for. Of course it was my fault that affection never developed. I did what most Michigan folk do, plopped myself right next to the beach, thinking that if all of it was temporary I might as well have been near the ocean. There is nothing wrong with living near the ocean, but picking a neighborhood which by all accounts has absolutely nothing to do with your interests and your lifestyle is another matter unto itself. While the aging hipster in me was far more suited to Silverlake, the part of me that knew I must make a life change opted for Hermosa Beach. The shocking differences between Hermosa and Detroit was the impetus to begin this very page. I admired the villagers quaint little ways, their healthy lifestyles, all the while mocking the joggers, recumbent bikers and the massive quantities of douchebags that gravitate to a city by the sea. But I never really allowed myself to embrace California, by picking a place that would not embrace me. I decided to remain a visitor, as I have always identified myself more as a New Yorker, or a Londoner, but never an Angeleno.

It wasn’t always that way. When I was young, I always assumed that California would be where I would live, because that is where all the actors and actresses lived, all the important folk in the line of work I wanted to pursue. My dreams were lofty, and I vowed to be different from all the folks in the small town I grew up in, a town I never really felt was my home. Perhaps it is because I was taught that I was different. My parents never really seemed to be a part of any identifiable group aside from being Christian and they passed that on to me. Choosing it as a religion meant to set yourself apart from others because there were things you could not do, you were not allowed to go the way of the feral small town child bedding anyone with a Camaro and drinking Boone’s Farm from a bottle. It was expected that I would remain on the path, whatever that path was. Good grades, good manners and a general respect of society was a must, discipline and work ethic always examples set by my parents. As I slowly became the family’s version of Switzerland, I learned that making sure everyone else was happy was a lot easier than worrying about whether or not I was. It was expected I would go to college and so I did, though I didn’t know how I could become the next Molly Ringwald in college.  College was the beginning of a new frontier of sorts, and while I learned to love the nightlife there, it presented me with a duality that would take me far in work life. Figuring out who you really are, juxtaposed with trying to make sure you are who your parents want you to be. This came to a head one spring day my senior year, when I, the budding young filmmaker pitched an opportunity I had to my parents over dinner. My favorite professor had also been Sam Raimi’s professor and it seemed there was a possibility that there would be some miscellaneous crew position available if I were to go out to Los Angeles for a few months. I was savvy enough to realize this is how you got your opportunities and an actual ‘foot in the door’ however sketchy was better than nothing at all. It would delay my graduation by three months, meaning summer school. I wouldn’t be the perfect child by graduating college in exactly four years as my parents desired. I had my plan, requesting the cosigning of a loan to enable me enough money to get out, find a place to live (not evening thinking about a car) and wow some production company with my ability to have the foresight to get both Red Vines and Twizzlers when sent on a snack run. Dinner did not go well. The pitch being shot down by a cold refusal. No, I was not going to go to Los Angeles, it was not up for debate. You see, my sister had moved there, and subsequently moved off the path of parental expectations and that was not to be for me. At the time, it was more than just a no. It was as if everything I wanted to be was abhorrent to my parents and if I wanted them to love me, I better suck it up and live the quiet life. I had a definitive goal, but in my mind that goal had to change, because that goal was not acceptable. At that young age I lacked the chutzpah to say ‘fuck it, I am going anyway’, and do my best impression of Axl Rose at the beginning of the ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ video. Small town girl gets off bus in Los Angeles, and ends up dancing at the Cat Club and OD’ing with Nikki Sixx. Instead I graduated on time and drank myself silly every Tuesday night, whilst brooding to the likes of New Order and the Smiths at the local ‘alternative’ club. I no longer had a plan.

I could go on for ages about the next years of my life, but who can remember all that crap. Suffice to say I lived out my Generation X potential in a series of rent earning jobs in Chicago, a city I randomly moved to after running into a college friend getting off a bus who had a room to spare. While in Chicago I longed to move other places, Seattle, Minneapolis, but never Los Angeles. Music scenes made places appealing in the 90′s. Job wise, I never really found anything that I had a passion for, and while I would make each job entertaining in it’s own right, they were just jobs. When I moved to Detroit, I suppose I found a career, production, but it still just felt like a job. Something that I needed to do to make money,  Curiously it was the same vocation that I had hoped to embark on in my younger days, just a more legitimate branch. Corporate production, business theater as it were. It was soul sucking and passionless, but lucrative. Occasionally I would lament my missed opportunity back in the days of dreams and ideals and wonder what my life would have been like had I had the guts to just go. From time to time I would bring this up with my parents whenever there was a discussion about why I hated my job, or trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I would remind them that they said no.

As I boarded my plane to return to Detroit from LA on this last trip, there in first class (a place I am no longer allowed due to my lack of frequent travel and yes this may spawn a reflection on air travel entry) sat Sam Raimi.  I wandered back to my middle seat in coach, I thought about that original opportunity all those years ago. How many times had I wondered if my life would have turned out differently if I had the balls just to go to LA sans parental blessing? It could have gone horribly awry, it could have gone magnificently. I will never know because I was incapable at the time of taking that kind of risk. My mother has always told me that everything happens for a reason, and while that does not explain acts of senseless violence, it does tend to make me over analytical at times like these. It got me thinking about everything that has happened in the past couple of years. Leaving LA, quitting my career for a job to help me figure out what I want to do, trimming the fat on friendships that have ceased to be friendly. It has taken ages to get to a point where I am ready to jump. To take a risk, to figure out what the dream is and go for it. While Raimi was probably just flying home, to me it was a sign to let it all go. Lamenting missed opportunity isn’t living.  The what could of been needs to be replaced with the what is and what is still to be. And for the first time in a long time, I am looking forward to whatever it is, not backward to whatever it wasn’t.

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