This is me, trying to get people to read my blog (see the video from my Instagram page, below). Here, in “The Day of the Locust,” Burgess Meredith as former Vaudeville entertainer, Harry Greener, roams Hollywood Hills, door to door, trying to sell health tonic. The movie is adapted from writer Nathaniel West’s novel.
Actually, when I first moved to LA from the Bay Area, with a dream of being a Hollywood actress, my life was not too far off from that of the character Faye Greener; though I wisely avoided some of the things she allowed herself to get pulled into. I write about that experience in my book, “Craving Normal.” See, I’m hocking my blog and book like I’m going door to door selling health tonic – “A little bottle of magic”.
In the summer of 2010, during the worst part of the recession, I sold luxury cars at a San Fernando Valley luxury car dealership showroom – Jaguars, Aston Martins, Lotuses…
Every Monday – I mean EVERY Monday (no matter if you had a day off or were dying) – we were expected to show up for the morning meetings. We had to get pumped up to sell, sell, sell – you know.
So one Monday morning meeting, I sat in the room full of mostly men (about 100 to 3), between a beautiful, feisty and stylish Filipina who didn’t take any crap, and another saleswoman, a gorgeous, Southern blonde former Miss USA, who’d had her crown taken away by Donald Trump after her raunchy (Eh, she had some fun, so what?) behavior hit the media; she sold Astons upstairs, near the James Bond-esque Aston Martin member only room (leather walls, bond theme door bell, top shelf liquor behind the bar, pass code, vault).
A male sales manager stood at the front of the meeting room, and asked for everyone’s attention. He then began his “pump us up to sell” speech, and turned on a scene from the movie “300.” On the wall before us, buffed, bare chested men were pumping themselves up for battle (get the analogy? Selling cars, it’s a battle!). I elbowed my fellow female co-workers, and began to wolf-call and howl at the screen. My feisty friend joined me: “Yeowww whoo hooo!” The manager giving the speech scowled, “Who’s doing that? Have some respect.”
I rolled my eyes and whispered to the feisty Filipina to my right. “Yeah, right. If those were women in bikinis on that screen would this room full of men be quiet? I think not.” Working with these guys everyday, I knew what hornballs they were.
So I howled some more. The battle leading General (errr, sales manager) stomped over to us three women and pointed his finger. “Stop that now!”
Sex! Now that I have your attention… I will talk about that, but mostly this thought spew may only interest personal essay writers/readers, memoir writers/readers, editors/agents/publishers, English lit academics, parents of kids under 10, kids who feared the VD man (explained below), and my daughter, to whom I wrote a personal note. Anyone else is welcome to read, of course. See, I know you’re scrolling by, notice too many words to deal with on a Sunday morning, and wonder if you should wade in to check out this post, so I’m telling you: Scroll on by! (This made more sense when I posted it on Facebook.)
Here goes: Writing academics, publishing experts, English lit types have defined story as ALWAYS FICTION. Always. A nonfiction story is called a personal essay. It’s that simple. Final. But for the last fifteen years or so, I’ve read my STORIES at bookstores’ open mics. Nobody asked me to get up and spout my personal essay. I go to theaters to hear other storytellers, like The Moth from NYC, which is nationwide now. There’s a growing STORYteller movement. People get up and tell personal STORIES; they call themselves storytellers.
In my book, “Craving Normal,” here’s how I’ve been thinking of the pieces in my collection – Some are stories where I’m the protagonist. There’s a beginning; what my character wants; conflict as my character tries to get there, and resolution. An example of this is my story “Suicidal Santa.” Within the story I do mention what’s going on in my community and the world, to give context. But it’s not the focus.
Meanwhile, in my book, I do have personal essays, where I wrote commentary on societal subjects, with personal anecdotes. I am not the protagonist in a story. It has a thesis statement, ending in a personal anecdote to back it up.
For example, there’s “My Barbie the Slut,” where my focus is one subject: SEX, the message I, at nine years old, received about sex. Sex as filtered through my kid mind and how I perceived what I was being told via TV, movies, songs, books. I’d pluck books from my parents’ filled book shelves, read Erica Jong’s “Fear of Flying,” and Michael Medved’s “What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?” Wow. Lots of teen sex (Hey, I thought those early 1960’s kids waited until they married?). My nine-year-old brain spun. Eye-opening! (I’d like to read that now as an adult.)
While adults thoughtfully gave me educational talks, those were in conflict with the messages all around me. So, in “My Barbie the Slut,” I storify my essay with my nine-year-old moments: beginning with my friend and me playing Barbies. Now, as often as I heard Helen Reddy sing “I am woman hear me roar,” and my mom gave me nice talks supporting women… Please! Barbie was all sex – big boobs, tiny waist, legs that could go behind her ears. AND! Accessorized with mini dresses and a sports car. That, plus the messages I got from movies: “Hi. Nice to meet you! Would you like to get naked and go to my bedroom? Or should I just tear your clothes off here in the doorway?” – no wonder I had my Barbie and Ken humping so hard, I scuffed their smooth plastic crotches.
Watch out, tangents ahead!
Parents of young kids – Be alert. Your kids sure are -> TV. Movies. Racy magazines found. Those nice talks adults gave me with healthy messages? Totally drowned out by the loud outside messages coming from a variety of sources. Hey, I was an observant little human (as most kids are). I paid more attention to the world around me than listen to lectures. Even though my parents limited my TV viewing, what little I saw I absorbed. I’d seen enough “Love, American Style,” episodes to dream of becoming a foxy stewardess with a guy in every city (Oh the conflict! Having to remember not to mix up boyfriends… flabby formulaic sitcom fodder). Hey, I was no dummy. I knew what Bob Eubanks on the “Newlywed Game” meant when he said “making whoopee.” His smirk gave part of it away. And then the way the contestants giggled and gushed, “Oh, Bob!” as they blushed, confirmed whoopee was about “It.”
IT. Doing IT if it feels good. Getting IT on. IT was piped into my head as if on a corporate Muzak loop. But do I want IT? When do I want IT? What if I don’t want IT?
And then cut to a commercial break for, say, Summer’s Eve. Those ads totally confused me. What in the world made these women so happy they would run through fields of wildflowers, huge smiles and flowing hair?
Even the choice of boogie monster we San Francisco State University student housing neighborhood latchkey kids feared made it clear how influenced we were by our sexually-charged era and society. We created scary neighborhood lore, the way other kids might say the most dilapidated house on the block is haunted. It started with the older teenage boys on our street. They told us about a naked man running through the eucalyptus groves near the handball courts of San Francisco State University. To enter the grove area we had to go through a hole in a chain link fence below a sign that said, in large red letters, “Danger!” So we appropriately called the land where The VD Man supposedly lurked, Danger.
NOTE TO MY DAUGHTER: If you read this, now you know why I was so on top of what movies and TV shows you watched, so much so that little you would ask, “Mommy, is this appropriate?” And why teenage you thought I was such a nagging bore. I know from my own experience being a kid, how messages are absorbed and how it’s confusing. Heck, soda and beer companies don’t pay hundreds of millions of dollars (or whatever it is) to advertise during the Superbowl because TV messages DON’T work. (Remember this if you become a parent. TV as a babysitter is like leaving your kid with a whacked out crackhead who also likes to sell you lots of pharmaceuticals and fear. Fear is a great manipulator. But it does sell drugs and insurance. Would you leave your kid with that crackhead?)
Anyway, my point is this: “Suicidal Santa” is in story form vs. “My Barbie the Slut,” which is societal commentary with personal anecdotes has some storyification, and what I call a personal essay.
Because I will be publishing under my own Exotica Gooch Publishing, I can do what I want. I will continue to blend my genres. *Exotica Gooch is my alter ego (There’s a story behind it, but I’ve yammered enough.)
1) “This is the WORST turbulence I’ve EVER felt!” said a female flight attendant who fell to her knees near my seat, as we flew through a storm above the East Coast. Yeah, that’s reassuring.
2) “Do you REALLY think you should be drinking that wine?” I was asked by a fifth grade boy I chaperoned, along with 60 other kids, including my own, for a week long American history field trip to Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, which involved screaming kids, bitchy/cliquey mothers, lost children, a kid with a nut allergy I nearly killed by offering him a peanut butter filled pretzel, humid school buses and “the worst turbulence” one flight attendant ever experienced. I answered the child this way: “Oh yeah, I really think I should.”
3) “We’re gonna give that another shot,” said our pilot trying to fly into JFK, after swooping the plane down and then swooping back up, as if we were on some horrific roller-coaster. While a middle-aged male passenger screamed like a baby, a female New Yorker behind me barked out, “One more shot?! Are you friggin’ kiddin’ me?!”
4) “You can stay at my place,” offered a flirtatious male flight attendant during a flight so horrific I wrote a story about it. My response to his lecherous offer? I cried. Actually a better term would be “bawled.” I looked at him and sobbed in his face… not just mere tears, but gasping, heaving, blubbering wails. (I wrote about this horrific plane trip in my up-coming book, Craving Normal.)
Me: You know that Crowded House song, “Mean to Me”?
Ian, my husband: (Staring at his computer) Not sure.
Me: Yeah, you know it. (I begin to sing) “I’m down on my knees… So please don’t be mean to me.”
I think it sounds just like it. I’m sure he’ll nod his head in acknowledgement.
Ian: (Eyes haven’t moved from his computer.) It’s a good thing you can write.
***
Wow, so mean! Ouch. Ah, that’s okay. Ian’s not wrong. And as a musician/songwriter, he’s gotta be honest. Plus, I’ve admitted my lack of singing talent in this previous blog post.
Wow, so mean! Ouch. Ah that’s okay. I’ve admitted in this previous post my lack of singing talent.
My naughty ways come naturally. Yep, I burst into this world strong-willed, adventurous, rowdy, curious, and ready for fun – rules be damned. Life experiences may have smoothed or sharpened some of my edges, but that kid is still kicking.
Brat. Brat. Brat. But I’m an angel, damn it.
Witness one example of my “strong-willed” (bratty) behavior in the trailer I made for my up-coming book, “Craving Normal“: At Disneyland, I pushed a little girl out of the way from posing with the chipmunk named Chip (Or maybe it was Dale). Then I squeezed myself between the giant chipmunk and the little blonde girl who tried to pose for a picture with the Disney character. When the chipmunk began walking along with the little girl, I got fed up and, and with my face scrunched into a frown, pushed her away. She ran off. Then I smiled and posed with him all by myself.
While I may have mellowed a bit, I’m still THAT kid. I was born this way -> See, scientists agree.
Okay, enough about me. What traits of yours were apparent right from the beginning?
Reading the chapters of my soon-to-be published book, “Craving Normal,” back to back, it’s interesting to me that I used the word apron in three different stories:
Apron is what my saintly and shocked Grandma wore when she ran out of the kitchen upon hearing eight-year-old me say “Ah hell!” after I landed in Monopoly jail, during a game with my cousins.
Apron is what I had to sew in order to escape (errr… graduate) high school, after learning I was three credits short, but told I could take a nighttime sewing class. Never finished that apron. But I finished school! Squeaked by with an unfinished apron. Sums up my school years well.
Apron is what I was handed when the Director asked me to play a cocktail waitress in a movie called “When the Bough Breaks,” right before I spilled the entire tray of drinks on the movie’s star, Ted Danson. It’s also what I took off right after the incident.
Ted Danson, looking very dry, unlike after I spilled drinks on him. Here he is with actor Richard Masur, who kindly corrected the Director who mangled my name.While Googling the Director, Waris Hussein, of “When the Bough Breaks,” (the one who yelled at me, constantly calling me Melissa rather than Michele) I found this photo of him fixing actor Richard Burton’s tie. I guess if you’re Richard Burton the director won’t yell at you and call you by the wrong name. Photo from this link.
*Top photo: Here I am thinking I look really hot in an apron, zipper skirt and white pumps. Oh 1980’s, you made me such a fool!
Excerpt from my book “Craving Normal,” in my story “Confessions of a Hollywood Extra”:
While working as an extra on the movie “Back to School,” with Rodney Dangerfield, I sat about ten feet from Rodney and Sally Kellerman as they prepared to do a scene—the quiet of the set before the cameras rolled allowed my voice to carry. My female newlywed friend, another extra, wondered if I wanted to get married. The last thing on my mind! So I said, “I’m not meeting guys nice enough to go out with in LA. Can’t imagine finding one to marry.” My voice carried through the silent crowd.
Rodney’s voice boomed toward me. “Hey, Honey! Come down here! I’ll marry ya! I’ll marry ya, right now!” My face turned hot, and I’m sure as red as a tomato, while Rodney, the crew, and the extras laughed. Well, that was one way to shut me up. And it did.
On the bottom right, after hours in the blazing sun, using all my acting skills to become an enthralled, sports-loving, college student.
Bottom left, dancing to Oingo Boingo in the
Dead Man’s Party scene, in “Back to School.”
Jen (the blonde in the video thumbnail) is my newlywed friend I mentioned in my Rodney Dangerfield moment of humiliation. I’m dancing in this Oingo Boingo
video, next to Jen. But you have to stop the video to find me. And, of course,
I DID just that. I’m at 2:08.
Oh you want to shake hands? Sorry, I’m already moving in for a hug. This is awkward. But it’s only going to get worse. I think this as I move in, arms out, already committed. As if it’s all happening in slow motion, I see you’re caught off guard, don’t know where to put your hands. You flail, trying to decide where to put your arms, where to move your head. I wish there could be a cool way to back out. But I have to commit.
I’ve been on your side. I know. I’m not always a hugging extrovert. A huge portion of my life, I’d rather be home reading a book. So if I am expected to attend some event, I’m likely still in my introverty mood. Then I see someone coming toward me, arms out. I’m not squeamish about hugging back. But I know some people are. I do get that.
And that’s what adds the weird cherry on top of this cringe-inducing moment: I can feel it as I’m coming in for that hug. But there’s no way to reverse without it being even more awkward. Sorry.
Walking back through the Marais in Paris, after visiting the Musée Picasso, one afternoon, Ian and I stopped to eat at a café called Les Philsophes. Situated on a corner, we sat at an outdoor table and watched the relatively tourist-free (compared to the Left Bank) street. Parisians were buying bread across the street and picking up laundry next door. A man on a bicycle rode by with a basket full of baguettes. He fell over, tossing his crusty loaves about the cobblestone street. People stopped their shopping and laundry picking up to run into the street to help the man up and gather his baguettes, just when our waiter approached our table.
“Quelle est la soupe du jour?” I asked.
He told me what the soup of the day was in his rapid French. But I didn’t understand.
“Pardon?” I shrugged, and gave him a helpless look. “Je suis désolé. Je ne comprends pas.”
He placed his index finger and thumb on his chin and seemed to search the gray sky for an answer. He paused during his thinking to tell me, “One leetle minute.” This was taking more time than either of us thought.
Finally, he pinched his fingers together as if holding something very small and squeezing, as he said, “Leetle brawken pee-ass.”
I stared at him, shaking my head. And then I got it. “Oh. Broken peas! Split pea soup!” I nodded, looking over to Ian.
The waiter’s eyes lit up and he clapped his hands. “Oui! Oui!”
Even if I wasn’t in the mood for split pea soup, I ordered it anyway. After all, the waiter worked so hard and was so excited to find the right words, how could I not? It was very good.
Top Photo of Les Philosphes taken by Charles Halton – http://awilum.com/
I stared at him, shaking my head. And then I got it. “Oh. Broken peas! Split pea soup!” I nodded, looking over to Ian.