Flying Eyes and Traveling Bears

When you step on an airplane and settle into your seat, you are probably unaware that much of what's being loading into the belly of the plane right beneath your feet isn't bags or items checked by fellow passengers on your flight. 

It's Air Cargo:  items that need to be shipped quickly from one destination to another.  I've seen flowers leaving Seattle, Salmon from Bellingham, boxes and boxes of computers being loaded in San Francisco, and voluminous amounts of U.S. Mail at virtually every destination in the country.  An airline's ability to fill its cargo bins on every flight can make a huge difference in its bottom line.

But there are occasionally a few other items "shipped" in the cabin that you never see.

One item that I would see as a flight attendant on a regular basis in the cabin is something you would probably never guess:  human body parts.  Primarily eyes.  The gate agent would come down just prior to boarding with a small cooler, usually solidly sealed with duct tape, and accompanying paperwork.  The paperwork would have details of where the item had started and who would pick it up at its final destination.  An airline employee was responsible for it at all times, signing the paperwork with their name and employee number.

On flights without food service, we would usually just place the cooler in a secure spot in an empty compartment in the galley or in the valet closet.  If the flight had a meal service and the galley was full, we would often place it under the extra pilot jumpseat in the cockpit.

When the flight arrived at the gate, the "A," or "Senior," flight attendant would usually disarm the emergency slide on their door (1L) and wait for the agent to open it from the outside.  As the agent opened the door, the first words out of their mouth would always be, "any specials?," meaning any passengers requiring special assistance.  They would have been notified about the eyes, but we would remind them, and they would sign the paperwork and take the cooler before anyone stepped off the plane.

The other item we used to see being transported in a similar, yet unofficial, fashion was what I called the "traveling bears."  They reached the height of their popularity in the 1990's.  A teacher of an elementary school class, usually in an attempt to bring home the idea of U.S. geography, would bring in a medium-sized stuffed animal, usually a bear, and add a small backpack or fanny pack that would contain a small notebook and a sheet of paper, often laminated, introducing the bear, maybe giving his/her name if the class gave one, and giving instructions on how to return the bear.

The instructions asked the crews to travel with the bear to as many different places as possible, take pictures,  and place them back in the bear's pack, if possible, and write anything about the bear's travels in the notebook.  The bears would typically travel for a couple of weeks and then be returned to a particularly city on a given date.  Some of these bears traveled so widely that they'd put Rick Steves to shame.

When you had one of these bears onboard, the crew would usually look through its backpack during a break to see where the bear had been.  Some crews would take pictures of the bears at famous landmarks and leave copies of them in the bear's backpack.  I'd see pictures of bears in front of, or on top of, the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State building, the White House, the Trevi Fountain, Big Ben, the Golden Gate bridge or sitting at sporting events or taking in Broadway shows, and strapped into a seat in First Class with a cocktail.  These bears lived life in the fast lane.

I never took a bear on an overnight, but plenty of crews did.  I would write about their travels in their notebooks.  The bears were deemed a security risk after 9/11 and we never saw them again.  I would have loved to have been in one of those classes when the kids got their traveling bears back, and the teachers pulled out the stack of pictures and postcards from around the world, recording the bear's adventures over the past month.  I hope it inspired some of those kids to travel and see the world themselves.

Anytime one crew would take over a flight with through passengers (let's say my crew is waiting on the jetway in Philadelphia for a plane arriving from Boston, and we are working the same flight through to its final destination in San Francisco) continuing to another destination, the Senior or "A" flight attendants would have a short, informal briefing giving the incoming crew any information they needed to know about the plane or continuing passengers.  A typical conversation would go something like this:

"Hey guys!  You have quite a few thrus (passengers continuing on the same flight to the next destination), 2 chairs (passengers requesting a wheel chair to exit the plane), a UNAC (an unaccompanied minor - a child or children traveling without an adult), eyes in the cockpit and a bear in the forward galley.  Oh, yeah, and your aft coffee maker is inop (inoperative - broken).  Make sure they dump the biffys (empty the lavatories - you never wanted to push back on a long flight if the lavs hadn't been properly serviced).  Have a good flight!"

A third and final cargo item that I'd see in the cabin as a flight attendant only occurred on flights between Buffalo, New York and Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  And it had an incredible smell.

Our "short" overnight (the hotel we used on layovers shorter than 14 hours) hotel in Buffalo, New York was the famous, or infamous, Airways Hotel.

The old Airways hotel in Buffalo, New York.

The place was retro before it was built.  The rooms were small, the beds and sheets uncomfortable, the carpets filthy and the walls paper thin, but the staff was very accommodating to airline crews, something all crew members appreciate.

But the real attraction was the Irish pub, the Shannon, conveniently located on the first floor, right off the lobby.  And the meal everyone ate at the pub in the Airways was an order (or two) of their famous Buffalo wings.  I mean, crews just went crazy for them.  Some people would even admit to me they had bid the trip just for the overnight in Buffalo and the wings.  I've been a vegetarian for thirty years, so I never tried them.  But everyone else - and I mean everyone - couldn't get enough of them.

And that included airline employees, mostly guys working on the ramp, who had never even been to Buffalo.  They would call up the Airways Hotel from their break room at the airport in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, and place a large order of their coveted wings.  They would charge it to a credit card and tell them what flight to ship it on.

Then a few minutes before departure from Buffalo, some delivery guy from the Airways hotel would walk down the jetway to the front door of the plane with a large, brown bag of steaming buffalo wings from Buffalo.  We would stow them in an empty galley compartment, and then pass them along to a ramper or mechanic meeting the flight in PIT or PHL.  I saw this happen dozens of times.  I think this may have stopped after 9/11 as well, although I'd find it hard to believe that the Airways even survived into the 21st century.

I would love to stay around and chat, but I gotta' fly.  In this biz, you aren't making any money on the ground.

My Google Problem

A Google search for "Vincent Cleary blog" yields the above results.

I started writing this blog a month ago to share some stories and sharpen my writing and internet skills.  Today is my 21st posting - meaning I have been able to write a new post every weekday for the past month.  It's been a challenge to come up with something new and interesting to write every day, but all the great comments and encouragement have kept me going.  I can't believe it's already had more than 500 page views.  Thanks to everyone for reading along.

But when I started this one month ago there's one thing I didn't anticipate: I now have a Google problem.

As you can see in the screen grab above, if you type my name into the Google Machine, I'm listed just below a "Vincent Cleary - Florida Sexual Offender."  No, it's not me.  No, it's not a relation.  A sex offender from Florida?  Who knew?  And this proves once again why truth is stranger than fiction.  I couldn't have thought this up if I'd tried.  A sex offender from Florida?  I would have backed off the Florida angle as just a bit over the top. 

Although the surname "Cleary" is not unusual - there are pages and pages of "Cleary's" in the Dublin phone book - I met a couple of Cleary's at US Air, but I've never met another Vincent Cleary.  Never had anyone else claim to know another.  The infuriating thing is not only that he's a registered sex offender, but he's a sex offender that shows up HIGHER in Google search results than I do, dammit!  I'm not sure which is considered the greater sin in Silicon Valley: sexual deviance or poor Googling results. 

Looking for a bright side, I am hoping in San Jose perhaps this sort of thing is considered a status symbol. Many of you out there undoubtedly have a Gulfstream V,  a Porsche and the latest prototype of the iPad; but do you have a Google Problem?

Nice tie, Senator.  Clip-on?

Looking even further on the bright side, at least my Google problem isn't nearly as embarrassing as this guy's.  I've never been a, uh, member of the U.S. Senate.  And I don't foresee a Presidential run in my future.

I'm not going to worry about it.  I'm just going to let it sort itself out.  It's like water off a duck's back.  If the duck had to check in once a month with his parole officer.

Oh, yes, there's just one more thing...I'm never setting foot in Florida again.

Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?

Leading man John Garfield in Abraham Polonsky's Force of Evil

High school is when we learn the mythology of American History.  College is when we deconstruct these mythologies, and start to learn what really happened; the stories that don't necessarily fit the American narrative.

I am fascinated by these dark times in American History when what really happened doesn't fit the mythology.   Or perhaps it's more American than we'd care to admit.

The internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, Watergate, and most personal for me - the Hollywood Blacklist - have all been parts of American History that I have always found fascinating for what they say about our country.

My first project in film school was a story I wrote and directed (poorly) about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, and I had the opportunity to interview a couple of Japanese-American internment survivors as research.  I lived in the Washington, D.C. area during Watergate (a future post) - a few of our neighbors popped up on TV during the Watergate hearings, and through my favorite professor in college I had the good fortune to meet an authentic American hero, whose promising writing and directing career was tragically cut short because of the Hollywood Blacklist.

Abraham Polosnky in 1951.

Abraham Lincoln Polonsky - how's that for an American name? - was born in New York City in 1910 to the parents of Russian-Jewish immigrants.  He received his Law degree from Columbia in 1935.  As was common among many intellectuals during the height of the Great Depression, Abe became disenchanted with the ill effects of Capitalism.  He started going to Communist Party meetings in New York and soon became a card carrying member.

Abe, as I would come to know him, grew bored as a lawyer and labor leader, and became a writer.  He would go on to write several novels, the first of which would be published just before the U.S. entered World War II.

Abe Polonsky in 1996.

During World War II, Abe was an undercover agent of the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) - the predecessor of today's Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) - and assisted members of the French Resistance in Nazi-occupied France.  How much more American could you get than that?

After World War II, Abe returned to America and found a home as a writer in Hollywood.  Abe's second  screenplay, a boxing picture entitled Body and Soul, garnered him an Academy Award nomination for best screenplay.  Many critics today still consider Body and Soul one of the best sports pictures of all time.  How much more American could you get than that?

Considered a rising star in Hollywood, Abe wrote and directed Force of Evil in 1948.   Force of Evil, a rare film at the time to be shot on location in New York City, contained dark themes and its dialogue was blank verse, was considered by most critics and knowledgeable filmmakers to be ahead of its time.  Martin Scorcese has said Force of Evil was a huge influence on his work, and he filmed an introduction to the original home video release of the film.  Abe would not direct another film for over twenty years.  

After Force of Evil, Abe's past association with the Communist Party and his growing prominence in Hollywood would attract the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee (H.U.A.C.).  He would share a screenwriting credit for the 1951 film I Can Get It for You Wholesale.  That same year, he was finally called to testify before H.U.A.C., refused to name names, and then his own name was placed on the Hollywood Blacklist - he would not have a screen credit again until 1968 (as a writer for the film Madigan). 

One of the most talented and promising filmmakers in Hollywood, a man whom the American government had determined was safe enough to fight the Germans in occupied France, was declared by that same government not safe enough to work in Hollywood for fifteen years.

He wrote and directed Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (starring Robert Redford) in 1969, and would continue to have occasional screenwriting credits up through the 1980's.

Abe and his friend and fellow blacklisted screenwriter, Walter Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven, Fail Safe),  were two of the primary writers for the popular You Are There television program starring Walter Cronkite.  This was in the mid-1950's during the blacklist, so they used "fronts" - people not on the blacklist - who would pretend to have written the material, and would take screen credit in exchange for a percentage of the writing fee.

The premise of the show was that the viewer would go back to famous moments in American history and the CBS news team of the 1950's would interview prominent players in the story.  For a certain generation of Americans, this was how many of them learned American history.  The irony being they learned it from a couple of writers who had been blacklisted.

Bernstein would go on to write about this time in The Front, which was released in 1976.  The most powerful part of the film is the end credits when they list all the people who worked on the film who had been blacklisted. 

When I first met Abe in 1985 - in my Film Noir class after we had screened Force of Evil -  - he was a clever, charming, impish man who was savoring a renewed appreciation for his life's work by film students and historians all across American.  His size and carriage reminded me of Jacques Cousteau.

I would spend time with him in the next couple of years at school, and while working as a production assistant on an educational video series, where we interviewed such screenwriting luminaries as Julius Epstein (Casablanca), Lawrence Kasdan (Body Heat, The Big Chill, Raiders of the Lost Ark) and  Waldo Salt (Serpico, Coming Home, Midnight Cowboy).  Abe was the producer, and they all did the interviews as a show of respect for Abe and his work.

We shot the series at an office in an industrial park in the middle of nowhere in Los Angeles -  Downey, Norwalk or Cypress - someplace you hear about on the weather or traffic reports, but you never actually go there yourself.  I had the pleasure of driving Abe, and several of the other writers, back and forth to the set, and then pretty much sat back on the location and took a Master Class in screenwriting.

Abe, born and raised in New York, never learned to drive, and always had to be driven everywhere he went in Los Angeles.  It was a tough way to get around L.A.  I loved driving him and hearing his stories.  He lived in a fashionable condominium in Beverly Hills, and every time I picked him up at his place, he was sure to remind me that even though he'd been blacklisted by the U.S. Government, he was still the President of his condo association in Beverly Hills.

Unlike any of the other writers or directors I picked up and drove to the location, Abe would always ride up in the front passenger seat.   He would tell his old Hollywood stories - I would egg him on ("I really shouldn't say anything else about that s.o.b., but if you insist...") and ask questions to try and keep him talking.  But he would always stop his stories and ask me questions - things in my life, school and my thoughts on current events.  The rides flew by in a blur.

My film professor, a co-producer with Abe on the project, pulled me aside one morning when we got to the set and asked me what I was talking about with Abe on the drive back and forth to Beverly Hills each day.  I thought I was in trouble.  "Nothing special.  Just movies.  Travel (I had just come back from Vancouver and loved it - so did Abe)...just chit-chat."

"Well, keep it up," my Professor said, "he asked me to make sure you were always his driver."  I was thrilled.

Abe knew his career was nearing its end, but he was working with French director Bertrand Tavernier (who had just released 'Round Midnight) on an autobiographical screenplay (which would eventually be released as Guilty by Suspicion in 1991) in which the lead character, like Abe, was a blacklisted filmmaker.  Abe, and the rest of us, hoped it would be his cinematic swan song.  

Tavernier eventually dropped out of the project and the film's producer, Irwin Winkler (Rocky, Raging Bull, The Right Stuff), decided he would change the character from a screenwriter to a director, tone the political aspects of the story down, and direct it himself.  Robert DeNiro played the lead character, but the film met a lukewarm reception.  Abe felt so betrayed that he asked that his name be removed from the credits.  Winkler, who couldn't write his way out of a paper bag, took the screenplay credit - his sole feature film writing credit.

There were times when there would be a break in taping the writers,  the lights and the camera positions were constantly being adjusted, and I'd find myself in a conversation with Abe and Waldo Salt or Abe and Walter Bernstein.  They were comrades in a long, dark war who had survived, and now they were revered within the film community.  I could have sat there forever and just listened to them tell their war stories.

I eventually came to my senses, moved from Hollywood back home to the Bay Area, and started to raise a family.  I never lost my fascination with the blacklist.  I still read any new, well-reviewed books on the blacklist.  I was hoping Abe would write his memoir before he passed, but that was never to be.  Walter Bernstein published his memoir in 1996, and I read it as soon as I could get my hands on it.  He mentioned Abe and their years using "fronts" to write for the "You Are There" TV series.

Several times in the 1990's, I thought I should write Abe a letter and let him know how much our friendship meant to me and how much I admired his body of work, and how his refusal to rat on his friends to clear his name was a terrific moral lesson and inspiration to a young man looking to find his way in the world.  But each time I talked myself out of it.  It was too late. 

Every year while re-watching Body and Soul and Force of Evil I would often wonder if Abe was still alive.  I felt surely I would read about it somewhere, at least an obit in the New York Times, when he passed.

In 1996 I read that the Writer's Guild was finally working to restore film credits lost to writers who had worked under a "front" or pseudonym during the black list; restoring Abe's rightful credit to Odds Against Tomorrow, released in 1959 while he was still on the blacklist.  Some screenwriting credits from the 1950's still haven't been properly restored.

And then an odd thing happened.  The Motion Picture Academy, in all its self-congratulatory twisted glory, announced that they were giving Elia Kazan - a man who couldn't rat out enough former friends and co-workers to H.U.A.C. to keep working during the blacklist - was to receive a special "honorary" Oscar from the Academy.

And then, as the saying goes, the fit really hit the shan.  Many in the Hollywood and film community were appalled the Academy - never having made any atonement for their compliance with the blacklist - would honor Kazan - one of the most reviled men in Hollywood.  Guess who was leading the charge against Kazan?  Abe and Walter Bernstein, right there on the evening news.  They were both as smart and clever as ever.  Fighting the good fight to the bitter end.

Kazan received his lifetime award from the Academy, to a mixed reception, and Abe passed away six months later.

Looking back on my time with Abe and his fellow blacklisted writers, I can't help but be saddened by how many great American movies were never made because scores of talented writers, actors and directors were never allowed to work again, so a few grandstanding public officials could gain some political points.

How many cinema masterpieces did we lose?  We'll never know.

The Puck Drops on a New Season

When my twin boys first started to play Travel youth hockey at seven years of age, their try-outs were usually right after Labor Day, followed by their first preseason games in early October.  Their season mercifully came to an end in late February.  And then we moved on to baseball or soccer.  Or anything else played OUTSIDE.

Now a couple of months away from their 17th birthdays, they are in their final two years of Club/Travel hockey.  This year will be their third season wearing the sweaters of the San Jose Jr. Sharks, as members of the 18AA team.

But this season their tryouts were in the last week of July, and they had their first preseason game last weekend (mid-August).  Last year, when they were California state champions in their 16A division, their season ran into April.  Their high school varsity hockey team started play in March and finished in mid-May.  Youth hockey now extends from August through May.  It's one long season.  And there's little time for anything else.

I'm blaming it all on Charles Schulz.  The Peanuts cartoonist, a Minnesota native and hockey player in his youth, had moved to Sonoma County in the early 1960's and built an ice rink in Santa Rosa in 1969. We moved up to Santa Rosa from San Francisco to buy a house and raise some kids (and a dog) in 1993, and quickly realized the rink was one of the social centers of town.

The Redwood Empire Ice Arena, now known as "Snoopy's Home Ice," was opened in Santa Rosa, CA in 1969 by Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz.  The rink is still owned by the Schulz family. 

I learned to skate, and eventually joined the lowest level men's late night "beer" league in Santa Rosa.  I only call it a "men's" league because there weren't any women playing hockey at that time in Santa Rosa.  Schulz thought that should change and soon developed a women's team, and that's when my wife laced up her skates and learned to play.  Schulz gave the women prime ice slots early in the evening - rare for adult hockey - and posted a security guard in the parking lot, so they would feel safe at the rink.  Schulz would even come out on occasion and join them.

So with that beautiful rink, made possible only because of the hockey whims of a wealthy cartoonist, as a focal point in town, it wasn't so strange when our kids started to walk that we put hockey sticks in their hands.

When they were three or four, we bought them roller blades, helmets and little hockey nets, allowing them to play street hockey in our driveway.  That soon moved to the outdoor roller hockey rink Schulz had built in a small park next to his office studio.  And by the age of five, they were going through the Basics - learn to skate - hockey classes on the ice inside the Snoopy rink.

If we had known back then exactly how many mornings we would have to wake up in the dark on a Saturday or Sunday morning for practice, or worse, a game as far away as Fresno, Stockton or Lake Tahoe, I'm not sure if we would have willingly committed the rest of their childhoods to the sport.

And if we had known how many tens of thousands of dollars we would pay in the next ten years for hockey dues, hockey gear and travel expenses, I don't know if we would have encouraged them to play ice hockey as much as we did.

"Hey, guys, how about baseball?  America's pastime?  Swimming?  You could spend all summer long in a cool pool!  Soccer?  You could run all over the place and kick a ball!  Basketball?"

They played them all, but nothing else stuck.  Once a kid is hooked on hockey and becomes a "rink rat" - someone who just loves hanging around the ice rink - it's tough to talk them into anything else.  You don't choose the sport of ice hockey as much as it chooses you.

Cindy was their assistant coach for two years when they were Mites (7-8 years of age) and Squirts (9-10), and I picked up after her and was an assistant coach during their second Pee-Wee (11-12) and first Bantam (13-14) years.

It's a lot of work to play ice hockey.  The sport requires total commitment and a high level of physical conditioning.  It's very physical and the incidence of concussions and broken bones is high.  It's an incredibly long season.  You'll spend numerous Holidays in a cold rink.  There aren't many kids or families that can make that commitment.

It's equally demanding to be a hockey coach.  Their coaches spent hundreds and hundreds of hours teaching them all about technical aspects of the game: face-offs, break-outs, regroups,  forechecks, reverses, protecting the "house," P.K.'s and power plays, triangulation, etc.  (don't worry - there will not be a quiz), and I must say it's a sense of great pride that both of our sons are considered by all their coaches to be "smart" hockey players.  They anticipate and see a play develop before it happens, and seem to wind up in the right spot just as the puck arrives.

But through all the games, practices, coaching and Board meetings, I was never sure after all that time and effort, if the kids were any better off than if we'd just had them throw their sticks in a pile, pick teams, and just let them play pond hockey.

That's exactly what happened every summer.  We would get together with some hockey friends outside on numerous summer mornings - before the Wine Country sunshine became too warm - and just let the guys play unstructured roller hockey for hours and hours at a time.  I believe it was this time that contributed to their current skill level as much as anything.  It was seldom the lessor skilled players who came out to extra things like this.  It was usually the kids who really loved the game, and couldn't live without it, who came out to get even better.

In his landmark book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the "10,000 hours" theory of achievement - that great talents, or "outliers," in a given area are not born, but made.  It takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill.

Our boys are getting close to that 10,000 hours touchstone, and are now able to play the game at an incredibly fast, highly skilled level.  A level far beyond anything I could have ever done.  It's amazing to watch them play.  They are no longer boys out on the rink, but young men.

And through all those years of structured league play: the practices, games and travel;  I'm still not sure they're any better off in the long run than if they'd just been able to go out on a pond somewhere for a couple of hours and played around.  That seems to be the environment in which the best, most creative hockey players ultimately develop.

The best we can do for our kids as parents is to point them in the right direction, support them and try not to do any harm.

Last season they played in Canada for the first time, in the International Silver Stick finals in Newmarket, Ontario.  On our last day in the Toronto area, after they had been eliminated from tournament play, the entire team went out to a local "pond" and played two hours of unstructured "pick-up" hockey in the frigid morning cold.

I believe all those California boys were playing hockey outside for the first time.  Once they started playing, not one of them complained of the chill, or came off the ice early.  After two hours, it was the frost-bitten parents who had to drag them off the ice, just like we did when they were five years old.  I thought it was the purest hockey moment of the year, maybe of their lives.

And on the drive back to the hotel, I couldn't help wonder if, in the long run, hockey playing kids would just be better off playing on that pond, if they could, three or four days a week.

I've videotaped hundreds of the boys' hockey games over the years, but if somebody asked me why we have endured all the early mornings and late nights, long drives, injuries, frustration and expense of youth hockey; I would show them this video that I made of them last year playing on that pond in Ontario.  Many of you reading this have already seen this video, but I'll post it again here, just in case you haven't.  Just look at the smiling faces of these guys out there on that cold January morning.  No coaches, parents or pressure.  A pure hockey moment.  And ultimately, that's what it should all be about, eh.

Jeff and Geena

Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum at the Academy Awards in 1990.

I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: 'try being rich first'. See if that doesn't cover most of it. There's not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job.  - Bill Murray

Fame is a funny thing.  We see people on television or on the big screen and somehow we believe that we know them.  I completely agree with Bill Murray.  I have no problem with people who just want to be rich.  I would love to be rich.  Who wouldn't?  But I'm very suspicious of someone who just wants to be famous.  It's just not a healthy desire.  If you want to be the best in your field and that may result in fame, fine, but if your end game is just to be famous, I think you need to have your head examined.

When you live or work around famous people, as I occasionally have, you realize that they don't "glow" or necessarily stand out in a crowd.  My theory is that people who really don't want to be recognized generally aren't.  I've had famous people on some of my flights, walked by them in the airport or seen them out and about in Los Angeles or New York.  If they're dressed normally and minding their own business, they're not going to be recognized or bothered that much.  Dress and act normal, keep walking and don't make eye contact, and it's amazing how little attention you attract.

If you're strutting around in outlandish outfits, wearing shades inside a restaurant or airplane, and have four bodyguards shadowing your every move, well, you're probably going to attract a little attention, but then that's what you really wanted, isn't it? 

As someone who has been a lifelong "observer" of human behavior, I think being famous would be the worst curse in the world.  This is particularly true of actors who literally make their living trying to observe and portray other people.

Fame also creates an odd familiarity.  Just because we see someone every week on television or a movie screen, we think somehow we know them.  We project how they would actually be in real life. I must admit I've done this.

"Yeah, that Tom Hanks seems like a nice guy.  Russell Crowe though, big time d-bag."

That's the impression each of those actors gives off, but I have no idea if that's reality.

When I was first dating my wife, she shared a rental with a couple of her friends in a small house in the Beachwood Canyon area of Los Angeles.  The homes at the bottom of the hill were often reasonably priced, and then as you moved up the hill or into the canyon, the real estate values skyrocketed.  But it was a livable area conveniently located between Hollywood and the film and TV studios over the hill in Burbank.  We would bump into famous people at the cute, pricey, little neighborhood grocery store - the Beachwood Market.  We would see famous people when we ate breakfast at the local cafe.  No big deal.  Just part of life living in Beachwood Canyon.

Drama queen Lindsay Lohan and her then partner Samantha Ronson exiting the Beachwood Market.

But one famous couple caught our eye.  Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis were at the peak of their careers in the late 1980's, and were one of the hottest couples in Hollywood.  They must have lived in Beachwood or the surrounding area, because we kept seeing them around town: at the movies, in a restaurant or in the grocery store.

The Village Coffee Shop in Beachwood Canyon

And however gorgeous they may have looked on the big screen or in People magazine; they looked more beautiful and adorable in person.  They were both statuesque.  Some actors lie about their height to give the illusion they're much taller than they actually are (Ahnold, cough, cough, Stallone, cough, cough, Gibson).  Jeff and Geena were so tall that they probably lied by claiming they were shorter than they actually were.

We perceived them to be smart and clever.  And they were, of course, both gorgeous.  Did I mention they were gorgeous?  When we'd spy them around town, they just looked so cute together.  They were always touching each other, whispering in each other's ears and smiling.  My wife, in particular, loved it every time we saw them.  She thought they were just so cute.  I had to admit they were a handsome couple.

The historic Cinerama Dome in Hollywood where we saw The Untouchables with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis.

Sometimes you'll have a group of couples who are your friends and there is a couple or two who just seem perfect together - you know they'll be together forever - and others make you wonder "what in the hell were they thinking?"  When you hear news of the former breaking up, your first reaction is "oh, that's too bad, they were a cute couple."  When the latter finally breaks up, you think "thank goodness, how in the heck did they last that long?"

Jeff and Geena were magic.  You just had to root for them.  Young, talented and beautiful - the toast of the town.

So when word came out that they had finally broken up as a couple - which is just about inevitable in Hollywood - Cindy took it like two of her best friends had broken up, not just two random people we'd never met.  They were Jeff and Geena.  They were perfect together.  Remember the time we saw The Untouchables with them at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood?  We had breakfast together at the Village Coffee Shop, shared some late night cherry pie at House of Pies.

I wonder if they'd just been two prominent people in another profession, something normal without the fame and constant travel, would they have made it?

Time marched on, my wife and I got married and eventually found a home in Sonoma County - 50 miles north of San Francisco.  One Fall day in 1993 I headed out with our pup to the dog park and spotted a bunch of helicopters flying overhead.  Several of them, all flying quite low.  You usually only see helicopters in Sonoma County when there's a large wildfire.  I felt like Ray Liotta in the end of Goodfellas.  What in the hell was going on?

Turns out Geena Davis just couldn't stay away from us.  She was getting married that weekend to the action film director Renny Harlin at the Kunde winery in nearby Kenwood.  Our invitation must have been lost in the mail.  News reports said the wedding cost them close to a million dollars, an amount believed to be the most ever spent on a wedding in Sonoma County, up to that time.  Money didn't buy happiness.  They were inevitably divorced in 1998. 

Davis has now been married four times.  Do you think she's nuts?  A drama queen?  Maybe, but I don't think so.  I think it's just very tough to be in a relationship with someone that famous.  Goldblum never married again.

My wife and I will just remember them as Jeff and Geena.  The cutest couple in Beachwood Canyon.

San Jose Lights Up

Every major city in America has a free, tabloid style weekly that covers restaurants, theatre, music and movies such as the Village Voice in New York, the L.A. Weekly in Los Angeles, the Bay Guardian in San Francisco and even the Bohemian in l'il ol' Sonoma County.

San Jose's arts and culture weekly is called Metro.  It's free, widely distributed and occasionally carries an interesting or noteworthy story that doesn't involve high tech.

These weeklies are free to readers to encourage as high a circulation as possible, which makes them more attractive to local advertisers.  The back pages of these weeklies are stuffed with ads.  If you'd looked at them about ten years ago, you would have seen some classified ads and LOTS of personal ads that made it seem like EVERYONE in that town was looking for someone special.  Many of those people had someone special and were still looking for someone special. 

"You - a quiet librarian type who loves walks along the beach, yoga and a biker guy with lots of tattoos.  Me - ruggedly handsome Josh Brolin type who loves to ride and party, looking for that perfect gal to ride off with me on the back of my hog."  You get the picture.

Then the internet dating sites came along and took those personal ads with them.  So the weeklies sent out their sales people and they reeled in the escort services (or so I'm told).  The backs of these weeklies were filled with enticing ads for one beautiful lady (or man) after another, dying to spend the evening with one special person - you (or so I'm told).

You can't buy love, but you could rent it.

A county by county map of the Prop. 215 voting.

Then the escort ad traffic drifted over to the internet (or so I'm told), and once again the weeklies were forced to send out their sales forces to find a new gravy train.

Eureka!  They realized that the voters of California had helpfully passed a state initiative (Proposition 215) in California that allowed for the medical use of marijuana.  It passed rather easily with 56% of the vote. 

The initiative didn't really cover how marijuana was to be cultivated, regulated or sold for this medicinal use. So-called "medical" co-ops and collectives started popping up in every city in California.

Which brings us back to the weeklies.  I've noticed in the San Jose Metro that the growth of medical marijuana clinics in and around San Jose is exploding.  A recent story said the number of these clinics has DOUBLED in San Jose in the past two years.  There are now nearly a hundred in San Jose alone.  While it's positive to have ANY business showing signs of growth in our current economy, the medicinal marijuana industry is now reminiscent of the Wild, Wild West.  If those old gunfighters had just, like, mellowed out, dude.

And in this week's edition of the Metro, the ads for the marijuana clinics in San Jose take up ten full pages of the weekly paper.  A one time full page color ad buy in the Metro is $2,300.  That's a lot of mary jane moolah.  In all fairness,  it goes down to $1,900 an issue if you buy one full page ad a month.  Once you start buying full page medical marijuana ads, it's tough to stop at just one, right?

What's interesting if you start examining these ads is that these "collectives" are ALL OVER TOWN.  They are everywhere.  Presumably with a McDonald's or 7-11 located right next door.  It's another Gold Rush, only this time it's Acapulco gold,  in every medium to large-sized city in California.

There are virtually zero zoning laws and regulations regarding these clinics.  Certainly nothing on a statewide basis.

I find it hard to believe that the actual usage of these sweet herbs has dramatically increased since the passage of Proposition 215, there doesn't seem to be much research or data on any of this stuff because the government doesn't want to do any research on this stuff.

There may actually be a benefit to users being guaranteed a consistent, safe supply of the drug.  I assume all the competition is keeping the cost down, which lessens the illegal trafficking and cash-starved local governments could use the tax dollars.

But it just seems odd when marijuana clinics are the most robust retail outlets in San Jose.  They're definitely giving Starbucks a run for their money.  Care for a hemp Grande?

And if you're looking for someone to do something about it, don't look to Dave.  Dave who?  Dave's not here, man. 

A Fairy Tree in Clare

Having flown all night in the darkness over the Atlantic, and now being rudely welcomed by the sunrise just as our bodies were telling us it was time to go to bed, we placed our bags for the driver next to the back of the jitney van, and wearily shuffled inside.  There was plenty of room inside the van, a minibus really, and each of the eight crew members – two pilots and six flight attendants – who had just worked the flight in from Philadelphia on a Boeing 767, had a row to themselves for the 30 minute ride to our overnight in the charming Irish town of Ennis

In my last year as a flight attendant, I finally had enough seniority, after seventeen years of flying, to hold some trips to Ireland.  I worked the flights to Shannon and Dublin as much as I could that final summer.  Dublin, a more cosmopolitan destination which featured a terrific hotel for our crews, went a little more senior and was tougher to get.  I could pick up Shannon as much as I wanted, and flew there a couple of times a month that summer.  And the West of Ireland is a far different place from Dublin.

A couple of the flight attendants had planned ahead and commandeered the remaining champagne and orange juice after the First Class breakfast service, and offered mimosas from plastic water bottles to everyone in the van.  I passed.  They celebrated the end of a long day and night by sipping on them during the ride.  I took out my iPod, selected my “Irish Mix” from the playlists, and sat back to enjoy the scenery as the sound of Van Morrison and the Chieftains played in my ears.

About 15 minutes after we had left Shannon Airport and headed north through County Clare, we came to an interchange on the N18 motorway, and the driver turned back to the crew and pointed out the window, to a motley looking large bush off to the side of the road, and proudly proclaimed, “see your bush, there, do ya’?  That’s our fairy tree.  Quite a fight over that tree when they built the bypass, there was.  But they moved the road and kept the tree."

Those of us who had flown this trip before knew the tale of the fairy tree, of course.  The fairy tree was pointed out on every ride to Ennis whenever there was a crew member aboard enjoying their first Shannon overnight.

The Fairy Tree that diverted the N18 motorway in County Clare.

"Whaaaaaattttt?,” came a female voice from the back of the van, after she had cleared her throat of her early morning mimosa, wondering if she had heard correctly.  

“A fairy tree?”

“Ah, sure, have you never seen a fairy tree before?  We’ve lots of them here in Ireland,” explained the driver.

I had lived in Dublin, Ireland many years prior, and I don’t know if I had ever seen a known fairy tree, let alone one that was saved from demolition as it sat in the path of inevitable modernization: the bypass of the N18 motorway through County Clare.

"The locals fought hard to keep the fairy tree.  It’s bad luck to destroy one, ya’ know.  They made a fuss when the bypass plans were first announced, but the government saw the error of their ways and eventually moved the bypass,” the van driver added.  

The plans for the N18 Fairy Tree bypass.

Sure enough, if you knew about the tree and looked carefully, you could discern that the motorway took a slight path out of its way around the small tree, which was more of a bush, really.

The Americans in the van laughed and talked in bewilderment about the absurdity of moving a huge, modern freeway around a tree or a bush.  That would be unthinkable in America, would it not?

I doubt they would even do it any more in Dublin; too modern and forward looking.  Dubliners today are more worried about interest rates, home values and cell phone reception than fairy trees.

The modern Irish can be a little touchy with Americans about some of the myths and stereotypes of old Ireland.  The leprechauns, jaunting carts, The Quiet Man; “top o’ the mornin’” Ireland, as some would refer to it.  Similar to the way I viewed Fisherman’s Wharf when I lived in San Francisco; I would stop by to drop off visitors playing tourist, but it was long past its life as an authentic part of The City. 

I didn’t laugh at the story of the fairy tree.  I just smiled.  I’ve never seen an Irish fairy – although one night on the Aran Island of Inishmore I had to walk home with a few friends from a ceili in Kilronan to our B&B about a mile away (“is that a real mile or an Irish mile?”) in the PITCH black night – where I could barely make out my hands right in front of my eyes – and I would have been a believer in just about anything that night.

Irish folklore, the mythologies, they may not mean as much to everyone today, but I figure they served a useful purpose.  There’s a reason they existed and a reason there are still believers.  And as a modern American, who am I to pass judgement on “fairy trees?"

Quite the contrary, I found great comfort in its existence.  Ireland has become so much more modern and fast-paced since I lived there; its economy was known as “The Celtic Tiger” during the go-go 1990’s, and even the infrastructure in the rural, isolated West has been vastly upgraded with money from the European Economic Community (E.E.C).

But no matter how affluent and modern a country it may become, and how many high tech factories and cell phone towers are built along its western shores, I wouldn’t want to live in a world where I didn’t know that somewhere in Ireland there was a modern motorway bypass that was moved, just a wee bit, at the insistence of its people, to make way for the “fairy tree."

Would you?