PeterDavid.net

TO LIVE OR DIE IN L.A.

May 31, 1991

Monday, April 30: Look outside my window in room 833 of Ma Maison in L.A. I love the smell of Hollywood in the morning. Smells like tinsel. A city that's a writer's dream, because people live their day-to-day life here in a perpetual state of unreality.

The city revolves around "The Business": eats, sleeps, and breathes it. It invades every aspect of the citizens' lives. Everything follows scripts, it seems, as evidenced by Kirk Gibson's movie-style home run a couple years back in the World Series. People rise and fall within eyeblinks; careers turn on a dime. Real life never moves with the kind of helter-skelter twists and turns that you find in the movies-- except that the movies reflect the energy and insanity of "the business" of Hollywood: what Paddy Chayfesky called "The Boredom-Killing Business."

I grab a croissant for breakfast across the street at the humungous Beverly Center mall, then head over to Paramount Pictures, to be the guest of George Takei who is busy filming Star Trek VI.

Up until the moment where they give me the drive-on pass and wave me through, I am certain that something will go wrong. I park and head over to Studio 5, go through a massive door informing me that this is a closed set, and enter the world of the 24th century. George (who knows me from our co-writing last year's Trek annual) comes over to meet me, smiling. He's looking extremely spiffy in his Starfleet uniform, so energetic that I briefly ponder (not for the first time) the national obsession with criticizing the original Trek on the basis that the leads are older, as if aging were a criminal offense.

I am constrained not to discuss major plot elements or surprises that have not been publicized. It would be, to my mind, an inappropriate response to being invited to the set. However, it has been reported any number of places that this film will feature Captain Sulu of the Excelsior. George is wearing his rank and command well, clearly taking pride in the progress of this character in whose skin he has lived for a quarter of a century.

They're busy lighting the Excelsior bridge, and George points and says, "There's someone who's a crew member that you might recognize." I look where he's pointing and I recognize the individual immediately-- another cast member from the original series whose involvement I had heard nothing about. I will not mention identities, since no one has mentioned it publicly yet, and I won't be the first. But it's this kind of attention to continuity that gives me a positive feeling about the film.

I meet Nick Meyer, serious and intent on his work, totally focused and puffing on a cigar. He reminds me a bit of Harlan Ellison. I'm impressed by his command, his easy knowledge of scholarly works, and his ability to trade 2000-Year-Old-Man routines with me. Also meet the producers of the film, and everyone is polite, friendly, and interested. All of this seems to indicate a positive working atmosphere.

Major plot turning points are played out, with much attention paid to such atmospheric elements as the bridge crew reacting to things Captain Sulu says and does. A particular speech about loyalties prompts Meyer to speculate that there will be tremendous divided response when it plays across the screen-- half the fans will love it, the other half will hate it. I can't wait to find out.

Meet and chat with Mike Okrand, the Klingon-speech authority who is tutoring the Klingons in proper enunciation. Also encounter, to my surprise, Scott Leva, a young actor and stunt man whom I remember very well from the days when he was one of Marvel's Spider-Man character actors. First Jonathan Frakes is a Captain America, and now Scott graduates to a starship bridge, although in a small role as a crew member. Am now thoroughly getting into the magic of Hollywood.

Days before, I had completed a screen adaptation of a novel of mine, Howling Mad, the producers of which I'm meeting with on Tuesday to get their feedback on my first draft. Now I'm imagining being on the set of that movie, watching actors speak my words. Hollywood, like Bali Hai, seems to call me.

George and I eat lunch at the commissary, and he brings me up to date about a film he made last year. Originally entitled Blood Oath, it's now been retitled Prisoners of the Sun. George stars with Bryan (F/X) Brown and plays Baron Takahashi, a cousin of the Japanese emperor, and to attempt to summarize the complex and multi-layered plot would not do it justice. Suffice to say that it opens June 14 in New York and L.A. and a week later in Atlanta, D.C., Boston, Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco. George hopes that the Trek fans will take an interest. So do 1. He's a very talented actor and a nice guy, and I'd like to see the film succeed.

Check out the costumes and makeup. Three long racks of costumes, densely packed. It seems you could clothe half of Rhode Island with it. I'm like a kid in a candy store (or, for that matter, myself in a candy store). I'm getting more and more into the Hollywood experience. I'm buying into the fantasy.

I wander the set of a Klingon cruiser, sit in the command chair, bark orders in Klingonese. I study carefully the dedication plate for the Excelsior, situated just to the right of the main viewscreen and laugh hysterically at the gag tossed into it (presumably by Mike Okuda). It's a quote from a very well-known SF film.

They're shooting again. George has to turn briskly in the command chair, but it's clumsy and shakes. A stagehand lies just below camera range and helps push the chair so George can pivot authoritatively. I'm going to be impossible to see Trek VI with-- I'm going to laugh in all sorts of places for no apparent reason.

I learn that Kim Cattrall was on the set earlier, but I didn't get to meet her. It's probably better that way; I think she's really cute and I would've just stood there and stammered. David Warner shows up in Klingon makeup.

But he's wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and a checked bathrobe. He looks like a Klingon Arthur Dent.

I'm in Trek-fan heaven, welcomed into the real unreality. When I finally leave, it's a genuine effort. I drive back to the hotel, still radiating the glow of witnessing the glorious illusion of moviemaking in action. What a great town. I get back to my hotel and there's a phone message from the Howling Mad producers. They must want to confirm our breakfast meeting tomorrow and tell me how much they like my script. I call them.

They hate it. They hate it. They hate it. They hate the scenes. They hate the pacing. They hate the characterization. They hate it.

They like a couple of point-of-view shots. Otherwise, they hate it.

I'm caught completely off guard. My mind shuts down. My nice, comforting room irises out, and, instead of a thought process, there's just a dull buzz, like a hive or a lost phone connection.

They hate it. They hate it. They hate it. I've failed.

The phone is still to my ear, and the only thing I can think of is winding the cord around my neck. My hands grip the receiver like a life preserver, but my life preserver is telling me they're disappointed.

Where's the imagination that was so prevalent in the book? Where's the invention, the interesting characterization? Scenes are unfocused, the story doesn't flow, the character transitions are unconvincing. They hate it.

I'm nothing.

They didn't say I'm nothing. I did. Or rather, some voice in my head, all the insecurities I always carry around with me, leaping out of my personal Pandora's box, invading every facet of my confidence, eroding it, butter on a skillet just melting away.

Just like that. So easily.

Because I'd bought into the Hollywood unreality, because I'd let down my guard, because I'm not on my home turf-- all of it and all of the usual defense mechanisms for coping with rejection were given the day off, and now they can't get back to rescue me from the mire of my own insecurity.

From somewhere in the receiver they're asking me if I still want to have breakfast the next morning. Right now I'm thinking about vomiting, not eating, and I mumble something semi-articulate and hang up.

They hate it. I've failed.

Hollywood has abandoned me. No tinsel, no patina of success, no unreality. The real world has thudded down on me with jackhammer force, because I've so built myself up that, when I fall, it is so much further to fall.

I call my wife. I call a close friend. I sound like I'm talking from the other side of the grave. I sound like someone just died. Someone did.

They try desperately to cheer me. I try to sound like they've succeeded, but I'm just a black hole, sucking in the light of friendship and encouragment and giving nothing back.

Because that voice in my head whispers, "She's your wife, he's your friend. What they say doesn't count, because they like you, and that colors their perception of your work. But the movie producers, they're the ones who really count."

They hate it. I've failed.

Suddenly I just want to get away from Hollywood, from the business. For starters, I don't want to be in California. Or in this country or on this planet.

No Hollywood success story. No movie-like twist. I've failed.

I've got to get out of the room, which now seems like a coffin. The mall across the street is still open. I go out the front of the hotel, and they're filming a movie. It's the last thing I want to see. I'm sick of movie sets, of movies, of me. I'm sick of it all.

And yet, masochistically, I summon up enough energy to ask a young crew member what they're filming. It's a film for the USA cable channel. That's nice. I smile gamely, turn towards the street, miserable and soul sick.

And the crew member says, "Do I know you?"

I look back at him. "I write comic books," I say cautiously. He points and says, "You're Peter David!"

I am stunned, shocked. A different kind of shock, like a flashbulb going off. "You know me?" He knows me from New York, from a comic-book store I occasionally went to. His name is John Minardi. He's a grip (a lighting man) on the film. He's been here for a year. And he's a fan.

A fan of my work.

He waxes enthusiastic about my comics work, about my novels. He tells me how much he likes my work, how good my work is. He quickly summons a co-worker and introduces me, and the co-worker is also a fan.

And I drink it in, greedily, hungrily. He doesn't know, doesn't have any idea how much I'm taking this in. How much I needed to hear this, right at this moment, at the lowest I've been in ages.

He's read, as near as I can tell, most of my work, although because of the higher pricetag he hasn't picked up my latest Trek book, Vendetta, yet; but he assures me he will.

Then he has to get back to work, and I head into the mall, and now my confidence is seeping back with every step, John Minardi-- a relative stranger-- having pried open the door. The grip who helped me get a grip.

So they didn't like the script. So it's just their opinion. They're just people, and, as William Goldman has said, no one in Hollywood knows anything. I knew it would have to be rewritten. All scripts are. I can handle it. I can handle anything. And if they decide to go with another writer, well, it's their loss.

Just their opinion. And, right now, I'm clinging instead to John Minardi's opinion.

I buy cookies, a new necktie, and a copy of Vendetta. I go back to the hotel and hand him the book, already signed, with simply the word, "Thanks," above my name. He has no idea why I've done this, and I can't tell him, because I'm just so damned happy he was there that, if I try to let him know, I'll crack.

A fan. The gods of Hollywood reached down and put a fan there, right in my path. Ironically, I needed to hear the words of a stranger. Like Blanche DuBois, I depend on the kindness of strangers. What a plot twist. If it happened in the movies, I would say it was contrived. But Hollywood justifies all things, mixing movie moments into reality and smiling at the way it all comes together.

I head upstairs to write this column and get a decent night's sleep (since I have a busy day tomorrow), stopping only briefly to brush some tinsel off my shoulder.

Peter David, writer of stuff has nothing more to add.

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