The in betweens

In the freelance world, there are all types of people and personalities. Most noticeably, there are the ones who shouldn't be freelancers. They simply don't have the finely honed skills to deal with what I like to call the in betweens.

Those periods of time - sometimes long, sometimes short - between gigs where you've finished one job and have no idea where the next one is coming from.

Some call it limbo or purgatory. I call it heaven.

I just finished up working on a national car account at one of my favorite agencies to freelance at. I liked the people I worked with, I enjoyed the work I did and I love the creative services person who brings me in whenever they can.

Here's the thing: that gig is up, and I have no idea what's waiting on deck. But I do know from experience and faith that something is, and it'll get here eventually.

This is the skill I have people who aren't cut out for this don't: I don't go crazy when I'm not working. I don't climb walls or stress out. I learned long ago if all I think about is working when I'm not working, and wanting time off when I am, then it's a lose-lose proposition and I'm not going to be happy either way.

Maybe it's a gift, but I take my in between time off for exactly what it is. Time off. I catch up with things around the house and things I've wanted to do but don't have the time when I'm employed. The garage gets cleaned. Books get read. Screenplays get worked on. Posts get written. Shows on the DVR get watched (I'm particularly good at this one). Dogs get walked. Kids get picked up. Lunches get taken. Laundry gets done (I love doing laundry - one of the long list of reasons I'm a catch).

Sure it's always nice to know where the next check is coming from, but if I don't know now I will when I'm supposed to.

Don't get me wrong, I don't just leave it all up to chance and the universe - I would never be that cavalier with my career (trying to stop laughing cause I used the word "career"). I do make the effort. I send out emails, check in with friends and find out what's going on around town. Like all freelancers, I play dialing for dollars on a regular basis. But I don't play it all day every day. And it's not the only game I know. Besides, a watched pot, well, you get my drift.

Anyway, as much as I'd like to talk more about this, I really have to get going.

After all, Breaking Bad isn't going to binge watch itself.

Hello I Must Be Going. Again.

As a rule, I don't repost articles I've done on here. But today is Groucho's birthday. And since meeting Groucho was one of the top ten experiences of my life, right there on the list with getting married, watching my kids being born and running into Bruce Springsteen in Brentano's bookstore, reposting just seemed like the right thing to do. Hope you enjoy it. Again.

Dr. Hackenbush will see you now.

I don't usually drop names. Don't get me wrong, I could. I could drop a lot of them ok? I was born and raised in L.A. I'm a Hollywood brat. I know people.

And my people know people.

But because of a film I saw, I am going to drop one: Groucho Marx.

From the minute I first saw Night At The Opera I was hooked on the Marx Bros. It won't come as a surprise to anyone who knows me that the brother I related to most was Groucho. Cynical, sarcastic, biting, brilliant, a ladies man.

When I was growing up, the Marx Bros. films were having a resurgence. There were festivals, retrospects, screenings of long lost footage. My friend David Weitz and I used to slather on the black moustache and eyebrows, slip into the cut away tuxedo jackets and impersonate Groucho at the festivals they used to have at the Universal Amphitheater, back when it was a real amphitheater (look it up). There was also a theater on La Cienega and Waring Avenue called the Ciné Cienega that played Marx Bros. films all the time. David and I would show up there too.

One day, we had the bright idea that we wanted to meet Groucho. So we got in my car - a 1965 Plymouth Fury, the first and last American car I'll ever own (don't get me started) - and drove up to Sunset Blvd. Back then, there was a guy on every corner selling "Maps To The Stars Homes". We bought one and found out where Groucho's house was in Trousdale Estates.

As I write about it now, I realize it reads kind of stalker-esque. It wasn't. Well, maybe it was. But a different time you know?

There used to be a costume shop on Melrose next to Paramount Studios. David and I decided to buy an old cutaway coat like Groucho wore in the movies and give it to him as a gift. It never occurred to us he probably had several of them gathering dust already.

The first attempt didn't go well. We drove up to Trousdale Estates, sat in the car awhile, then finally found the courage to knock on Groucho's door.

His assistant and companion Erin Fleming answered.

We told her we were huge Marx Bros. fans, and we had a gift for Groucho. She thought it was sweet.

From behind her, we heard an elderly but recognizable voice say, "Who is it?" Erin said, "It's two of your fans and they want to give you a gift." To which Groucho replied, "Tell them to go away and never darken my doorway again."

Not exactly the welcome we expected.

Erin told us to come back the next day when Groucho would be in a better mood, and she'd get us in to meet him. So we did. And she did.

David and I wound up having lunch with Groucho. We talked about everything from the movies, to the Israeli athletes who'd been killed by terrorists, to Sandy Koufax. The real life Groucho spoke slower and softer than the one in the movies, but the brilliant mind was working just as fast.

Many times after that first meeting, Erin invited me up to the house. She even had me watch Groucho a few times when she'd have to go out.

When another Groucho fan, Steve Stoliar, organized the Committee to Re-release Animal Crackers (CRAC) - a Marx Bros. film that hadn't been seen in thirty years - and staged a protest at UCLA, Groucho wrote a note excusing me from my theater class to be there (Groucho included a copy of the letter in his book The Grouchophile). And when Universal finally re-released it, Erin had the studio hire David and I to impersonate him at the premiere.

She also had us impersonate him and greet arriving celebrities at a live performance she'd convinced him to do, An Evening with Groucho at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion (I still remember David opening the car door for George Burns. As Burns was getting out he said, "That's very nice of you." David said, "Certainly. Age before beauty." Burns said, "You're not kidding."). Thanks to Erin, we were also at the pre-release party for the soundtrack of the show at the Bistro in Beverly Hills (star-studded affair. Nicest celebrity: Tommy Smothers. Biggest jerk: Carroll O'Connor). She also had us front and center in the audience, in full costume, when Groucho appeared on the Merv Griffin show.

To say the least it was a heady time.

After Groucho died, I lost touch with Erin. I know she went through hard times, with accusations of being a golddigger and abusive to Groucho.

These accusations came from Groucho's son Arthur, who although an author and playwright, primarily made a career of being Groucho's son.

The many times I saw them together, at the house and at studio events, I never saw any indication that any of Arthur's accusations about Erin were true.

Nevertheless, Arthur sued Erin for all the money Groucho had paid her, and the house he'd bought her, and eventually bankrupted her with attorney fees and debt. Sadly she wound up committing suicide years after Groucho was gone.

I'm blessed to have had the chance to meet one of my heroes. It could never happen today, certainly not the way it did then.

Although if anyone has Springsteen's address, I have this guitar I'd like to give him.

Dog tired

If you’ve been keeping up with this blog – and if you have, you really should investigate getting a library card and reading something more worthwhile – you may already know we recently brought home a new addition to the family.

Her name is Lucy. And since she’s obviously not a German Shepherd, it’s pretty apparent I had no choice or say in the matter. The fact is I never saw Lucy until my wife and daughter walked in the door with her.

Let’s talk about what I like to refer to as “the real dog” for a moment. When we got our German Shepherd Max, the world’s greatest dog, we got him at a breeder. He is a pure bred long-haired German Shepherd. And he’s a German German Shepherd. He was actually imported from Germany, and because of that has more frequent flyer miles on Lufthansa than I do. He responds to commands in German. And when people hear us give him a command, they all ask the same question: “Does he speak German?”

It never gets old.

Since my wife and I are both working, we ponied up the money to have Max trained by the breeder before we brought him home. We figured the smart play was to make sure we didn't have a dog that big that we couldn't control. For six weeks, we drove out to the breeder in Corona on the weekends to work with him.

On the seventh weekend, we brought him home.

The reason I'm explaining what we did with Max is because we're not doing it with Lucy. She's a mutt, with some terrier in her blood. My daughter's friend's dog had puppies, and that's where she came from. No fancy kennels. No imports. No breeders. We're training her ourselves.

And while I'm perfectly capable, it is exhausting in a way I haven't felt in a long time.

Puppies like to sleep for a few hours at a time, then run around like Tasmanian devils for short bursts in between naps. And they have to be watched as they're spinning out of control, to make sure they don't hurt themselves or anyone else. Or break something. Or get so excited they have to express it in the only way they know how. Peeing in the house.

Then there's the part about teething. What you don't notice at first glance - because you're so taken by how cute Lucy is -are the three rows of puppy shark teeth. Fortunately, once she bites that fleshy part of your hand between your thumb and index finger, you never forget.

Everything is a game to Lucy. When she's out in the back yard and done doing her business, my idea is to get her back inside. In her mind, the chase is on. She makes sure I have to chase her all over the yard and work up a good sweat before she decides to go back in the house. This is especially pleasant on mornings when I have to get to work.

The good news is now she's better about sleeping in her crate, and at least she doesn't decide to cry like she's being murdered until about five in the morning.

I was spoiled by Max, the world's greatest dog. And I'll be the first to admit I'm not so good or patient with the puppy stuff.

Even though she'll only weigh about a third of what Max does, and be less than half his height when she's fully grown, I'm hoping I'll grow to love her as much as I do my big old German Shepherd.

For right now, my favorite part is when she doesn't do what she's supposed to, and I get to say "Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do."

Paper trail

My pal Rich Siegel over at Round Seventeen put up a post today that got me thinking, nostalgically, about the non-advertising jobs I’ve had.

It’s a long list.

I won't take you through them all, although delivery boy for Leo's Flowers and driver for Bob Hope's best friend did have their post-worthy moments. Another time.

For today, under the heading of “What were you thinking?!” jobs, one of my first was a paperboy for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. If that name isn't familiar, it's because the Herald doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for a long time. It was a great newspaper, from a bygone time when L.A. was a two paper town.

I’d get the papers tossed off the truck in bundles in front of my house. Then I'd have to fold and rubber band them, put them in the giant canvas bags that hung and swung from the towering handlebars of my Schwinn Stingray, and try not to lose my balance as I went wobbling on wheels down the street delivering them.

The only thing worse than the daily paper was the Sunday Herald. Thick, filled with crappy ads someone wrote (who would want that job?), hard to fold and heavy to throw, I figured out early on why Sunday mornings were a time for prayer.

In all modesty, I have to say I did develop into a pretty good pitcher, chucking those papers dead center on to the Welcome mats of subscribers homes I rode past. If major league baseball had been scouting paperboys, things might've been different.

Back then, the way I got paid was to go and get it. There were no credit payments, PayPal or online payments. At the end of each month, I’d go door-to-door, my receipt book in hand, and try to collect payment for the month of papers my subscribers had already received.

See if you can figure out how many ways this was a bad idea.

Child knocking on doors at dinnertime? Child carrying money on him? Child arguing with adults about getting paid? Adults swearing at child about paying for the paper? Suffice it to say that even though I was making some change, the end of the month was not something I looked forward to.

Like the papers, the job eventually folded (see what I did there?). But I learned a lot about myself, a great lesson on how I felt about starting the day early, working hard and getting the job done.

It's a lesson I remember each and every day. When I get in at 10.

Pillow talk

I hope you people appreciate the risk I'm taking showing you an actual picture of our bed without the wife's knowledge or permission. If by some off chance she was actually okay with it, I'm sure at the very least she'd want it in pristine shape, and made so tight you could bounce a dime off it.

You know, the way I make it every day.

At least she'll be happy I cropped the shot so you can't see the rest of the room, which is appropriate given the topic at hand. That topic is pillows. Lots and lots of pillows.

I'm not quite sure when it became au courant to have a ridiculous number of pillows on the bed, but it's been going on for a long while now. At some point, the mere act of hopping into bed turned into a downey, feather filled archeological dig to find the mattress.

In case you can't quite tell, we have nine pillows on the bed. For actual sleeping there are two king size and three medium pillows. For decoration there are two large and two small square pillows. This means every night four pillows have to come off the bed, and every morning they have to go back on.

When I was growing up, I had two small, plain pillows covered in low thread count pillowcases. They were extremely malleable, and I could pretty much scrunch them into any comfortable position I wanted.

What I didn't have was an actual bed. We lived in apartments all my life, which meant even though I was an only child and should've had the big room, I usually had the small one. To make sure I could actually walk between the end of the bed and the wall, most of my formative years I slept on a Riviera Convertible Sofa.

I think a lifetime of lower back problems is a small price to pay for a little more room in a little room.

Anyway, I wish going to bed was just a little easier. Yes I realize that moving a few pillows off the bed isn't exactly lifting rocks. I also know it isn't really a big deal in the larger quilt of life (see what I did there?).

I think the lesson here is next time I think about writing a post about something so trivial, I'll stop and sleep on it. If I can find the bed.

A post to relish

For me, one of the great joys in life, besides air conditioning and Mexican Coke in the large bottles, is having a movie theater hot dog.

Now however bad you think regular hot dogs are - and they are very bad - movie hot dogs are even lower on the hot dog food chain.

If you google what's in a hot dog, you'll see a lot of extremely unappetizing words like beef trimmings, extruding, flavor additives. And my favorite, non-food particles.

None of that matters much when I'm shelling out $4.75 for a movie hot dog. However bad it is, I usually smother it with mustard and relish anyway.

But lately I've noticed a disturbing trend. The big chains like AMC and Edwards have switched from the Heinz brand name condiments to these generic ones, imaginatively named Sweet Relish and Yellow Mustard. This is a bad thing. Mainly because the only thing of quality on a movie hot dog were the condiments.

I understand it's a cost-cutting measure for the theaters. One cost they're not cutting - and I know you'll be as shocked as I am - is the price of the hot dog. For that price, I want the brand name goods to smother the meat batter (another term you'll see) flavor that's waiting in the bun.

I think it's time to start a movement. And not just the one you have after eating a movie hot dog. I think it's time to rise up, not go gently into that good night, well, dark theater, without letting the 16-year old theater manager know that if you're going to pay 400 times what the hot dog cost them, at least you want quality toppings for it.

I was also thinking cardboard would be a step up from the usual movie theater hot dog bun. Don't get me started.

Close to home

I'd much prefer this were one of my usual sarcastic, snarky posts with a snappy end line. We'd all have a good laugh, then get on with our day.

Sadly, not this time out.

Last week, a school friend of my son's committed suicide. He was only four months older. They were in a rock band together for awhile.

This young man had been somewhat of an outsider. He wound up leaving my son's school and going to a performing arts school three and a half years ago for various reasons, one of which is he was an extremely talented musician. Everyone at school, his bandmates as well as several professional musicians respected and envied what he could do on the guitar. His guitar teacher called him the next Jimmi Page or Joe Satriani.

It was a road filled with promise and wide open to him.

When we got the call and told our kids, they were both understandably in shock, as were we. My son said it's the first person he's known who's ever killed himself. I hope he never knows any others. He asked me if I've ever known anyone who's taken their own life. I've known two - a creative director and an actress. But I only knew them in passing, and would never say I was close to them (which of course doesn't make it any less tragic).

My wife and son went to the funeral last week. And while this is the part where normally I'd crack wise about putting the fun back in funeral, there's nothing funny about it. According to my boy, it was extraordinarily sad. Both the funeral and the reception were uncomfortably silent. You couldn't mention what had happened, and you couldn't not, so no one said anything. It was a silence you could feel.

I can only imagine that in the aftermath his parents pain is more than anyone should have to bear. The details don't matter. What's important is a talented young man, who's life had barely gotten started, was in so much pain he thought taking his own life was the only way to make it stop.

I don't have any wisdom or insight here. All I have are the truisms we all recite by rote and take for granted, until something like this happens.

Pay attention. Watch for signs. Love and hug your kids. Let them know the lines of communication are open whenever they want to talk. Make sure they understand no subject is off the table.

And let them know as unfair as it is, they'll have to live with the fact that sometimes there's no answer for why.