Forward to Glory Page 4

I, your host, Jonny Cide Hamete Benengeli, welcome you to this, the first of two generous intermissions. I hope you’re enjoying the show!

  [Energetic applause]

  Let’s get to know each other! Why the hell not?

  Because you see, at the beginning of tonight’s Roadshow Presentation, I didn’t really get a chance to even try. So now, let’s give it a whirl. This is as good a time as any, in as good a place as any. Let me tell you that, right now.

  There was quite a bit of tenseness – absolutely exciting – in this entire auditorium the last time we spoke together. Lots of big expectations about the presentation to come. But you know something? We’ve come a helluva long way so far, wouldn’t you say?

  With total friendliness, I have to give you a tad bit of a warning. It’s, uh, very simple. We have, in this great room, a ways to go yet. So I’m glad you’re getting up, stretching, probing, exploring, making love, taking deep breaths – perhaps from the mushroom domes of aero-circulation beneath many a seat in this establishment. For what is life if it is not to be found in the very air we inhale?

  If ye who sit at the Crush Bar way up there on the second mezzanine can hear and understand and believe me – and I daresay, I think you can! – it will become apparent what the importance of this night’s show really is. It is to spread your mind’s entertainment quota to new heights and lengths, and there should be no doubt in your one big mind, what the value of it all is!

  So.

  So: Intermission the First!

  [Sparse applause; general milling and ‘neutral’ time for fifteen minutes; then:]

  I present myself to you in a new glitter suit, a conspicuous costume change, in order to face a new era, and a new act! Consider it a new day, a new year, a new epoch – which is, in fact, bigger by far, than a mere era!

  Next: May I pleasure-present Zvitov Rostavlaslav on the Mighty Wurlitzer! This legendary maestro is personally here, in person, straight from Dneprodzerzhinsk! He will employ all five keyboards like no other, and there will be such a color symphony in every corner, slab wall, fire escape terrace, and nook in this great house, that it will all seem as a great galaxy of harmony and tone, surrounding you!

  [Easygoing audience approval]

  He plays! Improvisations and variations and incantations! All over the place!

  Well, what do you know?! And I cannot imagine a better background to spread the thoughts of a reverie around. Listen now – come, come now, listen! Moodiness! A sinfonia dramatica! Contemplative, too! An intermezzo, for we have much to think about as far as what we have seen so far tonight. These tones! Widor could have thought them all up! Dupré might have recorded the whole thing! But we cannot pause too long, for, as in the daily parade of life, if we grow too introspective, we cannot progress with the panoply of our living moments, via minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day, year after year.

  That’s why we want you to become transported here. In a single night, long though it may be!

  [Comfortable audience response]

  But let me tell you…

  In entertainment, which encompasses the marriage of Drama with our own Industry, you are joined, completed, by the skillful mix. You cannot understand one without the other.

  I tell you, I believe in ballyhoo. It brings you from where you usually are to where we are now: on the threshold of greatness! Who of you out there are not keenly aware of what awaits? Surely, from what you have seen and heard so far tonight, and what you are hearing and seeing right now, surely the incentive of anticipation is running hot in your veins!

  [Polite applause]

  Projectors are grinding. Black film is running. You can always tell, when you see a few specks appear here and there on the drape that stands before you, like a grand palisade! A trade secret! Looks pretty clean though; brand new print; in 70mm, remember.

  Your Wurlitzer, nearing its climax, plays enthrallingly, heightening our passions yet more. Do I see some glistening faces out there? Don’t be ashamed to bawl! If not, because of the soulful notes cast out of yon pipe vents, then might you experience raw emotions from recalling some of the First Act’s more poignant sequences, perhaps?

  Now! That wonderful anticipation is back!

  Coming up: more motion picture splendor-excitement!

  [Intermezzo gives way to a further intermezzo, for fifteen minutes]

  Rest for yet a few moments more, before ‘Come! Take up your labors again. We have some way to voyage yet, this night!’

  Me? Like I told you before, I tend to like all kinds of pictures, but they better be pretty interesting. I can get mighty sick of a whole bunch of boring gobbledygook, which makes me impatient, and my ass gets saddle-sore. You know? Let’s take a poll: anyone else out there who feels this way? Sore, I mean? Because, Hollywood’s brightest do not! I thought so! But let’s see what we’ve got coming up. It can’t all be tedious.

  I guess not! Listen!

  A thundering of drums. Let them take you along. A huge gesture of presentation by the host, and then a special-effect comet rises from his hand, and its fiery tail leads in an upward arc across the expanse of the Grand Drape! More than you can thrill to, in private moments! I proclaim: you cannot feel the heights of the Drama higher than you have here, now – and ahead of you!

  But uh. I, uh, notice that we have an absolutely packed house. Typical of Sid Grauman! Right Sid? Up there in the far-away, in his private box! Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Sid Grauman! Take a bow, Sid!

  [Huge applause and adulation]

  Well, that’s great. And another thing, because it’s SRO here, that means that nobody’s walked out. If anything, they’re continuing to press in. Everyone knows this is a night of legend! And I don’t blame anyone. What compels us? Is it the story, or who’s in it, or how it’s done?

  I just have to say that, uh, there are so many celebrities and Industry biggies here that when I mention Sid’s name, that’s just starting in the middle of ‘S’, and we could go forward and backward in the alphabet, making everybody stand up in turn! But what the hell? Sid’s presenting this clambake, and I’m your host, so what do you want, anyway?

  [Stormy applause]

  You know, in Merrie Olde Britain they call an Intermission an Interval. Pearl and Dean then blare their ads in metallic color, and you can see some terrific ads ’n’ offers from both international groove-thangs as well as for local items. But we’re not going to do that sort of thing here tonight. This is Hollywood, and this is a BIG production. There’s just no way around it.

  I tell ya, it’s great to see a whole big bunch of you strolling the aisles, getting beverages and other refreshments. Some of you are just promenading and noting the beautiful and artistic aspects of this mammoth and wondrous picture show palace. Certainly, all of you out there in Plush, Folding-Seat Land have been moved in some way by our progress tonight. I believe we are as one mind, come together, and in that way, we shall go forward!

  [Approving cheers]

  The cymbals crash! The gong sounds! Them’s the cue for the Entr’acte! It is a mighty song! A battleship of a song! Forging ahead in great waves. I’ll not try to compete with it anymore, so while I step aside, gird yourselves for a vast realm of new drama – unlike anything you have seen before. Marvel at its power! And take with you the unforgettable spectrum of life itself! We who live in the Drama and work in the Industry cannot help but spread the majesty of it over all, as if to share the glories of the universe in well-produced doses, so that all may come together in enjoyment under the same truss, which supports the huge dome above. Before this picture resumes, look up! And see, way up there, the expansion of the multitudes of universal communication and focus!

  [Appropriate applause]

  I yield – and what’s more – with joy!

  Vale!

  1.

  Big Man On Campus

  Out of the obscurity of the underbrush, emerging from behind low-hanging boughs, he came, palms spread out in acceptance, head lowered, then ra
ised slightly. It was morning, and opportunities were at hand.

  Not that they were in abundance, though. Being back in the cinema metropolis was a sort of… nothing.

  The grass was green, the afternoon gentle, with an absence of anything speaking of modern neuroses. Butterbugs strode out into the open, which happened to be the grounds of the University of California at Los Angeles, with some aplomb.

  For about a minute.

  There was nothing else for it but to find the nearest loo. Remarkable, how few of the homeless seem to take advantage of Academia’s rather easygoing resources. True, your classic derelict tends to stand out. But Butterbugs was at least hip enough to fit into the appropriate demographics of UCLA’s masses. He even blended in.

  Almost.

  After the shocking business of enacting a street person’s functions at a hard-won facility, he sank upon the rear verandah of Schönberg Hall in exhaustion. He nearly fell down the Janss Steps, but managed to sprawl onto the grassy slope nearby. In between blocks of troubled dozing, he stole glances at cute coeds and husky jocks doing their thing on campus.

  ‘I am a stranger here,’ he thought, neither for the first nor the last time.

  Yet, physically anyway, he was one of them. In mind also – at least theoretically. Depleted, yes, but he could compete! He could! How perfectly he might fit in amongst them, like a lyrical stanza! All he needed was a pat-pat here, a rub-rub there and a trio of clip-clip-clips. Then he’d be in the front of the line, to stand with the rest and the best of them.

  Not bad for an out-back kid whose first exposure to highest-ed this was.

  No complications, just a streak of hope in the sky of existential reality, perchance to be on the football team or even in the Dramatic Society. They were both performance-oriented endeavors. What’s the difference? What? Well, in Drama he would be able to convey the prospects of his mind, beyond the simplistic display of physicality. So be it, then. If he thought of the latter first, the latter it was. Sport there would always be. Dramatic expression was another matter. Perhaps the opportunity should be grasped, before he forgot what it was he wanted to express. The important thing about emerging at this scholarly Southland ground was that some semblance of thinking was returning to that buzzing and shorting brain of his.

  He’d felt the same kinship from the ambience of Westwood Village nearby. But he hadn’t quite been able to shake the notion that having his name up on the marquee of the Bruin theatre would be preferable to fitting in with the everyday student princes and princesses, many of whom filed past in the noontide haze of the campus.

  One thing that set him off about this plain of academia: it was anesthetizing. It set him apart from the dogged immediacy of his world of goal-seeking. Universities are well set up for either preparing for the future – or avoiding it. The latter appealed to him most handily at this point in time. How it seduced him, even in his vagrant state!

  Here was normalcy: reliable, safe, secure. The wholesomeness of the girls cheered him – Sandra Dee, Preeti Chunder, Pamela Tiffin, Laurie Mock, Diahann Carroll, Mimsy Farmer were such as they… Oh, and Debbie Watson, too.

  (This was probably a great place to meet some gals!)

  A bunch of borax but basically unobjectionable lettermen were on hand to greet them. Surely, everyone would then go out for malteds. The robust company of several swell fellows was a notion not entirely objectionable to Butterbugs. However, the reality of such companionship was nearly as foreign to him as that of a fresh and dear girlfriend, majoring, say, in puppet theatre, with a paper on the interrelationships betwixt Judy and Punch half-finished on her Underwood, due day after tomorrow, and awaiting his benevolent rescue. The mere thought of studying for a test with such a soulmate nearly brought tears to his dehydrated eyes.

  And in the mellowing light, he looked after these all-American groups with some degree of longing as they made their jaunty ways to and fro in this special tract of intellectual arcadia.

  Sweet, very sweet!

  If he were not quite qualified for membership in such brackets, what else but to stand on merits both arresting and oddball? After all, were the Young not unopposed to alternative possibilities of attraction and community? Was this very environment, that so cradled his presence, not conducive to an awakening of self-awarenesses that were no longer self-critical?

  Look about, and marvel! Visual prospects – so genteel, pastoral, and eminently civilized. Painterly, as well. Brick and stone, piled high for Intellect’s diffusion in both hall and salon. Claude Lorraine might have found inspiration here! Richard Wilson could have captured its classic essence, Corot, its lyricism!

  A bell clanged the quarter-hour in a distant campanile. The vast Hispano-Italianate palazzos of learning seemed entirely at ease in the Californian sun. Wholly faithful to their mediæval heritage, the reliability they projected was nothing short of protean. No quake of the earth would ever disturb the humblest coping-stone. Figures of consequence moved from citadel to citadel. Two dons gently debated Kant on the flagged walk, ponytails of pipe smoke twirling behind them. A porter wheeling a trolley of theses, on their way to some archive, paused to take refreshment, and drew one up to read for a moment, becoming so engrossed that an attendant rushed by and urged him onward, with goodnatured cheer. A bookish redhead simply paused in her stride, and addressed the heavens: ‘Joy in the morning! Love in the afternoon!’, clasped her hands, saw her beau emerge from Haggéd Hall, then skipped on air, all the way over to meet his wholesome embrace.

  For once, Butterbugs was not outside any window, gazing in at such goodness. Here he was, in the midst of its actuality, free to act. Granted, his appearance was… pictorial. Muted external garments of no identifiable label. Footwear best hidden. A rangy and unattached bearing. His longish hair was greasy as it hung behind his head. He reclined in Roman lounge position, beneath the venerable Lebanese cedar, within the watchful eyes of Royce Hall’s haunting arches. Discourse in session, elbow in the organics of lightly-strewn garden rubbish, legs crossed in relative comfort. Selected subjects: what a different sort of world he saw himself in now; the scholar gypsy, suspect in appearance perhaps, but astute in recitation, with a slim volume of verse at the ready, more aware than anyone hereabouts in appreciating the æsthetics of living in the moment. Here, in this sublime clime, near these twin campaniles – a possible paradise.

  Such a review was entirely couched in the precepts of Drama, and how they relate to an audience. If only a clutch of gregarious professors from that very department would chance to perch just nigh and, in collegiality, consider the stranger’s thoughts on the behavioral Art they themselves professed in yon classrooms and bare stages! If only! Aye, then he might be off and running, aided and abetted by Academia’s ivory-towered influences upon Mammon-based enterprises.

  Roles. He could have his pick. Leads? Always! What was on this particular quarter’s theatrical docket, anyway? From ‘Our Town’ to ‘The Miser’, it scarcely mattered. Well, if the profs demurred at engaging his mind, why not speak of personality, magnetism, charisma – all necessities in dramatic pursuits? For starters, all that was needed was the ladies mentioned above, sitting with side-saddle poses at his feet, ready to indulge dangerous words from the strange new outsider.

  Oh yes, he cruised through such musings with delight reborn.

  Alas, the reality was a good deal tawdrier. He was indeed regarded as ‘dangerous’, but without any romance.

  ‘See to move along…’ warned a frowning gardener, significantly Hispanic. What an ironic twist from the oafish regard given him by cruising Anglos while he wore his long-lost Chavez hat outside the 20th-Fox studios, while crossing Pico that time…

  So he moved, towards a bunch of latter-day pop-ups, probably dormitories.

  Just at hand was Jugg Hall, the type of anonymous hostel raised in brutalist concrete back in the early ’70s – where one could be faceless and fit in.

  A sandwich sign read:

  WHO, YOU?

>   YES, YOU!

  IF YOU PLAN TO REGISTER FOR NEXT QUARTER, YOU CAN MOVE INTO YOUR DORM ROOM NOW!

  NOW!

  DO YOU HEAR?

  NOW!!!

  NO QUESTIONS ASKED – NO TOKENS GRANTED

  FROM BRUIN TO BRUIN:

  THAT’S WHAT BRUINS ARE FOR!

  FIAT LUX, BABY!

  GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!

  SO GO AHEAD – BE A JUGGHEAD!!!

  Far from his own DeSoto Hall right now, and pretty much lacking most reserves and resources to keep himself going, be they unexplainable or just plain fictional, a rickety scheme suddenly entered the mind of Butterbugs. To pose, to lodge, to thus entertain thoughts of an avenue to the stars, via the under-known pathway of this here Academe. Why not?

  Based on the utterly bizarre tack he had been on for the past indeterminate time span, his demi-sneaky plan represented a kind of progress. Besides, his recall of past ‘accomplishments’ did not seem to occupy front-rank memory as reference points by which to plot his way forward. So today’s scheme seemed novel and unencumbered by any remembered baggage.

  Butterbugs, aspiring actor, was of course not known for being skillful at sneakiness. Indeed, he had sneaked into mansions, squirreled into people’s bathtubs, and tried to pick up chicks by freaking them out, all with no degree of finesse. At least in this case, there was a sandwich sign that virtually insisted that he become a Jugghead, ‘no questions asked’…

  Into a specimen dorm room: basic drywall box, milk-bottle lights, $25 microwave, long line of louver-windows high up, and all the rest. Now a temp laptop office, where sat a grad student ready to sign up dormy filler for credit.

  ‘And how are ya, today?’ asked the nondescript fellow. ‘Hi! Yeah, hi! I’m Neal! Here to sign up? Your room’s waiting for you! Looks just like this; not bad, huh? Cinderblocks and boards, right? Heh heh. So why not just go the IKEA route? I ask you! Unpack yer flat-packs, assemble yer ‘interior world’, then kick back ’n’ goof yer way thru the quarter, all for pennies a serving! It’s fun to be a Jugghead today, doncha know!’