Works of Lars Eighner at Lars Eighner's Homepage

Six year ago I camped four blocks north of Hollywood Boulevard with my dog Lizbeth. We were homeless and we would remain homeless for more than three years, but I still thought I was merely between engagements. Every day I buzzed the apartment of a porn producer who had asked me to write a script. After several days I realize that the producer would never again be home when I buzzed.

For Lizbeth and me things got worse before they got better, but they got better, and then, quite a bit better. My book about our experiences was very well received, and if it did not set me up for life, it established my career in letters.

When Esquire called, Lizbeth and I had just moved into a large house on double lot in a fashionable old neighborhood of Austin, Texas. The truth to tell, I was rather looking forward to spending a few quiet days in my new home.

But Esquire's idea was to send me to the post-Oscar parties, if not the Oscar ceremony itself, and the chance of comparing Hollywood on its most coruscant night with my experiences as a homeless person was difficult to resist. The figure Esquire mention made resistance impossible—-the new home, after all, needed furnishing.

I told Esquire I had not seen any of the nominated pictures. That, I discovered, was not accurate. I had been studying film noir for a motion picture project, and on one of my trips to the video store I had picked up Cliffhanger, which was already in video release, for a little relief from the intensity of so much black-and-white. Cliffhanger was nominated for visual effects, a fact I soon discovered. In spite of Esquire's assurances that my naïf impressions were wanted, I bought forty-dollars worth of fan magazines, two packs of index cards, and some rubber cement. I spent a day and two nights making little flash cards for myself, one side with short captions like "Live action short" or clipped photographs, the other side with answers like "best actress nominee The Piano, best supporting actress nominee The Firm, won Emmy as cheerleader mom." Then I gave up. Almost all the photographs were stills from the motion pictures. If the photograph was black-and-white, I knew the picture was Schindler's List. One still of Anna Paquin occurred in several of the celebrity magazines. In it she looks angelic, of course, but the angle on her bonnet made a halo of it and the result was like a detail of an illuminated manuscript. I would never learn to recognize these people without the cues of costume and make-up—-indeed, I had never seen a picture of best-supporting actor winner Tommy Lee Jones without his hair, as he was when claimed his prize. And if I did learn who these people were, I could never be made to care.

I do not mean to say that I am out of sympathy with motion pictures. Owing to my circumstances I have not seen many motion pictures, but I am not a critical viewer and I invariably enjoy the ones I do see. The reason I will never care who actors are, in spite of enjoying their work, is just that I have never confused the artist with the work. I do not have a little Lucy Ricardo in me to giggle and to squeal at the merest whiff of celebrity.

Now that I have had a smattering of fame from my literary work, I must admit I am even more mystified by those with active Lucy Ricardo glands. I understand that people admire what they perceive to be success in others, and that people can be attracted to the wealth of a wealthy celebrity or to the good looks of a good-looking celebrity. But I am mystified when I am confronted by a gushing fan who seems ever so much more attractive than me and better off as well. If I do not care who celebrities are, I would give worlds to know the answer to that other question: What is it that fans want?

At least I would not have a problem with my own celebrity in Hollywood. A publicist had told me that my book could not compete with all the other publicity in California. Oh, there were several nice little notices, but nothing like the exposure the book and I got on the East Coast. In California, I had the anonymity I thought I had wanted since my book was released. But Oscar night was the worst time to be anonymous and I had to rely on Esquire's cachet to provide my entrée.

My first night in Southern California did not go well. I had barely made my connection in Dallas; I could not expect that my luggage would make it too. I had known better, of course, than to check luggage, but on account of the tux I felt I had no choice.

I never wore a tux before. I had not married nor buried, and although I put on a sports jacket and said I was going to my senior prom, I actually went somewhere I thought would be more entertaining.

Having committed myself to checking luggage, I had packed everything in the bag, and thus arrived at my hotel without a shaving kit or a change of underwear. The hotel was a very deliberately splendid hotel indeed. It had the essentials: plenty of towels and hot water—-and quiet, for the place most resembled a mausoleum. But it was in Westwood, twenty-five dollars by taxi from anywhere I wanted to be, and the concierge could not find me a telephone directory that reached Hollywood or central Los Angeles.

After some three hours the airline called. They had located my bag, it was in Southern California, and they had dispatched it with the other luggage—-for everyone else who had made the same connection had missed luggage—-and the bag would arrive in an hour or two. I left the hotel to find a cash machine. The hotel had deplete my cash supply by three hundred dollars as a deposit against any charge I might incur, as if I might order coffee and a sweet roll from room service for nearly twenty dollars including a mandatory fee called, ironically enough, a "gratuity" which would be seventeen percent of the tab, up two points from what was customary when I had last lived civilized. I wanted substantial cash in case a scalper with a ticket to the Oscar ceremonies was found, for I suspected a scalper would not take my check.

I found a bank machine at a respectable-looking bank on Wilshire and it promptly short-changed me twenty dollars. The sum of these things left me unfavorably disposed.

I decided to reconnoiter my old haunts in spite of the expense of a taxi. But because on previous visits to Los Angeles I had been destitute I had never learned the impossibility of hailing a cab there. I roused a driver who was sleeping down the block from the hotel. The driving of Los Angeles taxis is breathtaking, although New York cabbies might do as much, if only they had the same room to work.

I abandoned for the night my review of places I had camped and went instead to a bar in West Hollywood for cocktails. These went right to my head because I had eaten nothing all day except what the airline had called lunch. The cabby who returned me to my hotel tried to take me to Santa Monica where was, I gathered, a restaurant with a name similar to that of my hotel. When I regained my room at last I found my luggage behind a sliding mirrored panel. I hung up the tux, and soon fell asleep.

The following morning I recalled that the RTD had a very efficient computerized system that would provided any caller with an itinerary quickly. The directory that was in my room covered the new area code that had sprung up since my last visit to Los Angeles, and sure enough, the RTD was listed in it. I was soon on a number four bus, headed for Hollywood, and very reassured by the presence of the Hollywood crazy lady, who rides the buses and keeps up a constant patter of obscenities having mostly to do with anal intercourse.

But she was nearly the only aspect of Hollywood that seemed unchanged. The fire zone, where I had camped with Lizbeth and where the Hollywood Boulevard hustlers had their digs in a little stone building, had been walled off at last, or at least I could not find any remaining public entrance. The homeless people I saw were, as a group, older and whiter than those I remembered in similar areas. Many more were white men with white beards, and almost all of them seemed to be loners.

Southern California's career and my own have gone in opposite directions for several years, and my perspective has changed. But some of the changes were not attributable to perspective. Whole blocks of the seedier parts of Hollywood were gone, razed, vanished. Parts of Hollywood I had known best had contained many dingy shops and dubious enterprises, but not so many vacancies as I saw now. Now whole blocks were occupied with vacant buildings and empty store fronts, and this was so even in fashionable Westwood, although I could not be sure of a comparison because I had never been to Westwood before. When I consulted real estate listings, rents seemed nearly reasonable and a number of offerings seemed bargains. I now pay more rent in Austin than I ever thought a modest person could conscience, but that one can live more cheaply in Los Angeles seems quite out of the natural order of things.

I turned back toward my hotel, planning to try on my tux and to worry about my assignment. I wondered what had gone wrong. Of course Southern California is overpopulated, and in my absence the proportion of people from ethnic groups I could not identify had increased, as if everyone in the world except Southern Californians want to live there. And I want to live there too. On a sunny Sunday morning in spring, it does seem to me to be paradise—and that was precisely my thought as I walked from the bus stop on Wilshire, by a tall building, the ground floor of which greets the sidewalk with enormous glass panels. The glass panels began to rattle. The shock waves are like those a few feet away from a high-speed automobile collision, except that the collisions are all around you and they keep happening. The sidewalk shifted under my feet.

I never minded the little earthquakes I experienced, and I did not mind this one. It seemed very minor and to last no more than five seconds. People came shouting and screaming out of the stores and onto the streets. In spite of myself, I was caught up in their panic. I stepped off the curb and into the street until I had reassured myself that the glass panels and the graveled façade of the higher parts of the building were intact. In the few blocks that remained of my walk to the hotel I overheard people in two different groups remark that it was time to move back to Chicago.

My room was on the tenth floor of the hotel. Perhaps my bravado in the face of minor earthquakes is only that all I have experienced occurred when I was on the ground or near it. I studied an irregularity in the hotel room's wall. Probably it was only an error in the taping and floating of the drywall joint. But I could not help asking myself whether it had been there the night before. According to the local news, the quake was an aftershock of the big one, and the strongest one since the day of the big one. Two fires were attributed to this aftershock and a home, abandoned after the big quake, had slid farther down a hillside and posed a threat to occupied houses below. I had not perceived the quake as so strong, but the perception of earthquakes depends on the particulars of the ground under one's feet; distance form the epicenter is not always the major factor.

I received a telephone call. Esquire had found a nominee who agreed to show me around to some of the parties and to try to find a ticket to the ceremony itself. I called the nominee. We agreed I should continue to secure my own entry to as many of the parties as I could. His entourage was growing by the moment and he was unsure how far he might stretch his invitations.

I tried on my tux. I do not know the difference between a tuxedo and an evening jacket—and I told Esquire that. But I gathered that I had been properly equipped by the rental store, except that I had no idea what to do with the collar. Something seemed wrong with every theory I proposed to myself. No matter what I did it just did not seem right. The hotel room was equipped with several guides to fine dining, and I looked through these for a model. Unfortunately, the theme of these publications was that this is Southern California and that you are on vacation, and all of the gentlemen diners in even the most elegant appearing restaurants were wearing knit shirts and shorts or something even less formal. The only formal wear I saw was worn by maître d's. And I was not so sure I should model myself on a maître d'.

Thenceforth in spare moments I flipped through the cable channels on the large-screen TV in the living room or the small TV in the bedroom, looking for pre-Oscar hoopla, to gain some insight into the collar mystery and to decide whether to wear the studs and cuff links that had fallen out of the tux when I unpacked it.

Monday morning I was up too early. I rise early when I travel, but I had hoped to sleep late and nap through much of the day so as to be alert for the events of the evening and able to make my flight to Dallas Tuesday morning. I do not know if I shall ever have enough money to feel that I can allow myself room service. In the event, I crept out of the hotel as if I were a thief and made for a McDonald's.

The gentleman who entered the McDonald's ahead of me was very young, with blond hair in a ponytail, a ring through his nose, and suede pants and boots. It was very clear he had slept in his clothes and this finding was confirmed in that he panhandled the price of a cup of coffee from a seated customer who remarked that he resembled some member of the band Arrowsmith. The young man insisted on having enough of the little containers of the cream that McDonald's serves to have filled half the volume of his cup and he helped himself to a great fistful of sugar envelopes. Rather than squirrel these items away, he piled them up on the little desk that McDonald's provides for single diners, and emptied them into his coffee between sips so that the last of his beverage was hardly more than the cream-like stuff and sugar. Before he left, he asked for the key to the men's room, a thing he was entitled to do since he had bought something.

Where you find the rest rooms at the McDonald's locked, you may be sure that all other local merchant's perceive the homeless as a serious problem.

When I left the McDonald's I returned to my hotel by a different route and found the young man, with three or four others of similar age, camped in the entry way of an empty storefront. I did not doubt they had passed the night there, and as the entry was deep enough that none of them would have been lying in the sidewalk, perhaps they had spent many nights there or in any of the entries to the many other vacant stores.

I watched pre-Oscar hoopla on the large screen TV until I heard from Esquire. To judge by the scenes from previous Academy Awards shows, some men wore the studs and some did not, and only a few had found a very satisfactory way of dealing with the collar. Esquire had arranged my admission to the AIDS Health Care Foundation Benefit at the Directors' Guild and the El Rescate party at the Mondrian hotel, which was touted to be the party for the young and hip. I had garnered for myself an invitation to a party for a nominee in the short documentary category. As I worried about invitations I never realized that weeks before I had declined an invitation to the only Oscar-day party I was entitled to attend in my own right, indeed a party at which I would have been among the guests of honor: the new members reception at PEN West.

I ducked out of the hotel again for lunch and to try my luck at the cash machines. Since I had been shorted at the cash machine on Wilshire, I had tried several cash machines in Los Angeles and West Hollywood. One in West Hollywood had replied that my balance was insufficient. I thought that was not so, but I wondered if the machine on Wilshire had done worse to me than short me. I found a more agreeable machine in the student area. It admitted that I had the balance I thought, but when I tried to get cash, it replied like the fortune-telling Mystical Eight-ball, "Try again later." I supposed things would clear up when the banking day was sufficiently advanced in Austin, and I was right.

Near the agreeable cash machine, but not so near as to seem threatening, was the regular corner of an Afro-American panhandler. At any rate, I had seen him on previous fruitless visits to the machine. His approach was merely the plea, "Help the old. Give to the old." No doubt that worked as well as anything on the college students, but I thought it showed a lack of discrimination when directed at me, for the panhandler should have perceived that I would see he was no older than I.

Still, for the young men camped in the entry way and this panhandler, I did not see such a mass of the homeless as might have led to fast-food restaurants locking their rest rooms. But it was spring break at UCLA and possibly the masses of the homeless knew that it would be slim pickings for the week and had moved elsewhere, as I had done in Austin when the University of Texas took its breaks.

The nominee who had agreed to cooperate with our project called when I was back at the hotel. He had located a ticket to the ceremony, but the price was considerably beyond the budget. Getting into the ceremony itself had never been one of my priorities. I felt I would really have a better view of things on television at one of the parties.

The problem was that there was no consensus on which party would be THE party. As I had learned from the fan magazines, and as everyone I inquired of retold it, THE party for the previous nine years had been Swifty Lazar's at Spago's. But Mr. Lazar had passed away and Spago's was dark in his honor. There is no over-estimating the herd instinct of Hollywood, but if the herd were certain of where to go much beforehand, I was unable to determine it. The nominee and I agreed to meet at the El Rescate party at eleven.

The local channels were an hour into their coverage of the arrivals at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion when I began to don the tux. Damn that collar!

I supposed I would recover from the indignity of arriving at the Director's Guild in a taxi, but I had been so certain that every limo in town was booked that I had not bothered to inquire. I engaged the services of the doorman's whistle and then I was off. Or so I thought. Sunset Boulevard is no cinch at five o'clock on any normal day, but on the evening of Oskar's Oscars my cab was soon engulfed in gridlock. To judge by the attire of the people in the other cars, not many of them were traveling to parties—-I assume those going to the ceremony had taken a faster route to downtown Los Angeles—-and few of them seemed to be Lucy Ricardos bent on a glimpse of celebrity. At last the cabby found an opening to a side street and we were on our way with more alacrity than I would really have wished. We sped down to Santa Monica Boulevard, then up San Vincente, and then into a Byzantine of side streets, and at last to Fairfax Avenue and the Directors' Guild.

The problem of my expense account was then aggravated. Of course few cabbies speak English, nor Spanish so far as I could tell, and I could not get them to fill out receipts. They all had receipt forms printed on the back of their business cards, but I am not sure they understood what the receipts were for. They did understand that some riders wanted them. They would happily give me the cards, usually two or three, and I could tell when they considered their gratuity generous, for then they would give me six or seven cards, but they would not scribble the amount or dash a jagged line along the space for their signature. I felt uncomfortable filling in even the honest amount, for this seemed akin to forgery, although I suppose having both an expense account and a conscience is easy for no one.

For being let out on Fairfax, on the blind side of the Director's Guild building, I did not have to be seen stepping from the taxi onto the red carpet. I smoked a cigarette and slyly approached the cordoned path with a studied casualness. The cordons were purely ornamental for there were no throngs of star-struck fans to be restrained.

The one thing I was resolved never to say the whole night was, "Won't you please check again. I'm sure I'm on the list." I had said that once in Hollywood, when I was homeless and an Austin band I knew had invited me to catch their act at Club Lingerie. That much humiliation a person cannot be expected to endure twice in one lifetime.

Yet my name was not on the two-yard-long list at the door. Fortunately I had scribbled on my business card that I was on assignment for Esquire and I was handed off to the media person who professed to know who I was and who gave me a media credential, which—although I am sure it was intended otherwise—I wore as a badge of dishonor ("He who got into an AIDS benefit for free," I imagined it said) and one of those smart little red ribbons such as everyone had worn at the Oscars in previous years—to judge by what I had seen of past ceremonies on the large-screen TV at the hotel—but which were very rare outside of the Directors' Guild this night.

The only celebrity I recognized was Harvey Fierstein who was master of ceremonies at the Directors' Guild (a title symbolically shared with Whoopi Goldberg who said a few words via video tape during the commercial breaks in the ceremony she was hosting live). Of all the celebrities I imagined I might meet that night, the only two I really wanted to meet were Harvey Fierstein and Roger Ebert. I never saw Mr. Ebert. Mr. Fierstein was all over the hall when he was not on stage. He seemed to take off in the opposite direction whenever I drew near. Perhaps that was my imagination, or perhaps it was my yellow media badge. At any rate he was a busy man.

But like me, he was an addicted man. Several times I was rather close to him when by chance we had ducked out for our smokes at the same time. Having had the experience of being accosted by fans during my breaks, I could not bring myself to foist myself on Mr. Fierstein when he was similarly vulnerable. Think what the world would be if reporters and photographers of The National Enquirer were such as I. We would never have any news at all.

The movie celebrities were expected to be in short supply until the ceremonies at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion were concluded. In the meantime we were presented with a variety of lesser lights: local television personalities, a starlet from a network situation comedy, and someone identified by a panhandler who caged a cigarette from me as "that Isuzu guy." One of the pre-celebrities asked Mr. Fierstein on stage if he had a frog in his throat. I suppose this was a straight line, fed to the person by Mr. Fierstein's entourage, for Fierstein replied with a flourish, "That's not a frog—that's a hoarse!"

Later a fan approached Mr. Fierstein to ask whether the croak in his voice were real or were a part of his act. This struck me as quite out of bounds. Wouldn't anyone who knew anything of Mr. Fierstein's career know the answer to that question? And why should anyone think he had the right to ask if he did not know?

The Awards ceremony proceeded without many surprises, perhaps Anna Paquin was one, for the conventional wisdom was she would be denied it because she would have other chances. I was not entirely convinced by her performance as the speechless child wonder, but in this judgement I seem to be in the minority. The obvious effects of Jurassic Park won over the real-looking effects of Cliffhanger; the only question had been whether the obvious effects of The Nightmare Before Christmas ever stood a chance. The real-looking make-up of Schindler's List had only the coattail effect to hope in vain for against the obvious make-up of Mrs. Doubtfire. With this latter award Mr. Fierstein crowed that Mrs. Doubtfire had swept every category for which it was nominated and for sometime thereafter he carried a small broom.

The hometown effect had been overly discounted by the media and so it did seem a surprise when Tom Hanks won for Philadelphia. Even those at the AIDS Health Care Benefit who had criticized Philadelphia for hedging in its portrayal of gay sexuality were immediately on their feet. I do not suppose anywhere in Hollywood that night there was a moment nearer to sincerity than at the Directors' Guild as Tom Hanks spoke his acceptance speech. At any rate, I had to step outside into the darkness to prevent it being noticed that the only handkerchief I had was a blue bandanna.

At the conclusion of the televised ceremonies I gained a bit of insight into the problems of bringing off a benefit. First, as at the El Rescate party later, there came the time to recognize the organizers of the benefit. I cannot think of how this can be done without a deadening effect. El Rescate certainly did no better than the AIDS Health Care Foundation. Yes, these people have worked tirelessly to make the event happen, and yes, recognition is the least they deserve, but …

At the Director's Guild a fairly snappy musical act followed the recognition, but there were further problems. There was not much on the agenda after the music except to wait for celebrities to filter in from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Evidently a very brilliant star indeed, identified in conspiratorial tones as "She," was expected. The problem was to hold onto the crowd until Her arrival. Clearly the crowd would wait for Her if only they knew She was coming. A promise to show up at a benefit comes with no warrantee, and She might be delayed or diverted by any number of things. If Her name was announced, and for whatever reason She did not appear, it would reflect badly both on Her and on the organizers of the event. Some time could be bought by closing the silent auction and announcing the successful bidders.

Thus far I eavesdropped on the managers, but then a fourteen-carat celebrity did arrive—word came by cellular from the table at the door—evidently this was not She, but someone of sufficient status to fill the breech until the situation clarified. I never learned who She was. The celebrity was introduced and made remarks to the effect that AIDS was bad and something ought to be done about it, and Mr. Fierstein announced the closing of the auction. As always, the televised ceremony had run late and I had to be off if I were to meet my party at the Mondrian.

I never met my party at the El Rescate benefit. At the Mondrian the cordons were very functional, for there was a crowd that pressed against every inch of them. A lane of Sunset Boulevard had been marked off for the arrival of the limos, and I wonder if this were not the cause of the traffic snarl that had trapped me earlier. I was gratified to find that my name was at the door this time, although on the press list which entailed the press credential I had come to dread. I found a second challenge before I got into the party. My invitation was demanded of me. But it was only that my press credential had not been noticed.

We were poured from the hotel lobby onto the patio, and although seemed crowded when I first saw it, somehow more people and more came to the patio and managed to find a space to stand. I perceived at once that there was no way I would locate the nominee, who had not won, even if he were quite punctual. After a while I did call the hotel of his command post, but either I had got the room number wrong or he had neglected to tell me if the command post were under another name. It was no matter. I could see I could not get much further among the public parties, for Hollywood even on its big night, is an early town—I suppose from dealing so much with New York.

I found an agreeable spot from which to observe. There was something different about this party from the one at the Director's Guild and it took me more than a moment to realize what it was. But, of course, there were women at this party, many more women. The reason I was so slow to make this obvious observation was that black was back in Hollywood. There was no more color at the Mondrian than there had been at the Director's Guild.

When I first hitchhiked to Hollywood I had noticed that black, then just the thing in Austin, was passé in Hollywood. Now it was just the reverse. In a town so full of froth as Hollywood one cannot always say what is the symbol and what is the message. Southern California had had several very bad years. This year's crop of motion pictures, everyone had said, was bountiful, but it was starkly somber. And here was almost everyone wearing black.

I had thought at first that I might get by without a tux—-for a while dressing down had been popular among the young men who thought it said something. But at this party, supposedly for the young and hip, I could see nothing left of that fashion, and even the young men with five gold rings in one ear observed the formalities.

Needless to say, no one seemed to be having a very good time. I had not expected that. What people in other parts of the country may fail to realize is that when people in Hollywood refer to the "motion picture industry" they pronounce the word "industry" without a hint of irony. They say "motion picture industry" as people in Bethlehem might say "the steel industry," or in Akron they speak of the "rubber industry." It is a company town, and Oscar's night is like a company picnic or an office party—-with the whole world watching. Three-hundred-sixty-four days a year there may be a Hollywood Babylon, and if she wishes Shannon Dougherty may misbehave in public on one of those other nights. Not tonight.

I chose a situation near the bar where I could smoke with less fear of reproach. The bar had very few customers. One couple who ordered alcoholic beverages were clearly from out of town; the man insisted on posing behind the bar with the bartenders while the woman exposed a Kodachrome. The natives ordered Evian or at most a glass of wine. The food, however, was not spared.

One man who could hardly utter an intelligible word of English approached me and after several exchanges I understood that he wanted to know if I could get him seen by CAA, which is I gathered talent agency. When he perceived I could not help him on that score, he asked if I knew anyone at Premier. Damn press credential.

Steve spotted the press credential too. I knew it was Steve because he wore a baseball hat that said "STEVE." He asked who I wrote for. I had seen Steve before on news programs. He was famous for trying to be famous. I mentioned the word "Esquire" and Steve's portfolio was open in my hands in an instant. This year Steve advertised himself on the benches at the bus stops in the vicinity of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. He had color glossies of himself seated on the benches that advertised himself. He presses a business card into my hand. It is a halftone portrait of Steve with various numbers to call to cast Steve in anything. Steve was a hoot, but at the moment we were both trying to work our way into a photograph that was being made of a genuine celebrity and there was not room for the both of us.

My instructions from Esquire were quite explicit on the point. I was to try to get myself into photographs. I do not believe I succeeded in that. I had not that many opportunities. Evidently the herding instinct had settled on the Vanity Fair party at Morton's. Not many of the guests at the Mondrian inspired the professional photographers to burn a bulb.

One young blond man with short curly hair, however, seemed to be a very big celebrity indeed. I had no idea who he was, but I would guess he had something to do with Schindler's List and I had no chance of recognizing him because the fan magazine mugshots were all black-and-white stills from the film. At any rate, all of the TV crews wanted him. He granted them all interviews, last of all the Spanish-language network, and after the interview he stood patiently while the camera shot over his shoulder and the person with the microphone nodded vaguely and pleasantly. These shots would be intercut with the shots from the interview to give the impression that two cameras were used and that the interviewer was reacting to things the star said.

For a while I stood next to a man named "Eddie," who I took at first as a celebrity because of his electric reaction to my press credential. He was a very tall man, taller than I, and he seemed to resemble a big-boned Tiny Tim, or perhaps it was only his very full, very long, wavy black hair. When after some time no one had asked to take his photograph I assumed that if he was a celebrity he was a musician or something similarly out of the limelight for the night. He did have a small entourage. I wonder who he was.

Shortly after midnight, almost with a "whoosh," the patio of the Modrian emptied. The sign had been when the caterers began to pack up, for the bar was still open. I did not think I could get to the Elton John party or Morton's while celebrities were still arriving—-and standing on the wrong side of the cordons watching for celebrities' arrivals was as near those parties as I thought I might get. I decided to round out the evening by visiting the private party for the documentary short which had not won. I found a cab.

The little documentary party was clearly up past its bedtime. It was set in a small bar where the people of Melrose Place must go when they fancy themselves slumming. No one bothered to ask for my FAXed invitation. Food remained piled high on the bar, hardly touched. Here I felt there was a genuine camaraderie among the attendees and here in the lower reaches of North Fairfax Avenue, something indeed might happen. Here were people who actually worked in film, not only those who stood in front of the camera or hoped to. Yet, it was nearly one, and if there had been a party it had dissolved into a bleary-eyed post mortem.

I walked back to Santa Monica Boulevard for a nightcap. The patent leather shoes which had been so comfortable at first were beginning to pinch. The graffiti on the roll-down shutters of the shops were the lowest kinds of ugly tags. The clouds were beginning to roll in. I thought it was paradise, and I still do. I cannot possibly say why.

In the morning I was up early at the airport and I watched the paparazzi chasing people I did not recognize until my flight to Dallas was called. In Dallas the celebrity shoe was on the other foot. After my reading at the Literary Cafe of the Dallas art museum, the fans were coming at me.

They always ask where Lizbeth, my dog, is. I say she is home because I will not permit her to fly. This time one of them blurts out: "Is Lizbeth dead?"

This struck me as out of bounds. How could anyone who knew my work ask the question if he thought the answer might be "yes." And why should anyone think he has a right to ask if he did not know the answer?