Miller Time

UNITED STATES—Oh yes, Beverly Hills at night. To my delight, based on an exhaustive sampling of three people encountered walking an a recent Friday night, there predominates a single category of walker: the tipsy kind. In contrast, the people I have encountered during my morning walks break down into three main categories, and they reinforce a harsher vision of humanity: --The...

UNITED STATES—Gloria must have overheard when I spoke longingly about the enduring allure of a manual typewriter. I have been editing a volume which contains a old story written on my beloved Olivetti, and the process reflected these musings, both nostalgic and speculative, about literary technology. "Technology takes over our lives," demurred Manny the tech guy, who confirmed that Gloria,...

UNITED STATES—In “The Summing Up” W. Somerset Maugham rawly states, “I have never kept a diary. I wish now that during the year that followed my first success as a dramatist I had done so, for I met many persons of consequence, and it might have proved an interesting document.”  For me having a journal covering the dates in...

UNITED STATES—The Palmer House got all gussied up with the help of a threat from the city. Then came the big day of the inspection. I was busy that day showing rooms and spreading flyers around USC. I stopped by the office we shared with the boiler company on La Brea. Cheryl and I had a chuckle, “It’s Jim’s...

UNITED STATES—Two British girls traveling in Los Angeles had met the poet Eric on a bus on his way home from the law office. They came breezing into the living room at Nadeau Dr. one evening around Boone's Farm hour. One of them had slightly buck teeth; they giggled a lot. After that, they kept coming to share their...

UNITED STATES—I have it easy now as this memoir progresses: the diary picks up, following the finish of my screenplay. “The Persecuted” is on its way to my screenwriter friend who is a big shot now and fame and fortune is about to roll my way. January 30, 1990 makes mention of a Mr. Stokely Reed, a record producer,...

UNITED STATES—Mac Murphy got out of the honor camp near Baker, in the high Mojave, and came to take one last look at his upstairs room with the window bay, where he’d imbibed during Christmas, toasted us in the driveway, and cranked up his stereo like he was driving a hundred miles down a Montana highway straight as a...

UNITED STATES—Part of the mystique of Cafe Om was for people to gather at this hole in the wall and know people by face and remain ignorant of their resume. Which goes contrary to what is usually so up front here when it comes to small talk: what project are you doing? What is your goal? There’s something nice about...

UNITED STATES—I caught the travel bug. Some friends were going to India, to Prague, to Bali. One had seen Pink Floyd perform the rock opera “The Wall” at the Berlin Wall. Why was it that nobody was going to Abuquerque? Well, I bought tickets at a travel agency on Wilshire—testimony to the fact that I was really making money now....

UNITED STATES—The subtitle to these Los Angeles memoirs (1989-90), in that little silly white brain of mine, was going to be “How I Almost Got to Be A Racist,” in view of current events involving the law and black people I will acknowledge this subtitle rather than hide it. Kind of like opening up the bandage over the wound...