Miller Time

UNITED STATES—Today was the day. Allegra Newton (nee Scruggs) had had enough of dental profiteering, and she was going to hold the dentist at gunpoint till he performed emergency work on her son. In preparation, she went to the living room, which had been overtaken by all her son’s toys in the trophy house they moved into after leaving...

UNITED STATES—On an October afternoon a poignant figure showed up on my doorstep at Manhattan Place, an accountant separating from his wife after 48 years. Can you imagine why a couple that age wants to split? They already must know each other too well; then again, maybe that’s why. The man was from Huntington Beach, but had his office on...

UNITED STATES—One night in New York we went to the Angelica Theater in the Village and saw David Lynch’s ‘Wild at Heart.’ I got to see that scene where Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage come across a dead-still single car crash in the middle of the desert, the headlights still on. The tires still slowly spinning. Amazingly, a couple weeks...

UNITED STATES—I often have an itch to contact some who lived at Estrella Ave. But they have invariably fallen off the face of the earth. Like Ron Leaf. Ron was about the best guy who ever was, very nice and shy and regular with the rent. He was so regular. From the start Ron rubbed me the right way, he...

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...

UNITED STATES—Sergeant Carmichael was badass. Before I went into Runyon Canyon undercover, she sent me to the Yale School of Yogic Arts in Van Nuys to bone up on kundalini.  At least I could bluff my way through a yoga class: “Close your eyes and just say om.” That’s how I met Fay Greener, alias Sri Faye. The winsome 19-year-old greeted...

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—On a Tuesday night in July 1990, I finally met with Larry Karaszewski, a screenwriter I knew from USC. We had a lot fun in Drew Caspar's American cinema class, and thanks to Larry I wrote my first parodies for a publication called “Deep Focus” that was published by a group sitting around a table at the end...

UNITED STATES—In the weeks after the play’s successful run (one satisfying performance celebrated to the hilt), I showed rooms out and distributed three-day notices. “The agony,” I noted in my journal. The ecstasy was handing old good tenants, like Pedro and Tava at Estrella Avenue who were moving on and out and hopefully up, their deposit refund check. The weeks...

UNITED STATES—The apple red Subaru wagon with Nevada plates that expanded my world—there was the court circus, dunning tenants, showing rooms and it made possible taking part in “Maxtla,” a stage play of a doomed prehispanic King, pre-Cortez, pre-Spanish—even though it was presented in Spanishby the Bohemia Theater Group. To a great extend the group WAS Marta Esther Main,...