A Long Way From Home

A Long Way From Home

Friday, February 12, 2010

I Limp Into Chicago -- On "The Dog" & Meet Mamet's "Step-Family"?

      From the "David Mamet" weblisting: "HARRY RANSOM CENTER: University of Texas at Austin: David Mamet: An Inventory of His Papers
      Manuscript Collection Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center

      http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/news/press/2007/mamet.html

      "David Alan Mamet was born November 30, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois. [not true: Mamet was born in Flossamoor, Illionis; ed.]
       "His father, Bernard Morris Mamet, was a labor lawyer, and his mother, Lenore June Silver Mamet, was a teacher.       Mamet’s parents divorced in 1958.

      "Mamet was introduced to the Theater as a teenager, when he worked backstage at Hull House Theatre and as a busboy at the improvisational comedy troupe Second City.
      After graduating from Francis W. Parker High School in Chicago, Mamet attended Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont, studying drama and literature. He also spent a year studying acting with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City. . . etc"

            ****

   I am sitting here, with my new (& only) friend, a Dell Studio desktop computer, in the year 2010, listening to Howling' Wolf wail.["Howlin' Wolf: His Best, Vol.2" Chess Records], and this seems most approrpriate, to be writing about Mamet & me, back in the days, pre-dating Mamet's quick ascension to Fame [the early to mid-'70's]--- listening to a Chess Records recording, Chicago Culture, to the Max, contemplating this precious manuscript collection he just donated[?] recently to that library in Austin.
      & Howlin' Wolfe, man! Chess Records, dude, The REAL CHICAGO BLUES, brother & the Glory Days of R&B, which in 1967, was the Soundtrack for all us Good Ole' Boys led like sheep towards a Blessed Fascist Oblivion in Viet Nam.
      Howlin' Wolfe: One of the Godfathers of that era's most astonishing birth: The Rolling Stones. & Where am I, now? Doing just what I was doing in 1966: Playing music, writing tunes and lyrics & thinking about all that could still be. The Eternal Optimist: I now sit here, looking out on a tiny little snowstorm eleven floors above Asheville, North Carolina.
      The whores on South French Broad Avenue have not given up, yet. They haven't got their hit of crack for the night. &, Fuck, all the stores are closed down because of the snowfall & so, horny whites, deprived of their favorite bar, are out driving around in their SUV's, looking for some black chick to pump on for her twenty bucks, eleven stories below.
       Yep, Howlin' Wolfe would understand. But the question is, would David Mamet? Strangely, I doubt it. A hit of crack? For What? Depraved, he would probably think.       But, lo, I do understand, as does Dylan I KNOW, to this day, ". . . the misdemeanor outlaw, chained & cheated by pursuit. . .".
      Yes, I Have Been There, Brother. I lived and still do live, On The Fringes of a Society that typically carries around pieces of plastic rather than cash.       "You got a dollar, lady? I need to catch a bus."
      "Oh, no, I don't have anything," she says, as she opens the door to her Mercedes.       So I Still Am There. Was David EVER, "There"? & A Necessary Question to ask --- David Mamet: "Voice of a Generation"; winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; nominated twice for an Academy Award for Best Screeplay. One is seduced into thinking, while reading Mamet's plays & watching his movies, reading his many clever essays, marveling at his recent play, "RACE" on Broadway [still running tonight, as I write] --- one would think --- Yes, Maybe Mamet was "There" and maybe still is.
       Well, Hey, Mamet!! uh, Austin, Texas!!?! How you missed the University of Chicago? --- your old stomping ground in Hyde Park? or, not Northwestern, maybe? TEXAS = TEX-ASS: Where did THAT come from?
      Make A Note: Ask Michael Ventura about this. Oh, I always forget, Ventura Another Sunbug, I am afraid: although blessedly a more righteous one, for sure.
      Strange, after I wrote Ventura & told him I was writing about Mamet and this period of time on the internet, infact sent him a long written US Postal paper letter --- I Never Heard From Ventura since. & That was 2 months ago.
      OK: Professional jealousy, perhaps. Or something more devious & secret that only "Writers" hate having revealed. I can never tell what you guys are thinking. So I just stick to what I remember about this time. I aint no recognized genius like y'all.       [& Remember, reader, he was the one that cracked that egg --- in baptism of my little 10 Speed Bike, 12 days before, when I made my virtuous and locally despised speech to my fellow Goddard Classmates.]        Ventura, still, to this day, gets a paycheck from The Austin Chronicle, the local rag thereabouts.
      & Somehow Ventura still manages to hold down a Real Job with a Real Newspaper there in Texas, of all places [he grew up in the Bronx, for God's Sake!] here, in these horible, viscious days of the New Millenium, that pits one unlucky soul [who wants to write for a living] against another.
                        ****

            OK: Where Was I? when I broke off at my last posting?
      Oh, Right! -- wandering & weaving in and out of traffic, coasting down Vermont paved roads like the wind, in a May Spring, 1966, aiming for Chicago, on my 10 speed bicycle; with just a frayed sleeping bag & a prayer, leaving the womb of Vermont behind, heading to Big Bad Chicago, drunk on a well-founded-Fear of the US Army Draft infecting my brain + a whole lot of strange hope in my heart, put there by my Best Friend: David Mamet: Lord help me.
      This blog is about "The Fickle Finger of Fame: etc.": SO: NONE! of ~Sunbugs~ is ABOUT ME. AT ALL!
      Who, me? Don't Blame Me, man: I didn't do nothin'! . . . see, Mister! -- Puhleaze!!
      I. AM. JUST. THE. MESSENGER.
      Simple, "Famous Last Words" of the kind of fool I was and still am, I am afraid: & about as close to any Fame of my own as I will ever get on this planet.
      "When You Play, You Pay" --- as they say in Amerika. And this I was to learn the hard way. In Chicago.
      SO: When I got to Chicago --- on a sweet and exhausting journey of my own, [which I never even told my children about, it was too personal & I would never tell you either, I assure you] I was greeted at the bus station by a man named "Bernie" in a big, long, white Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
      Was it a convertible? It Sure seems like it, in my memory. & If it wasn't a convertible, it might as well have been.
      Bernie looked me over: "Eric Wells? We have heard a lot about you from David. So you rode your bike all the way from Vermont? You're one brave guy." Bernie eyes roved over my whole frame, as I stood there, after bouncing off the bus. The ususal flurry of passengers holding their baggage claims, the exhaust of the diesel fumes, the late afternoon Midwestern sunlight bearing down on us, humid and bleak.
      Bernie's eyes were going up and down my whole young & innocent frame: tanned from eleven days pumping sweat in Upstate New York & then Ohio. I remember I dressed in shorts with a bandana around my head, previously worn to keep off the sweat from dripping into my eyes. I was curious why David was not there. Interested, too, that Bernie recognized me Right Off. I had kicked back in Shaker Heights for 2 days, at a friend's house. His mother had come onto me and I only missed having sex with her because her son would not leave us alone. So, I missed my "The Graduate" experience, but I remember what a hard-on I had for a woman who could have been my mother.
      & Even though I had cheated and caught the Greyhound from Cleveland, it was all in spirit of: This Is Gonna Be Fun!! & People: If I had not ridden all the way from Plainfield, Vermont, Let Me Tell You, I sure did FEEL like it.
      Bernie & Me: we were standing there, in 1966, almost Summer, in some suburb; it must have been Gary Indiana. Not Big Bad Chicago, Not The Loop, DownTown: Nope, This was Mamet Territory: the Suburbs. Where all of us White Boys lived and dined and screwed and cheated our way forward during this dirty year of 1966. Bernie looked me over.          Get in, son. David is at home, waiting for you. He had a few things to do. He told me to pick you up. Where's your bike?" he asked.
      "Oh, I had to ship it, sir. . . it'll be coming separate. The bus driver wouldn't let me take it in the hold on this bus. They said in three days my bike will be here. I gave them the address David gave me."
      There was Mamet, standing in the driveway, when Bernie & I drove in. He said, "You MADE it!! Let me show you the place."
      David led me through the garage entrance into a standard suburban home, although it was larger than most. You entered [from the garage] into the kitchen. Beyond, stretched a huge assortment of Living Rooms, before, in the very back, was a number of bedrooms. What became apparent, after the tour he gave me, that this was a house built of plastic. It was a Plastic Nightmare of doileys and little brick-brac; utterly tasteless [even disturbing] phony, dopey, cutesey pictures on the wall, formica every where &, worst of all, a kind of early version of a futon for a bed to sleep on, that David showed me how to withdraw from a hidden place under a set of cushions, so I had a place to sleep. I suddenly thought, "Thank God for the Garage!!" as it was the only Real Place in the whole house. His step mother fixed a plate of sandwiches. David was clearly uncomfortable with these people. It was like he was trapped there and had led me into a trap that, now that I had committed myself, I was trapped too.
          Days later, Berger arrived & suddenly we three had wheels, a car, in the form of Berger's black sunroof beetle. I began to see Mamet's design. Basically he was depending on me and Berger to get him out of the suburbs and into the "OldTown" of Chicago, where he felt he belonged. &, in short order:P This did happen, but not without both Berger and I feeling used and deceived. Without Berger and his car, we would have just been some late teens shooting baskets in the driveway of a suburban house. After LSD and rural Vermont and still being hunted down by the US Army: well, that was just a little TOO Surreal.
          Still, for about three weeks, while we hunted for and finally found an apartment, David kept things lively. It is true that David did get this all financed, somehow, by Bernie or David Real Family& this step-family of his, [none of this was ever clear; David just kept pulling out Aces from the bottom of the deck] there deep in miles and miles from Chicago proper --- Deep, Deep, in THE SUBURBS.
The Question I have now is: WHO Was this man "Bernie" -- since Mamet introduced him to both Berger & Me as his Step-father. & yet, I notice that his bio listes "Bernard Mamet" as his True, Real FATHER. Will the Mysteries Mamet perpetrated never cease. &, Believe me, this is just the beginning. As time went along, things became simply more and more incogruous.


             *******

      "OBFUSCATION"
      This interesting word has occurred to me about David. He tended to cover his tracks with "obfuscation" --- and the David Mamet of Chicago --- I Mean IN Chicago, operating there, like the Born Operator he turned out to me: well, he Obfuscated A Lot. But the Great thing about David is, he covered his tracks so well, you never saw the Ace being pulled from the bottom of the deck. Only Later -- much later, would your mind go back to things he did, and say to yourself, or a friend, "Shit, that sure was strange, he never was even at the bus station to meet me, when he knew for three or four days I was coming in that afternoon."
      Well, The New and Improved David Mamet clearly was who I met at Bernie's house. Now here is something that I cannot understand. WHO? was this guy, Bernie? David SAID [many times] "Hey, Eric, this is my step-Dad. You'll love him. He's gonna get us the Z Cards; he's got the connections with the Union. Just listen to what he says and do everything he says, and we'll be working on the Ore Boats in about 2 weeks."
      And this all turned out to be true. Mamet's scenario did play out exactly as he prophesized. But the problem was, the Birth Certificate. I did not have my Birth Certificate. Where WAS my Birth Certificate?
      Well, if I still had functioning family somewhere in the world, perhaps I could have gone to my mother or father. But, true to the Sixties, there was no "family" for me left. My mother & father were in the throwes of a divorice. Infact I cannot remember if I even had a phone number for them. They were as good as dead. Well, Uh, some office in Arizona would have it.
      I was born in Parker, Arizona. On an American Indian Reservation. These people were LAWYERS, right? Hey, David, I got an idea: Why not you & me & Bernie just get into that Monte Carlo and fucking DRIVE to Yuma?
      Uh, No. Too busy for that. Let's put in Bernie's secretary's hands. Meanwhile we need to find an apartment. Berger arrives suddenly. I am at a loss to remember where he stays. Perhaps at Bernie's --- but I remember well Berger arriving in his black VW Beetle with the sunroof. Suddenly we have Wheels. No more waiting to get around. We quickly are scouring the "Near-North Side" of Chicago, a place Mamet clearly knows pretty good, for an apartment. We find one. The money comes from Mamet or Bernie or his "other" family; not clear. Who cares?
      This was David's Show. One of his best, too.
      Obfuscation, my dear. It worked so well for awhile. One evening, we get spruced up in clean clothes and sprinkle ourselves in Old Spice Aftershave to smell good: We go to "Second City" [in Chicago's Old Town] the three of us. This is AFTER Nichols & May but well before Bellushi: & Right after we find the apartment, close by. The song, "Summer In The City" is playing on Berger's car radio as David tells us where to park. "I used to work here, they all know me," he tells me and Berger. We get out of the car and mosey towards a sort of outside cabanna-like set-up. Rarely have I ever felt so self-conscious before or since. We meet a bunch of blank stares as Mamet makes the rounds of the people he "Knows".
      So much of Chicago was like that for me and Berger. It was a hustle, a "let me tell you who I know," kind of interaction that made me and Berger more and more uncomfortable. But Berger & I had put ourselves into Mamet's hands & now we were paying for it. The birth certificate problems were true for both Berger and me for awhile. Then, it was just me. I was afraid, daily, that somehow I would be simply thrown away as a legal case that could not be won. This went on and on and on. David seem to thrive on the drama. We had "Our Apartment" and he had us. So it went, for at least three weeks. I can't remember what happened to "Bernie". But finally we were living in Chicago and we were almost Merchant Marines.
       So, this quickly became apparent, and a problem. Obfuciate, perphaps, until it is solved. Well, I knew THE MASTER. David Mamet.