Stars, lots of Walk of Fame stars dot the sidewalk with no one famous on them. I hypnotize myself looking at the stars as I walk. Most of them are stained with dirt and piss and who knows what. Filthy water of some kind flows onto the sidewalk, drenching the stars in its dark tint. I gingerly step over the puddles, tip-toeing only on the dry areas. Oh, yeah, like that's really going to help me avoid the germ pathogens. I might as well burn my shoes already. The water stinks. Like garbage. The air is thick with the smell.
The Sunday night air is alive with an electric energy. Young bar-hopping Hollywood crashing up against the Hollywood riff raff and hangers-on and tourists. A sea of humanity. Peg-legged bums rubbing shoulders with tight skirts and high stilettos rubbing shoulders with camera-toting out-of-towners in Bermuda shorts rubbing shoulders with families pushing baby strollers.
I turn the corner, watch a Hollywood film being shot as a rigged camara hovers in front of a moving car with actors in it, surrounded by police escort motorcycles. Low budget film. Usually the car is mounted on a truck with super fancy cameras. The car and the actors don't have to drive at all. And the cavalcade of production trucks is as long as a parade. But here it's just one car, and they're doing the driving. No one famous.
I stop at the bank ATM, head to the bar, pay my ten bucks, ask for a receipt. The guy looks at me funny. Hey, a tax deduction is a tax deduction. And I'm calling this networking or research or something. I'll find a column for it.
I'm about to enter the bar. I get that bare-assed feeling I get when I think I might meet important people. Casting directors, producers, who knows. OK, calm down. They're just people, wanting to get a drink and a little entertainment, like anyone else. I try to do an exercise my acting teacher Tom Ardavany teaches. Before you walk in a door, become aware that you're breathing, get in the present moment, and act as if this is your playground as you walk in. I do it. I am able to take in more of the space and the people and energy when I walk in. Yes, everything is here for me to receive and discover. I'm more aware, open, calm. Just for a second. But hey, it's a second of presence.
Then I slide back into my dulled state of self doubt.
I'm here to see Weather. Another girl singer is still playing when I arrive. A girl with raven black long hair that looks like she just stepped out of a beauty salon, it's so perfect. High soprano voice, rich sexy breathy undertones. A voice so rich and so resonant, it sounds like it's masturbating with itself. Beautiful. But cloying. Every other sound she makes sounds like…well… like a canary in heat. "I… unh… was driving on the 405…. unh… unh. I felt…unh so good… unh… and so bad….unh." More moaning and groaning than singing.
One last 'unh' out and she's gone. To wild applause. Now it's Weather Girl's turn.
I sit at a table with two women, one of whom happens to be the casting director's associate. "What's her singing like?" I ask. She scrunches up her face, thinking. "Folksy, I guess."
Weather is dressed in a white bridal dress similar to the one in her promo flyer. Except for the fact this bridal dress ends at mid thigh, where some black fishnet stockings and knee high boots pick up the slack. But this is no canary singer.
She strums her electrified acoustic guitar, lets out an unearthly Moroccan Arabic wail. And she's on with a voice that can rock the earth. I become a fan instantly. The Arabic wail, the deep contralto voice (or maybe it's alto?), the angst, the depth, the being at home in deep dark places, the unique selfness she brings. I love it. It's right up my alley. She sounds like a young Grace Slick. But in her own way.
How come no one's discovered this girl? She can't be more than 21, yet she sings with the experience of the ages.
And in between the deep dark songs, many of which she writes herself, and one of which makes me cry, she's funny. "What? Are you doing standup now also?" someone yells from the crowd. Why not? Her unpremeditated clumsy quirky freshness is endearing. No canned jokes. Just Weather being herself. Folksy? This girl is folksy only with her down home humor. Her singing has the force and power of black magic and God mixed together.
How does someone who's 21 get this good? Love. Love of what you do. I wonder at the magic of that. Of going on and one with your art, no matter what. Because you love it. For no other reason. Until you get so good, no one can deny you. But you don't even notice when that happens, because you're doing it only because you love it and you can do no other thing.
She sings a song by Etta James. My favorite. "At Last". Amazing vocal range. Smooth as velvet. My only gripe - this song to me is joyous, sexy, orgasmic. But the girl hangs on to her darkness like a shroud. Ease off on the Dark Ages here. Have some fun. Come on.
'At Last'… as the song says. I'd like to see a little joy. Yet, the song is phenomenal. The way she does it, it's her own song, and Etta's too.
Then she brings the house down with "Hootchie Cootchie Woman". The piano player isn't just playing the notes. He's dancing the notes. He's improv-ing the notes. He goes right off the piano with the notes, he's so into it. Fun stuff.
A whoop of approval and adulation from the audience. I want a picture. My camera phone takes a way too small and dinky picture. I ask a woman with an I-phone if she can email me her picture. She does so right there. It's a little out of focus. Maybe I should just use mine. When she emails it, I see her name. She's an actress from a well known movie. Who knew?
I walk home, back through the same winos and bums as before. Only now, it's bedtime. A couple of bums have become shapeless human mounds on the piss-covered sidewalk. Sleeping - if one can actually sleep on a hard, smelly, piss-covered sidewalk.
You do it because you love it. You get so good at it because there's nothing else you'd rather do. Not the bums, I mean. Your art.
And as I watch the bums sleeping, I wish for them, not riches, not even a home. I wish for them that they will find something they love to do.
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