Haunted

The veil is thinning ...

Halloween …

All Saints’ Day …

Dia de los Muertos …

The veil is thinning.

I am not sure I believe in hauntings perpetrated by non-corporeal spirits. I have been haunted by living beings, however, and I have been haunted by regret, and by the loss of what used to be. So, whether the thing that goes bump in the night is within me or without me, I do acknowledge the palpable power this time of year holds. And although I don’t need to shield myself from the view of scary movies, all too often, I still watch them while covering my ears. It’s the sound that grabs me by the nervous system and shakes me down to my very last compound.

On Wednesday night the 30^th of October at the Autry Museum of the American West, the Los Feliz Improvement Association and its president Debra Matlock will be producing their second “Viva Los Feliz” show. I will once again be hosting, and I am looking forward to celebrating some of the darker chapters of our beloved neighborhood’s history as well as what so many of us love about this time of year, and about tales of the spooky or even the downright macabre.

This past week, in Modesto, California, I was asked how I got into show business. I pointed to my sister and said, “It’s really because of her.” The person asking was a young man named Jordan, the nurse tending to my sister at Memorial Hospital. I told him how when I was a kid, our grandparents moved in with us. Leslie, being some five and half years older than me could drive and she deemed it important to get me out of the house on a regular basis, so she would take me to the movies. This is how I fell in love with film, and that love, though painful at times, has been life-long.

Big sisters can really have a profound influence. I am sure all siblings can. I can only speak from personal experience, though, and I just had the one sibling, and my sister introduced her “baby brother” to many of the enduring passions in his life. Had it not been for her influence, my life might have been just as good, but I know that it would not have been nearly as enriching to my soul’s journey.

She got me hooked on the music of The Beatles, the scholarship and philosophy of Joseph Campbell, the mysteries of comparative religious study, and the unparalleled awesomeness of “The X-Files”. Had she not got me into “The X-Files”, would I have ever become friends with one of that show’s stars, Dean Haglund (who played “Langley” one of “The Lone Gunmen” and who even had a brief spin-off series)? I doubt it. Had we not become friends, we would never have become writing partners, then producing partners, and eventually podcast and radio partners. The show we have been doing together every week is now in its 18^th year, almost old enough to be out on its own. And when my relationship with Lily was in its twelfth year, Dean stood by my side, serving as my Best Man at my wedding to the love of my life.

Had my sister not turned me onto film and filmmaking, it is highly unlikely that I would have ever moved to Los Angeles, especially as my childhood dream of playing basketball for Coach John Wooden at UCLA proved impossible for several reasons. Had I not moved to Los Angeles, I would never have found a true feeling of home in Los Feliz, and among many other things, I would not be writing this essay as this Substack would not exist. More important, I would never have met Lily. I don’t want to know what my life would be like without her. Days spent away from her are hard enough.

So, it was pretty great to get the opportunity to tell someone about my sister’s influence while she was there to witness it. My sister is in the hospital having had what by my count must have been the twelfth stroke she has suffered. The first was in her early to mid-forties. Now sixty-one, there is no reasonable hope for recovery. This last stroke has left her without the use of any of her limbs, without the ability to swallow, and with communication quite difficult. She can see, she can hear, and she can, perhaps unfortunately, understand. At first, in great pain, she rejected the required life-prolonging surgery to place a PEG tube (percutaneous endoscopic gastronomy), opting for hospice instead. She has since changed her mind (more than once, actually), and the placement of the tube was a success. I was there prior to this, hoping to ascertain what she truly wanted.

Despite the challenges, communicating with her became sort of a fun game for me, wherein she would muster the energy, when she could, to utter the most important word in the statement she wished to express. I would then build sentences aloud around that word and judging from her reactions, would inch my way towards what she wanted to convey to me. I am not sure it was fun for her. In fact I am sure it was probably frustrating, but I would try to help her stay calm, and I even made her laugh several times. Of course, she was always my best audience.

Leslie would really enjoy some of the bits I have planned for “Viva Los Feliz: Haunted”. I have emceed some terrific events over the past two years and it was an experience at one of them that made me realize I should dedicate more and more of my intention towards such efforts in the future. At the behest of Deb Matlock, I had emceed a City Council District 4 debate – excuse me, “candidate forum” (because we are far too genteel in these parts for “debates”). This also took place in the Autry’s Wells Fargo Theater. Though I was not the moderator, merely the master of ceremonies, it was not easy. Attempting to establish and maintain the right tone of decorum and even celebration was a heavy lift. Overall, people seemed appreciative of my efforts. In fact, local stalwart and shining star Janet Kim said to me, “It must be nice to have found your calling.”

Those words landed hard. Was on-stage hosting “my calling”? I had been doing a great deal of it over the previous eight years or so (interrupted by that pesky global pandemic, of course). I loved doing it. In that moment, though, I realized I had better dedicate myself to it because she was right. Oh, and just a handful of minutes later, the Autry Museum inquired about me hosting their annual fundraiser.

Way back in my earliest days of childhood, I can remember hosting shows. Of course most of those early productions (though certainly not all) took place in my family’s living room, the audience consisting of my father, my mother and my sister. My father was the toughest nut to crack, especially if there was a game on TV at the same time that he could have been watching. My mother was unconditional in her support, so her laughter didn’t mean as much. My sister’s reactions, those were priceless. She always encouraged, through the sheer force of her laughter, the most outrageous routines in which my friend Kevin Zis and I would engage while waiting in line for countless movies. My sister will never see me on stage in person anywhere ever again. She won’t even see me cutting it up for the benefit of dozens of strangers in a cinema’s parking lot.

This past week, looking at her, hearing her attempting to apologize to me for where she was and the condition she is in, it seemed as if she is haunted, perhaps by where she is, perhaps by the past, perhaps by what never was. Or, perhaps, she is haunted by some combination of the three. Or, perhaps, I am merely in projection. I certainly hope I am not left haunted by my role in what has come to pass for Leslie, or for anything that occurs to her on the road ahead. It’s hard not to be haunted by thoughts of what I might have done or what could have been. Yet, I find myself recollecting words of Joseph Campbell’s that were etched onto my soul the first time I read them:

And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal – carries the cross of the redeemer – not in the bright moments of his tribe’s great victories, but in the silences of his personal despair.

Of course, no matter what silences of personal despair I might be experiencing come Wednesday, the show must go on. And it’s going to be a good one full of comedy, and history, and video and storytelling. Council District 4 Rep the honorable Nithya Raman will take the stage, as will Griffith Park historian Mike Eberts, and brilliant actress, longest-tenured president of the Los Angeles Breakfast Club (and, oh yeah, my better half), Lily Holleman. An award-winning creative writer from Marshall High School will perform. There will be music and prizes. And that’s just the show itself.

Beforehand, there will be a reception with refreshment, close-up magic, and a costume competition (one of the prizes to be given during the show will be for the “most Los Feliz” costume). Everyone will have free access to the museum. The event is free. Advance tickets are not required. Just show up at 6 pm. The show will end at 8:45 pm, though hopefully you will stick around for a few minutes to let me know you enjoyed yourself.

Despite my seasonal allergies – always worse in October than in spring – this is my favorite time of year. I like the months-long plunge into darkness, and even the sadness that sometimes accompanies it. For as long as I can remember, starting with the build-up to Halloween, and continuing with Thanksgiving, and running all the way through New Year’s Eve, the final stretch of the calendar has always put me most in contact with my deepest humanity …

Somewhere between knowing and believing …

Between my intellect and my imagination …

Between my heart and my mind …

The veil is thinning.