The Pull Corder.

Some time ago I stayed in a flat in west London. It wasn't exactly a tower block but I was on the 10^th floor which was high enough for me.

Next door to our block was another block which was a kind of twin building; Siamese twinned, actually, or is it politically correct to call it conjoined. (I put this in just in case I offend other conjoined buildings).

I suppose it was really a single building with two different front entrances.

In from the front door of my flat was a hall with a door immediately to the right in to the kitchen – or should I say a doorway as there was no actual door.

Opposite the kitchen was a door to the sitting room, the door next to that was to the bedroom and oblique to that was a door to the bathroom.

Let me digress slightly to say that when I first went to live in America one of the first things I noticed was that bathrooms had light switches – over here they don't. The electric power is two hundred and forty volts as opposed to one twenty in America so they don't have light switches here in case someone uses it with wet hands.
Over we have pieces of string or rope with a slight weight on the end which is pulled to operate the lights; I believe it's commonly known as a pullcord. They make a fairly loud click when used which can usually be heard all over the house; in my case the flat.

Also when I say oblique I really mean at a right angle to the bedroom door.

On the adjoining wall to the bathroom was another bathroom of the flat in the next building – the same building, really, but as I've explained there are two main entrances so a different address; a different building.

It would take me some time to get to that flat; in to the lift, down 10 floors, into the other building and up 10 floors in their lift – the ground floor being the ground floor, the next one up the first floor and so on.

The walls and floors were quite deep so no sound would ever be heard from another flat; except for the pullcord next door; and that went with a loud pop.

I noticed it the first evening I stayed there; I was watching television and I heard the familiar sounding pop from the bathroom. Not my bathroom, I thought, I'm the only one here, and sure enough that was the case.

Over the next week or so I heard the clicks at all hours of the day and night.

Something happens here when a big occasion is on television, like a football match or variety show or even the day JR was shot in Dallas; there is a boost in electricity supply when everybody, it seems, puts the kettle on – and/or flushes the loo.

Then I noticed that sometimes when I was watching the football I would go to the loo at half time and just before pulling the pullcord I heard the one next door being pulled; was that person a football fan? Was that person male or female?

Sometimes I would get in late, or get up in the night for a pee and . . .. click!!! 
The bathroom switch from next door.

Man or woman?

Old or young?

Attractive or . . . . ?

Who knows, who knew? I certainly didn't.

I started monitoring the pullcord clicks to see what kind of television programmes were on when the pullcord was popped and what time of day or night was the most popular.

It didn't necessarily have to be a guy for the football – women like football these days too – even in doze daze (those days).

The clicks would come on at the time of television commercial breaks in classic drama serials. As most of the classic drama serials were on the BBC, where they don't have commercials, I knocked any theory I got from that on the head.

Then I got to notice that the first clicks would start on a regular basis at around 6.00 am; now was that when he or she was getting out of bed or when they were finished in the bathroom and were going out for the day at that time?

Mmmmm!

What kind of person would have to get up at 6.00 am? Maybe a different kind of person who had to leave home at that time?

You never know.

Lew Grade, Lord Grade, would give an interview to anybody – journos, actors, anybody, but it had to be at 7.00 am – it might even have been at six?

So it could have been . . . . . Lord Grade?

No, don't be silly.

The main question I asked myself and what I really wanted to know is was it male or female? Young or old? Or more to the point fancy-able or not fancy-able?

Apart from standing outside their flat door how was I to find out?

One evening I was watching a late movie; The Searchers, directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and when it had finished I went to the bathroom and when I clicked the cord the same sound came from next door.

Male or female?

Maybe a John Wayne fan, 4 out of 10, a fan of westerns, 6 out of 10 or a John Ford fan – 10 out of 10 – no! 9 out of 10.

Maybe just a fan of The Searchers as it's one of my favourite films of all time.

The next time the TV schedules arrived I checked the films to see if any westerns were due to be shown; not one.

A few nights later, I was watching Double Indemnity and the same click click of the cord happened just after it had finished.

Not only a John Ford fan but a fan of film noir – could this person be the love of my life, one who likes the same things that I do.

After a few months I got to know – worked it out to a certain extent – that my neighbour liked westerns, film noir, was a football fan and supported either Chelsea or Fulham and was . . I couldn't figure out the sex.

I had looked out of my window a few times in the mornings to spy on people going out between six and eight and couldn't get a pattern.

Then I realised they may go by car and the car park to our building was in the basement.

I didn't have a car so never had a need to go down there but there was a lavatory. I could go in there and peep with the door slightly open. It was only a small car park so I could see all of it quite easily.

The first day nobody either came in or went out between those two times but as a few people would try and use the facility I decided to call it off before I was arrested. I don't know what I would have been arrested for but to be taken away, even on suspicion, with the word lavatory in any potential charge, is not a good idea or tag to have next to your name.

Maybe my mystery neighbour went to work on a bike.

I have to say I did look for someone with a bike coming out of next door but it wasn't to be.

Not long after my snooping in the car park, I went to one or two screenings at the National Film Theatre; they were doing a retrospective of Billy Wilder and when I went to a screening of Some Like It Hot there was a Q&A afterwards with someone who had worked on the movie.

They discussed the famous hotel in San Diego, the Coronado, and the Coronado Beach, where some of the movie was filmed and The Lot, in Los Angeles where they did the interiors. The Lot used to be Warner Brothers and later I worked there and I'd also been to the famous hotel at Coronado Beach.

One of the questions, to our guest, came from a fairly attractive woman; aged maybe around 35; what intrigued me was that she had taken her coat off and was wearing a Chelsea tee shirt.

That isn't much to go by, I know, but a little later on, when I got on the tube, I noticed she was on it too.

I had to change at Notting Hill so wondered if she would be changing there.

Seemed a little far fetched so I put it out of my mind.

Football fan, maybe Chelsea, movie fan, liked Billy Wilder mmmmmm.

When we pulled in to Notting Hill she got off the train with me and walked toward the Central Line.

On the Central Line she sat almost opposite and when the time came for me to get off, she got off the train too.

I caught up with her on the platform and said 'I saw you at the Billy Wilder.'

'Yes' she said 'wasn't it wild.'

'Certainly wild.' I said 'it couldn't get any wilder.'

She looked at me and then the penny dropped.

'Sorry' I said.

'Billy Wilder!' she said and laughed.

By this time we were outside and walking together.

'Do you live around here?' I said.

'No. I live in Beaconsfield; I just park here.'

'Oh' I said.

We rounded the street to where I lived and she had parked right at my front door.

'Good night' I said as she got in to her car.

'See you sometime.' she said.

She closed the car door and drove off; as she did a man, whom I knew waived to her and came in to my front door.

'Hi' I said.

'Hi!'

'Do you know her?' I said.

'Not really. She used to live next door.'

I never heard the pullcord sound again.

Not till just now – and I don't live there any more.

The Digital Age

Like most people I have been watching television for years. I watch it every day and enjoy it and I know a lot of people say they don't watch it much and do.

I remember there was a link, many years ago, when the BBC managed to get a live picture from New York.

I looked at it and looked at it and there they were; people actually walking along the street in New York; or it might have been Washington DC?

The programme was being introduced by Richard Dimbleby the most famous British Broadcaster of all time; he whom The Dimbleby Lecture is named after, the Dimbleby this and the Dimlebey that and these days also famous for being the father of the Dim Bum Bums – David and Jonathan.

Seems strange that a man of such immense imagination and experience should name his sons after two biblical characters. I mean what's the matter with Cane and Abel??

I can't remember too much about the broadcast apart from the people walking and living all those many miles away from where I was sitting, but I have seen these things grow over the years to where they could actually speak to people and have a conversation with them in Africa and places as far and even farther and with even stranger sounding names.

When they spoke their lips would match the sound - just like on a film.

Sometimes they would speak to people all of ten miles away from London and again – their lips matched.

These days, because everything has gone digital and automatic (I mean I can't even misspell because, because it corrects itself automatically) the picture is so clear on my digital TV; it's even clearer on the HD (High Definition – or Hi-Def) but you know what? They can't even get the lips to match when speaking to someone in the same town.

The wonderful HD channel breaks up all the time so I hardly bother to have it on and the digital music on MP3 only has one third of the quality of a vinyl record.

Even the cassette tape with its hissing is better than MP3.

And do you know why? Because (it corrected it again) MP3 only has one third of the quality of real life – and vinyl.

If you have two voices singing or playing an instrument and they are playing the same note you will only hear one. You may be kidding yourself as you walk around with ear phones shoved into your ears and loving the effect of hearing in both ears – the stereo effect – but it won't be like sitting in front of an orchestra or a group or band; even though you think it is, and even if you have the big head set, which I fear is coming back into fashion, just to really signal that you are listening to something else in case someone asks you a question, makes some kind of communication with you, asks you directions or is shouting “get out of the way of the lion” at you.

I see some people on the tube wearing a hat, reading the paper, wearing glasses and listening to music as they travel – there is no means of communication whatsoever and no wonder they have to look on the Internet or join a dating site to even get a date – which they have to answer questions about afterwards.

They have no delight any more in merely typing the word afterwards and appreciating that it is the longest word I know which you can type with one hand – the left one, by the way.

The clearest sound these days is Waveform - but it's a big file.

The clearest picture is not digital; it's on film.

If you watch the movie Lawrence of Arabia you will see the clearest picture of all.

There he is; a dot, a tiny dot and that dot on the film will become Omar Sharif.

It will grow and grow until it becomes one of the biggest movie stars of the 70s – a man that would gamble his last thousand dollars on a horse – in fact he and Peter O'Toole lost all their fees from Lawrence in a casino!

Wouldn't you sooner be one of those type of men or be married to one than an accountant?

My whole point is, aren't we sacrificing quality for speed and convenience?

The shot I mentioned of Omar Sharif's entrance was sacrificed itself because David Lean said he wanted to use the whole shot of the mirage image to Omar getting off the camel but had to cut away because he didn't think the audience would stick with it; but when I saw a re-cut of the film he didn't do it.

Have a look here and enjoy it – the only thing is, you will be watching that through a digital device so you will lose some quality because film is always better – it has light shining through it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud1zpHW3ito

Movie Star.

I had quite a bit of reaction to the last post I wrote about LGBT and Hollywood, apart from the comments, and they were mainly about the building I lived in and the movie star or stars etc.

Well it was a lively building and I loved every minute living there. I couldn't go out of my front door without meeting someone from the business. They might be a screenwriter, a director, producer an extra or whatever. But the one thing in common most of them had was a script – a screenplay. It was somewhere either in their bag or their apartment, but it existed somewhere.

They didn't flaunt it at you but you knew it existed somewhere so it didn't matter who you met, whether it was someone for the first time or an old friend; you would never bring up the script.

To be fair a lot of people who had scripts lurking and were fully fledged members of the writers' guild kept it to themselves.

But the building itself was wonderful.

I am not one of those people who don't like actors – there are lots of actors like that and I'm not one of those; I love them.

I love the stories about old jobs, old experiences and the like but actors who are arseholes you avoid.

The movie star on our floor was an experience; 'there's a movie star living in there' is something you kind of ignore. But this was an actor who had been compared to Brando in his life. He's been in some of the greatest latest movies – The Usual Suspects, Pulp Fiction, The Mask etc.

He was a dangerous actor. 

That label has been used for actors who wouldn't be able to blow the skin off a rice pudding but this guy was the real deal. 

He was in a movie with Ben Stiller where the pair of them would throw themselves into an unbreakable glass window about 20 floors above Century City. He was playing a drug addict, a drug dealer and . . . . that is what he was in real life.

I got on with him very well and one time we were at a party together and he said 'let's go out and party – and I guarantee it won't cost you a dime.'

I kind of suspected that it would be for more than a drink or two so I didn't go. Those days are gone, Joxer!

One night I was woken by a ruckus in the street below. I went out on to our balcony and there he was, arguing with a taxi driver.

'Okay' he said, dancing around like Mike Tyson, 'give me your best shot.'

Apparently the taxi driver had over charged him; he told me they (taxi drivers) took a lot of the air out of their tyres so the clock would show more miles!!!!

Go figure!

Now this was a fella, who received something like half a million dollars for a recent film, was eventually kicked out of the building for non-payment of rent.

When he left he had wrecked the apartment – the bathroom, the kitchen; all smashed.

You see the poor fella was hooked on heroin.

Afterwards he came to the building on a regular basis and I would introduce him to my children in the lift and he was so quietly spoken you wouldn't believe.

Once in a while I would see him in a bar somewhere and he would throw his arms around me like I was his brother.

He went to New York, at one time, to do a TV series and whilst there he was arrested when he tried to buy some drugs – it was in all the papers.

And still he worked.

Our building had CCTV all over the place. One time he came back and instead of coming up to our floor to visit our neighbour – where he collected his mail – he went downstairs to the laundry room.

When he got in there he put a balaclava (ski mask) over his head and went into the parking lot, which was next to the laundry room. There he went up to a new Lexis, removed the number plate then disappeared.

How do we all know this?

CCTV.

All on there as clear as a bell. He stole the plate or plates – I think they're called registration plates over there – to sell them for drug money. He would sell them to someone who would use them in an illicit act; who knows? Robbery, murder, mayhem!!

The Lexis belonged to someone who lived on the floor below and the manager of the building watched it all on the security video and told the guy. 

The guy said he wanted the plates back and if they were returned straight away nothing more would be said.

Somehow our next door neighbour managed to get in touch with our hero and he returned them.

Did you ever hear of TMZ?

It's a TV station or Internet channel which collects gossip on TV and movie stars etc. 

It either stands for Two Mile Zone or Ten Mile Zone, in any case the manager of the building sent the footage to them and our poor old movie star was all over the TV shows and gossip places for the next week or so.

Now!!!!

Did he do it on purpose? He was filmed coming out of some very smart places and being mobbed by paparazzi asking about the plates.

The manager, by the way, stood at about 6'7” and was built like a brick shit house. He had a booming voice but . . . yes there was a but about him which I never quite figured out. 

He told me about his script and I went to see it at a local 99 seat theatre; it wasn't bad.

He was a jazz drummer of Italian extraction and he hired a grip, who lived in the building, called Gonzo to be the handy man. It was a good choice as grips on movie sets are usually the strong guys, handy with their hands and usually with a full tool box.

So Gonzo was hired and he did a good job. However it got too much for the poor fella as he had too much to do and it was getting to him and one day he had a stroke.

Not a big one. I went to see him the next day at the hospital and he was trying to put a few words together and exercising his lips. But he couldn't walk and was in tears.

Then he called me and asked me to come and pick him up. When I got to the hospital he could walk – with quite a limp but he could walk.

He came home and after about a week he was walking and talking fine. 

You could tell he'd had a stroke but he was managing.

That's when the manager decided to sack him.

He sacked him because not only did Gonzo want paying he wanted reimbursing for the money he had laid out on materials. The manager said he hadn't given him permission to spend on the materials which left Gonzo broke.

So the manager gave Gozo an eviction noticen for non-payment of rent.

By the way, the first time I went to Gonzo's apartment I noticed that just inside the door, by the wall, was a baseball bat.

Things didn't go Gonzo's way so the writing was on the wall and he would have to leave.

Before the stroke the manager and Gonzo were up each other's arses; going to the Home Depot Store together etc.

So Gonzo decided, under the circumstances, to kill the manager.

We lived on the 5^th floor facing beautiful Runyon Cannyon but above us there was a penthouse. In the bigger penthouse was someone called Doris who came in one day and saw the Manager and Gonzo struggling on the floor.

Gonzo had tried to rip the manager's eyes out and when Doris got out of her car she saw them and, as she said to me, I thought Gonzo was fucking him!!

They got rid of poor Gonzo and the last I heard the manager had put a restraining order out against Gonzo.

So there we are:

Here is a little taste of The Rare Auld Mountain Dew – just me and my banjo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWs0cxDYDr0

LGBT

Lou Read

Still here folks!!

There was an item on News Night here which started 'how many cross gender people do you know?' and the article went on to discuss Bruce Jenner.

Well I have known and know quite a few; you see I lived in Hollywood which attracted all sorts. When I lived in Hollywood first, there were quite a few cross gender people in the building and some prostitutes, drag artists and strippers. They were all very gentle people and I never feared being robbed or mugged in the street but since moving out of that building I did hear that someone fired a gun through a ceiling because there was too much noise upstairs!

That building was every thing that Lou Read would sing about but I never saw a Candy Darling.

Candy Darling and Andy Warhol

The next building with the wonderful view of Runyon Canyon and the sweeping palm trees against the expansive blue sky was also rife with the, shall we say, the darker side of life.

Our parking lot (Car park) was under the building and we would access it with a remote control and one day I met a trumpet player (he told me he was a trumpet player, he wasn't playing it) who was having a little problem with his car. He was under the hood (the bonnet) fiddling with it and I kind of gave him a hand. He got to know me and called me Chris and I knew his name too.

Another day I was standing by the lift (the elevator) and he came and stood by me and he was in a woman's dress, high heels and the rest of it, with someone who lived on the floor below us – 'Hi Chris' he said and I said hi back. No explanation and none needed.

I felt kind of good when he went (he was a 'he' as he was a cross dresser) because we both genuinely felt that no explanation was needed.

The person he was with was also, at the time, a man; but he was cross gender. He had been a married man with three children but felt he was a woman and the last time I saw him he was waiting for the operation to change sex – just like Bruce Jenner.

In a really messed up place, his children, who were quite grown up, were the nicest and most well balanced people for their age that one could wish for.

His wife too met a man on the Internet and the last thing I knew they had moved in to the two bedroom apartment (flat) too.

Okay I'll forget all the brackets and Anglo/American translations – oh one more, which I get asked all the time is the difference between an apartment and a condo – a condominium; they are the same only a condo is what you own and an apartment is what you rent. Apart from in New York where they are all apartments.

But when the man on the TV asked how many cross gender people do we know he was right to assume that not many people in the boonies and the burbs know any, so maybe it's a bit too early to have them campaigning for political contenders – but they're quite harmless I can assure you,

The one thing you will notice in most buildings in Hollywood, if you keep your eyes peeled, is the daily visit or visits, of the drug dealer. I saw a few and they were all the same; youngish white men and the ones I saw had red faces.

In a place dominated by the sun the only people you might see with red faces would be tourists and, I have to say, the drug dealers who came to the buildings I lived in.

On the same floor as us, just two doors away, lived a minor movie star.

A really good actor and he would take all kinds of drugs – heroin mainly and he was out of control most of the time.

One time the cops were called because he was threatening to throw his girl friend over the balcony – we were on the fifth floor – but when the cops arrived through the front door, he was nonchalantly going out the back.

His explanation? He was rehearsing for a scene he had in a move! Go figure.

By the way – I had most of Lou Read's albums till CDs took over.