See my tickets from the 30 October 1999 Fairport Convention gig on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/RealDooovall/status/877149738398822401Culture Shock: Life in Los Angeles
October 1999
Halloween in Smogtown
[originally published online at CreativeScreenwriting.com]
© 2017 by Daniel S. Duvall
Wandering down Sunset Boulevard during Halloween weekend, it’s impossible to distinguish the actual homicidal maniacs from the costumed revelers. The streets of Los Angeles are not so much a melting pot as a diversely-stocked buffet table that has been overturned and sprinkled with mad cow disease. And that’s on a normal night. On Halloween, the weirdness is magnified exponentially. Masks encourage people to cut loose.
The evening of October 30, I enjoyed a Fairport Convention concert at the Roxy Theatre. After, I found the sidewalks of Hollywood clogged with demons and clowns, aliens and reapers. Outside the Chateau Marmont, vampires danced with astronauts and pirates. Ghosts carried leering pumpkins. Mutants shambled. Hobgoblins gawked. Tourists recoiled in fear.
Weaving my way through the costumed masses, I was struck by what a wonderful town Los Angeles is for people-watching. We writers spend so much time isolated in our caves, filling notebooks and typing. We immerse ourselves in our make-believe worlds for days on end. Halloween on Sunset reminded me of how important it is to get out and stay in touch with human nature. How are we to imbue our characters with realistic souls if most of our sensory input consists of our own words on our computer screens?
As I strolled past a gaggle of cheerleaders outside the House of Blues, I reflected on some of the people I’d observed at the Fairport Convention concert. At one table, a weary father played cards with his wife and two teenaged sons before the music began: I wondered how his family had ended up at this show. I imagined the conversation between the parents the previous night: “What shall we do for family night this week?” “Let’s take the kids to see some middle-aged British guys who sing about murder and adultery!”
As the band performed some fast-paced tunes, an Irish dancer in the audience jigged around the floor like a leprechaun who had overdosed on caffeine. Where had she learned to dance so well? Why had she pursued Irish dancing instead of, say, watercolor painting as a creative outlet? Had she practiced these moves to Fairport albums in the privacy of her living room, or was she just swept up in the spirit of rhythms she’d never heard before?
The dancer zipped past a waitress who would probably have enjoyed the concert a lot more if she were not on the clock. She served drinks to two yuppies who were on different wavelengths: one wanted to hear the music, while the other wanted to nap.
Meanwhile, I wandered to the edge of the stage so I could gawk at Dave Pegg’s fingers as they glided across the neck of his bass. Dozens of people are walking past this club, I thought, with no idea that one of the world’s best musicians is working magic on a bass guitar inside. Would they care even if they knew? Would they stop to listen to his melodic bass lines, or would they totally tune out the bass and focus on the lyrics or the violin? Would they tune out all of the music and just gawk at the Irish dancer? Would they just hurry on home to watch sitcom reruns?
I fleetingly wondered what the protagonist in my current script would think of the concert. “Stop writing,” I scolded myself. “You’re here to enjoy the music.” The Muse scampered back down into my subconscious. Doesn’t the Muse ever need a vacation?
Just in that tiny club for those three hours, there was so much raw humanity on display. Ecstatic faces, depressed faces, body language for a thousand occasions. After, as I walked down the Halloween-drenched sidewalk, I reflected on all I’d seen. Some of those raw observations may eventually serve as fodder for future screenplays. Some will just end up as fond memories of a great concert. Others will vanish from my conscious memory altogether, perhaps to re-emerge in a dream a decade from now.
But the important lesson of the night will remain in my thoughts: stay in touch with the human condition. Live. Breathe. Then return to the cave for a stretch of writing before absorbing more of the real world.
