by The Stanger
This isn’t a religion thing. Or a gender thing. Or an age thing. In fact, I’m not at all sure what kind of a thing this is. Its happened to me four times in my life. Once in a movie theatre. Three times in the course of simply living my life. Four times I’ve heard the same voice, say the same thing to me, in completely different circumstances, at different periods of my life.
The first time was in a dentist chair. In Dr. Hill’s office. He was the only dentist I had ever gone to. And on one particular day, it was to be the last time I would ever have an appointment with him, because he was retiring.
Dr. Hill was a man I had never really had a conversation with. He was so painfully shy that it always seemed inappropriate to make any attempt at small talk. And I wasn’t exactly into small talk myself. I’d see him sometimes at family parties. But I never knew for sure exactly whose friend of the family he was. He was always just Dr. Hill, our dentist. He was married. That’s all I knew of his personal life. And I knew this, too: he never charged any of my family for his dental services. Ever. How exactly that came about I never found out. But I did know why. I was from a large family of eight children; Dad was a truck driver. That was the reason.
He never said a word about that to anyone. He simply did his work. And never charged our family a cent.
Anyhow, on this last day in his dental chair, there we were, Dr. Hill and I. He, working on my teeth. Me, with my mouth open. With really nowhere else to look except up into his face. He wore glasses, and was bald. There was a meekness, a humility and a kindness to that face. And, always that almost aching shyness. Both of us aware that this wouldn’t be the last time we’d ever see one another. There’d still be family parties. But it was to be the end of our dentist/patient relationship.
We weren’t having a conversation when the moment happened. He was just working away, and I was there looking up into his face when out of nowhere this voice comes to me and it says: “This is God.” And in that moment I knew who Dr. Hill was. And everything about him was, in that moment, poetry and grace. The work he was performing. The manner in which he was doing it, and for how long he‘d been extending this service. And suddenly, too, I had the awareness that this moment was my last chance to see what I hadn’t seen before. That moment happened a very long time ago. And yet I’ve never forgotten it. Never will.
The next incident happened every single time I ever set foot in his shop. The shop of Willie the shoemaker. I haven’t gone into the shop in years. But its still there, on the same street, Cahuenga Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood. When I moved to another part of town, I stopped going to Willie’s. I never had a conversation with the man except once. I was picking up a pair of shoes from Willie one time and I noticed a picture of Paul Newman on the wall and I asked “Is he a customer?” And Willie said “Yes.” That’s all. Nothing more.
There wasn’t one time that I ever went into Willie’s to drop off or to pick up a pair of my shoes that if Willie was there in the store waiting on me that I didn’t hear that same voice say exactly the same thing to me that it had said that last time in Dr. Hill’s office: “ This is God.” There was something about Willie, in the way he looked at me. In the way he waited on me. I felt lifted up into some higher place because of the way Willie looked at me. It was also the way he way he performed his duties as a shoemaker.
Its hard to describe, but one of the words I used before seems to also be the best one to use in this instance also: GRACE. I know the reason I don’t stop by Willie’s these days. I’m afraid he won’t be there. That someone else will be. And that if Willie no longer works there, to me the place won’t mean what its always meant to me: the place where God works. The shop still says Willie’s Shoe Repair on the window of it. Somehow I’m not up to checking it out. Maybe one day I’ll change my mind.
The next incident took place in a movie theatre. A revival house where I had gone to see the film IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, for the first time. I was loving it. Every moment of it. And then came the scene around a dinner table. Jimmy Stewart talking to his father in the film. And he says to his father, something like: “Dad, did I ever tell you what a great guy you are?” And the actor playing the father has his head down staring at the dinner table when he hears this line; his hands are folded on the table in front of him.
And there was something about the way that actor responded to those words, with silence and absolute stillness that allowed me to see and feel the love and depth of feeling passing back and forth between the father and the son, that absolutely heightened that moment. Made it, to me, INDELIBLE. And, in the middle of it, and it really is only a moment in the film as I was watching the actor playing the father, I heard a voice say “This is God.”
There are some films I love so much I won’t watch them because I’m afraid of wearing out the phosphorus or gossamer quality of the magic of the film. A bunch of years go by and then I’ll watch it again. And every time I see that film, at that moment in the film, when I see the actor who plays the father at the dinner table - I hear that same voice say: This is God.”
The most recent incident began happening several months ago. The man’s name is Erwin. He could be an illegal immigrant. He speaks almost no English. And his job is that of a parking lot attendant. In the heart of Hollywood. I see him four days a week. When I pull into the lot in my car to drop it off on my way to work. Willie directs me to where I should park. And, without my ever having to ask him to do it, he gives me a space where my car may be safe from dents caused by other cars. He’ll even hold a spot like that for me until I show up.
And every morning as I enter the lot, and in the evening as I’m leaving it, Erwin nods to me, and smiles. As though he’s happy to do this for me.
I’ve thought to myself : “Maybe I should offer to pay him.” But I’ve also wondered if perhaps that would reduce the kindness he’s been extending to me to something based on a monetary exchange. And that maybe what he’s doing has nothing at all to do with money. I noticed a pair of shoes in my closet recently that I had stopped wearing. Noticed Erwin’s shoes were the same size, and gave them to him. And when I see him these days, those are the shoes he’s wearing.
But his smile, and his kindness haven’t gotten any more so than from the beginning. To me they look the same as the first time I ever saw the man. Erwin could be in his forties, or maybe older. He has a weathered look. As though he’s worked a lot with his hands, worked a lot outdoors. He’s very quiet. And alert. He appears to be happy as he works.
Sometimes I see him kicking a ball around the lot. He could have been a soccer player. But there is something in his eyes … a kindness one doesn’t often see these days that’s unmistakable. A look I marvel at. Because Erwin has a very taxing job. During the summer he’s out in the heat all day, and he’s told me he works there in that lot seven days a week.
One of the summer days it was mild, and I said to him “Its nice today.“ And Irwin said “America is wonderful!“ And there was this broad smile on his face. Each time I’ve ever seen Erwin, from the very first time until the last time just a couple of days ago, the moment I see him a voice says to me: “This is God.”
Monday, October 27, 2008
BEING (not) THERE
by The Stanger
The actor Paul Newman passed away last week at the age of eighty-three. I was momentarily struck by the news when I first heard it. I’ve loved some of the films he was in, notably Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Hustler, Hud. Less than a week later, I’m over it, or rather him.
Wonder why? Perhaps its to do with this: those movies were good, as were the stories and characters he portrayed in the films. And he performed them well. He was, to me, entertainment. Something more in an actor is required for me to feel in my heart - LOSS. The kind of feeling one can experience losing a loved one. I had a dog named Shep when I was a boy whom I’ve never completely gotten over losing. Probably, never will.
I once saw a documentary on James Dean. In it was a screen test for the film East Of Eden in which two actors were being tested for the same role (Cal): James Dean and Paul Newman. There was footage of both actors being interviewed together onscreen. And I noticed that the only one of the two my eye went to was not Paul Newman, but James Dean. They weren’t acting. They were simply being there on-screen together. And one of them, in the presence of the other completely disappeared. I found myself thinking about that.
Wondering why? Both actors were close to the same age. Newman was actually a few years older than Dean. But Dean’s face told a different story than Newman’s. His face looked as though it had seen more of life, had suffered some, been knocked around. Newman’s simply didn’t. One face had more character in it than the other, more depth. More PRESENCE.
Such a mysterious and compelling word: presence. No one knows much about it. Everyone recognizes it when they see it. No one knows where it comes from or how to get it .What’s mysterious about it also is that a person who is a performer can have it in person and not on film. Two examples: Elvis Presley and Madonna. Elvis wanted to be James Dean. Madonna’s wanted to be Marilyn Monroe. Both Elvis and Madonna have no presence on screen.
No matter the power of their superstar status - nothing happens onscreen. Put Elvis on stage, and he didn’t have to do anything except BE THERE; he was magic. He had IT onstage. Put him on film as an actor, and he had nothing. His films made money. It had nothing to do with his acting. And all to do with what he looked like to mostly teen age girls. And that’s pretty much what we have today.
Actors called superstars, whose films make money, because of their looks: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, Wil Smith, Angelina Jolie. And, oh yah - Miley Cyrus: but her popularity isn’t because of her looks. Its because of her voracious appetite for attention, the limelight; her immense need to be the center of attention, to be famous, a Superstar. But getting back to the others, it is only about their looks and nothing else.
I remember reading an article once on Brad Pitt in which the writer remarked that it looked like the worst thing that had ever happened to him was that maybe, once, he hadn’t gotten some part he’d auditioned for. I guess I remember that because that’s my response to him whenever I see him onscreen. After ten minutes I’m bored. That wasn’t true for me with James Dean, Steve McQueen, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, Vanessa Redgrave or John Wayne - but only when he wasn’t playing The Duke. I mean his presence in these movies: The Searchers, Red River and The Quiet Man.
There’s an actor making a comeback of a sorts today who once had presence, or some of it: Mickey Rourke. He had it in Diner. But then he began to destroy it by falling in love with the image he had of himself and the one he turned to cosmetic surgery chasing after. Sure he hurt himself by his own destructive behavior. But the real reason Hollywood stopped hiring him was that he no longer resembled Mickey Rourke. He began to look like a plastic, cosmetic version of himself. He’s opening in a film soon that there’s been some good press on: The Wrestler. I wish him well. But he makes me think that presence is a gift that a person can lose if he isn’t careful.
In fact, when I saw The Island of Dr. Moreau, I remember feeling that Marlon Brando was missing something I never imagined I’d see him without: presence. In his case, he destroyed the great gift of the presence he once had in great abundance because of his own - laziness. He lived a life of indulgence and decay for so long that the gift somehow vanished. I knew his life was running out when I saw that.
To cut to the chase: PRESENCE is a spiritual energy. And the reason I no longer often see films today is because PRESENCE is no longer a quality America values. Simply because our culture has nothing to do with the spiritual and everything to do with the material. Nothing to do with depth and everything to do with the superficial. Nothing to do with the lasting or eternal and everything to do with the momentary.
Another name for America is GREED. A country in which almost everyone is lusting after one thing and one thing only: MONEY. It’s a land whose inhabitants want only one thing: to be millionaires. And the fact that there are no real actors today with genuine presence is because as a culture and a country, we get that which our collective unconscious values and demands, and only that. The people we call stars today, political or cinematic, are the reflections of our own collective unconscious as a nation, as a culture. Its why Bush is in office. And even more to the point … Cheney.
Presence has been replaced by addiction: to technology. Try to find a person under the age of thirty walking or being anywhere (or sitting behind a wheel) without a cell phone in their hands or glued to their ear. People no longer walk down the street; they talk down the street, on phones.
When’s the last time you saw a person moving through space unattached to some form of technology? Its all become addiction and hypnosis to screens, to technical gadgets. Under the guise of multi-tasking. Is that what the Metro driver Sanchez was up to when his negligence caused the deaths of so many people recently? Was he multi-tasking or had he simply become addicted to distracting himself from BEING THERE on job where he was supposed to be, by text-messaging someone instead? Oblivious to his responsibilities as a conductor? A wake up call if there ever was one.
How many times while driving in your car have you glanced into a car around you to notice the person behind the wheel completely unconscious of their responsibilities as a driver, completely engrossed in a conversation on a cell phone? How many times have you thought to yourself “There’s an accident waiting to happen?” The one that recently happened was one such: Big Time!
Kinda hope and pray these days that soon, our collective unconscious may demand once again something more from those we look to as guides, as inspiration , examples, heroes: Stars. Whether they are running the country, or gracing the silver screen. Individuals who display something more than merely their looks or will power - who may, once again, demonstrate the real thing …PRESENCE. Individuals who are more than addicts to technology, greed, self-love. Individuals who inhabit space ….life itself, with a grandeur and a grace that communicates the supreme spiritual potential each of us carries within our own hearts and souls. Sometimes other human beings can lead us in the direction of our own awareness of the most that we can be. I think that, once, that’s what some politicians and movie stars were about: FDR …James Stewart (IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE).
Here’s looking at you, kid, and to the possibility of seeing once again someone in office, or up there on the silver screen, who can give us a sense of really and truly …BEING THERE.
The actor Paul Newman passed away last week at the age of eighty-three. I was momentarily struck by the news when I first heard it. I’ve loved some of the films he was in, notably Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Hustler, Hud. Less than a week later, I’m over it, or rather him.
Wonder why? Perhaps its to do with this: those movies were good, as were the stories and characters he portrayed in the films. And he performed them well. He was, to me, entertainment. Something more in an actor is required for me to feel in my heart - LOSS. The kind of feeling one can experience losing a loved one. I had a dog named Shep when I was a boy whom I’ve never completely gotten over losing. Probably, never will.
I once saw a documentary on James Dean. In it was a screen test for the film East Of Eden in which two actors were being tested for the same role (Cal): James Dean and Paul Newman. There was footage of both actors being interviewed together onscreen. And I noticed that the only one of the two my eye went to was not Paul Newman, but James Dean. They weren’t acting. They were simply being there on-screen together. And one of them, in the presence of the other completely disappeared. I found myself thinking about that.
Wondering why? Both actors were close to the same age. Newman was actually a few years older than Dean. But Dean’s face told a different story than Newman’s. His face looked as though it had seen more of life, had suffered some, been knocked around. Newman’s simply didn’t. One face had more character in it than the other, more depth. More PRESENCE.
Such a mysterious and compelling word: presence. No one knows much about it. Everyone recognizes it when they see it. No one knows where it comes from or how to get it .What’s mysterious about it also is that a person who is a performer can have it in person and not on film. Two examples: Elvis Presley and Madonna. Elvis wanted to be James Dean. Madonna’s wanted to be Marilyn Monroe. Both Elvis and Madonna have no presence on screen.
No matter the power of their superstar status - nothing happens onscreen. Put Elvis on stage, and he didn’t have to do anything except BE THERE; he was magic. He had IT onstage. Put him on film as an actor, and he had nothing. His films made money. It had nothing to do with his acting. And all to do with what he looked like to mostly teen age girls. And that’s pretty much what we have today.
Actors called superstars, whose films make money, because of their looks: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, Wil Smith, Angelina Jolie. And, oh yah - Miley Cyrus: but her popularity isn’t because of her looks. Its because of her voracious appetite for attention, the limelight; her immense need to be the center of attention, to be famous, a Superstar. But getting back to the others, it is only about their looks and nothing else.
I remember reading an article once on Brad Pitt in which the writer remarked that it looked like the worst thing that had ever happened to him was that maybe, once, he hadn’t gotten some part he’d auditioned for. I guess I remember that because that’s my response to him whenever I see him onscreen. After ten minutes I’m bored. That wasn’t true for me with James Dean, Steve McQueen, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, Vanessa Redgrave or John Wayne - but only when he wasn’t playing The Duke. I mean his presence in these movies: The Searchers, Red River and The Quiet Man.
There’s an actor making a comeback of a sorts today who once had presence, or some of it: Mickey Rourke. He had it in Diner. But then he began to destroy it by falling in love with the image he had of himself and the one he turned to cosmetic surgery chasing after. Sure he hurt himself by his own destructive behavior. But the real reason Hollywood stopped hiring him was that he no longer resembled Mickey Rourke. He began to look like a plastic, cosmetic version of himself. He’s opening in a film soon that there’s been some good press on: The Wrestler. I wish him well. But he makes me think that presence is a gift that a person can lose if he isn’t careful.
In fact, when I saw The Island of Dr. Moreau, I remember feeling that Marlon Brando was missing something I never imagined I’d see him without: presence. In his case, he destroyed the great gift of the presence he once had in great abundance because of his own - laziness. He lived a life of indulgence and decay for so long that the gift somehow vanished. I knew his life was running out when I saw that.
To cut to the chase: PRESENCE is a spiritual energy. And the reason I no longer often see films today is because PRESENCE is no longer a quality America values. Simply because our culture has nothing to do with the spiritual and everything to do with the material. Nothing to do with depth and everything to do with the superficial. Nothing to do with the lasting or eternal and everything to do with the momentary.
Another name for America is GREED. A country in which almost everyone is lusting after one thing and one thing only: MONEY. It’s a land whose inhabitants want only one thing: to be millionaires. And the fact that there are no real actors today with genuine presence is because as a culture and a country, we get that which our collective unconscious values and demands, and only that. The people we call stars today, political or cinematic, are the reflections of our own collective unconscious as a nation, as a culture. Its why Bush is in office. And even more to the point … Cheney.
Presence has been replaced by addiction: to technology. Try to find a person under the age of thirty walking or being anywhere (or sitting behind a wheel) without a cell phone in their hands or glued to their ear. People no longer walk down the street; they talk down the street, on phones.
When’s the last time you saw a person moving through space unattached to some form of technology? Its all become addiction and hypnosis to screens, to technical gadgets. Under the guise of multi-tasking. Is that what the Metro driver Sanchez was up to when his negligence caused the deaths of so many people recently? Was he multi-tasking or had he simply become addicted to distracting himself from BEING THERE on job where he was supposed to be, by text-messaging someone instead? Oblivious to his responsibilities as a conductor? A wake up call if there ever was one.
How many times while driving in your car have you glanced into a car around you to notice the person behind the wheel completely unconscious of their responsibilities as a driver, completely engrossed in a conversation on a cell phone? How many times have you thought to yourself “There’s an accident waiting to happen?” The one that recently happened was one such: Big Time!
Kinda hope and pray these days that soon, our collective unconscious may demand once again something more from those we look to as guides, as inspiration , examples, heroes: Stars. Whether they are running the country, or gracing the silver screen. Individuals who display something more than merely their looks or will power - who may, once again, demonstrate the real thing …PRESENCE. Individuals who are more than addicts to technology, greed, self-love. Individuals who inhabit space ….life itself, with a grandeur and a grace that communicates the supreme spiritual potential each of us carries within our own hearts and souls. Sometimes other human beings can lead us in the direction of our own awareness of the most that we can be. I think that, once, that’s what some politicians and movie stars were about: FDR …James Stewart (IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE).
Here’s looking at you, kid, and to the possibility of seeing once again someone in office, or up there on the silver screen, who can give us a sense of really and truly …BEING THERE.
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