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Room to Dream. Kristine McKenna
Читать онлайн.Название Room to Dream
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781782118404
Автор произведения Kristine McKenna
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство Ingram
Before I started meditating I worried that doing it would make me lose my edge, and I didn’t want to lose the fire to make stuff. I found out it gives you more fire to make stuff and more happiness in the doing and way more of an edge. People think anger is an edge, but anger is a weakness that poisons you and the environment around you. It’s not a healthy thing and it’s not good for relationships, for sure.
I moved into the stables when Peggy and I split up, and that was the greatest place. I’d lock myself in Henry’s room and I loved sleeping there, but eventually I had to leave and I moved into a bungalow on Rosewood Avenue. Edmund Horn was my landlord, and my place was at the end of his driveway in the back. There’s a scene in Eraserhead of a bum on a bus bench, and the bum is wearing Edmund’s sweater. Edmund was around sixty years old when I met him and he was a concert pianist who traveled with Gershwin in the thirties. He was a homosexual who lived to be over a hundred years old, and because he didn’t have children he started buying properties, and he wound up owning lots of places in West Hollywood. He was a multimillionaire but he didn’t care about money; his clothes were filthy and he dressed like a bum. He was persnickety and he could get in a bad mood and turn on you, but I got along with him great. He tolerated all the things I wanted, and I think he thought I was a good tenant because I’d do odd jobs for him. I put in a lot of hot water heaters for Edmund and I kind of loved that job. When I had my paper route I always had some leftover newspapers, and I’d leave them on Edmund’s back porch and he loved to read them.
He had a Volkswagen parked outside his house, but it had refrigerator cardboard on top and the tires were cracked and he never drove it. He walked everywhere. He used to collect rainwater in these porcelain dishes, and he’d take this rainwater inside and shave his underarms with rainwater. Nothing was ever updated in his house—it was all stuff from the twenties—and he had one forty-watt bulb in there. He’d watch TV at night and that would be the only light in the house. He was very frugal. One night I hear this pounding coming from inside Edmund’s house and I go out and listen, and he’s banging on his walls with his fists, crying, “Help me,” from the depths of his being. He wasn’t calling for people to help him. He was crying out to the cosmos for help.
When you rent a place a garage usually goes with it, but with Edmund you didn’t get a garage. Edmund, why don’t I get the garage? Look in the garage. What’s in the garage? Cardboard boxes. He loved cardboard boxes. His favorites were waxed fruit boxes. And Edmund’s boxes weren’t folded up—they were stacked, floor to ceiling, cardboard boxes. I talked Edmund into letting me build him a new garage and taking over the garage that was already there, which was a big garage. I built Edmund a new garage and he was happy with it, but he upped my rent a little bit and all his boxes had to be moved from the old garage to the new one. Then I built an L-shaped gable shed in the yard and a second shed, where I could store my tools. I had my table saw out in the yard and I sprayed WD-40 on it all the time so it wouldn’t rust out, and I covered it with a canvas. This old garage of Edmund’s was where I did the post-production on Eraserhead. I had a really old Moviola, but it wasn’t a bubble-top Moviola; it was upgraded to have a viewer and it was really kind to film. So I was cutting on a Moviola, not even a flatbed, and I had all my film in racks, and I had an editing table and some synchronizers in there.
I was still working on the film when Al left for Findhorn, and it really depressed me when he left. Al was a funny one. He’s a hell-bent-for-leather person, and when he gets on a thing he just goes and does it. Fine. But I really wanted him to help me with Eraserhead. So off he goes. I think he enjoyed it for a while but he came back after several months, and I was really glad to see him when he did. He lived in my garage after he got back and he’d have his salads, and he eats his salads the same way he did everything. Mixing and eating salads was just ferocious. Al had a desk on one side of the garage, and although we hardly had any sound equipment Al was over there doing sound. Al did this thing in the morning we called “putting in his eyes,” and he’d have the same setup each time. He’d have a paper towel and he’d fold it a specific way and he’d have a shallow bowl with liquid in it and his little container of contacts. He’d open up this container and take one of the contacts and move it around in the solution really fast, then he’d put it in and blot his fingers on the paper towel. Then he’d do the other one, work that contact like crazy in the solution, put it in, and he’d be done.
There was a big room in the Doheny mansion called the Great Hall that was originally a ballroom, and the AFI built a slanted floor in there and put in a big screen and a projection booth with dubbers in a balcony that was originally a place for an orchestra. Down below they had the mixing console. The Great Hall had a chandelier that would rise up into the ceiling and dim as it went up, so when you saw a film there it was quite a show. One day Al and I were in there mixing and these people came in. I didn’t want anybody in there and I told them to leave, then somebody else came in and said, “These people from Cannes are here. Could they come in and see something? This could be really good for you, David.” Normally I would say no but I said okay, just a little bit. I didn’t really see them but I pictured a bunch of people wearing berets, and they saw maybe five or seven minutes. Later I was told they said, “He out-Buñueled Buñuel,” and that I should take the film to New York, where they were screening films for Cannes.
That opened the door to thinking maybe we could get into Cannes, and Al said, “If you want to make that date we have to work around the clock and you have to stop going to Bob’s.” It almost killed me. I had to give up milkshakes. Al felt sorry for me, though, and one day he said, “Let’s take a break and go to Hamburger Hamlet.” So we go and have coffee and I see this piece of Dutch apple pie in the case. I get a slice and it’s so good but it’s expensive, so I can’t do that again. One day I’m in the supermarket and I see an entire Dutch apple pie that costs just a little more than that slice did, so I buy the pie, read the instructions, put it in the oven, and it cooks. I’d cut a slice and wrap it in tinfoil and hide it under my jacket, then go to Hamburger Hamlet for coffee and sneak bites of the pie while we were having coffee. And we finished the film in time for Cannes.
I used to go to Du-par’s at the Farmers Market, where they had these tall blue-gray wooden shopping carts with two wheels, so I found the office of the manager of the Farmers Market and went up these wooden steps to this beautiful office on the second or third floor of a building there. This guy invited me in and I said, “I’ve gotta take twenty-four rolls of film to New York City. Could I borrow a shopping cart to take them there?” He said, “Listen, pal, people steal those fuckin’ things all the time and they don’t ever come in and ask. It’s nice of you to ask, so of course you can. And good luck to you.” I had twelve rolls of picture and twelve rolls of sound and I loaded them all onto this heavy cart, taped it all together, and checked it in as baggage. I took all my money out of the bank for a ticket on the red-eye, and I was really sick when I flew there, with a bad cold and a fever. The Lady in the Radiator’s sister lived there and she gave me breakfast, then helped me get in a cab, and I went to a theater downtown. I took the film in and this guy said, “Just set it there—these films here are ahead of you,” and he pointed to a long row of films. I went and got coffees and donuts and all day long I was pacing out front, then finally the projectionist started running it late in the afternoon. I’m listening at the door—the film seemed so long! He finally said, “Okay, it’s done,” and I packed it up and went home.