My Real Memoir

There are a lot of distractions on the road to nowhere. People with tinnitus in their ears have to find ways to drown out the persistent whine. I had a case of metaphysical tinnitus, and was looking for ways to drown out the “why?”

First, I drowned it out with planning. If my envisioned school of the arts was even half as “significant” as I pictured it, I’d be appreciated, even celebrated. Not as loudly as my former near-rock-stardom, perhaps. But then I was twenty-three now, sophisticated, and ready to make clever small-talk with rich ladies.

Mom was my silent partner. She was  buried under the avalanche of grief caused by my father’s death. Nevertheless, bless her, she wanted me to have “something to do.” True, her investment was modest. But it was enough for me to hire a couple of talented carpenters I’d found doing woodwork at a Moroccan restaurant. For $3,000, the Beaver Brothers built me a beautiful tongue-in-groove dance floor, viewing room for dance-moms, and a tiny stage with tin-can-lighting (coffee cans with hardware store spotlights). The diffident little sign out front told drivers who slowed enough to see it that we were The Ars Nova Institute of the Arts. “Ars Nova” was Latin for “New Arts.”

But only I seemed to know that. Everyone who called asked if I was “Ars.” So I changed it to The Newport Institute of the Arts—a grandiose name for a shoestring academy. Result? We became bohemian. Which made us accidentally cool. Which brought some interesting people to our door.

And people were even better for drowning out the persistent “why?” I was invited to join the City Arts Commission. And there I was championed by its artiest member, Caroline (“Caro-liiine, not lin!”) and her sonorous-accented British actor boyfriend David Classy Hyphenated-Lastname (who turned out to be from Staten Island).

And there were still more interesting people.

A vivacious teenager named Bobbie and her six-year-old cousin Josh took me on a guided tour of my new enclave, Newport Beach’s Corona del Mar neighborhood. She was particularly proud of her movie-star uncle (and Josh’s dad) James Brolin. Who knew then that “little Joshy” would turn out to be “rugged” Oscar-nominated Josh Brolin?

Another local, celebrated neo-impressionist Bernard “Bernie” Zalusky walked every morning with me to ease his pain. And ended up teaching painting at our school while cancer ate away everything but his gentle spirit.

A rebellious teenager, with bleach-tortured hair and a 35-year-old boyfriend, asked me to teach her acting. Kelly was fidgety and antsy to run away, so we only had a few sessions. But once she’d found her focus, Kelly McGillis became a movie star too. Perhaps our little school’s motto should have been, “Visit us and become famous.”

Still, people weren’t enough. Just before my Institute opened, a reporter interviewed me for the local paper. “Why?” she asked. I answered with truisms as well-worn as the Blarney Stone: “Well, the arts are how people express themselves and–”

“Yes,” she interrupted, “but why are you doing this?”

There it was again, that hideous “why?” I’d worked so hard to drown out. I improvised an answer, but even as I did a voice in my head screamed, “I don’t know! I have no idea why I do what I do!”

But then I met this girl…

My Real Memoir is a series. To read the next one, click here.