Or, for the solipsists out there, welcome to Year 40.
Yep, it only took me 25 years to get from 15 to 40...
The title is a reference to a show that I was pretty fond of as a 12- and 13-year-old: "James at 15," and in it's final season, "James at 16." It was a coming of age show. If your main character is supposed to be 15, it HAS to be a coming of age show. I think this show may have sparked my interest in photography.
Despite it's best efforts, it didn't help me get laid. For me, that episode would have to be called "James at 19." It is probably because I was only 12 when the show arrived in 1977. (That means that the fictional James was actually forty in 2002) That is also the year my family tried to move to Lewiston, Idaho. We failed and landed in Tujunga, California in December of 1977...we were there, on Valmont, for 4 years. I dropped out of 9th grade in 1980, and didn't go back to school until I arrived at El Camino in the summer of 1983. By 1981 we were living in motels full-time, having spent weeks at motels from June of 1981 until early 1982, stopping in Eagle Rock, Santa Monica, and El Segundo. We spent months at a place in Manhattan Beach.
I started working at Woody's, and for the first time in my life, began choosing what my life was going to be like. I struggle to this day with the residue of the chaos of my childhood.
I met Andrea at Woody's in 1984, and the result is my son, Thomas Benjamin, born July 4th, 1986. Andrea moved with Ben to Jackson, Mississippi, in 1988, and to Baton Rouge in 1990.
I worked at the Federated Group from 1984 until 1987. I met Joanie there in late 1986. I will save further comment for now on that. I worked at El Camino, was supposed to go to UCLA in 1987, but there was no money. Worked at Grantree in 1989, went to work for Walser's in 1990. Lived in Torrance, Canoga Park, Redondo Beach, Corona, Long Beach, and Torrance again in that time period.
In July of 1985, after at least 7 or 8 attempts dating back to February of 1983, I finally got stoned on marijuana. I knew I was affected because I saw the outlines of turtles dancing in the stucco living room ceiling of the place Andrea and I shared with Renard on Eastwood in Torrance.
Met Susan working at Walser's. Moved to Lomita, got hired in the signroom of IKEA Carson, November, 1992. The 1994 Northridge quake displaced my mom, so now she lives with me. Moved to South Redondo Beach in 1994, and saw the dawn of a long stretch of stability. I left the signroom in 1997, went to sales, went into management, then went into hibernation. Moved out of Redondo in 2002 to accomodate Ben moving in with me for the last 2 years of high school.
In 1995, John Whisler and I were inspired to create ED WOOD, JR.: POST-MORTEM. This is a long, involved, and still evolving story, so more on that later also. But between IKEA's considerable development of me as a manager, and putting the movie together with John from scratch, I amassed some amazing experiences that tell me that anything I want to do is in relatively easy reach.
In 1995, I got to direct a 3 1/2 minute video for IKEA Carson, and in 1996, I got to direct a 17-minute long take on "A Christmas Carol." These experiences were invaluable, and I owe Wolfgang for them!
What is forty like? It's like 39, plus one...my body feels like 60, but my mind feels like 20, or 25...One thing I like is that I am getting a sense of history, the kind of perspective you can only attain by, say, paying close attention to seven presidential elections. Or having a direct perspective on things that are more than 5 years in the past, or 10 years, or 15 years, etc.
I have friendships that began before I was twenty, and some that are not that old, but feel like it; those are the most valuable things to me today. Few are like us, and I hope we can be in regular contact for the rest of our lives.
