Yesterday evening, for some inexplicable reason, someone intent on driving me into a state of nervous collapse dropped a quarter into the jukebox that's tucked deeply away in the recesses of my teeny little brain. The song that began playing (over and over and over): the theme song from The Jeffersons. (Oh, I'm movin' on up, MOO-VIN' ON UP!....)
Why that particular tune at that particular time? I have no clue. Many long, joyful years have passed since I saw my last episode of The Jeffersons. Not that I have anything against George, Louise, Lionel, their goofy English neighbor or the hilarity that followed the opening song every single week. It's just that my life is full and happy without them. And the ongoing repetition of that spirited ditty gets me wanting to rip and claw at my head until I can reach inside and find the off switch.
I can't remember the last time I heard that theme song, much less sat through an episode of the show. Way the hell back, many lifetimes ago, predating even the eleven or so months spent working at the program's production company. A gig I stumbled into during 16 strange months spent in L.A., where I ended up after dropping out of my one and only marriage and fleeing cross-country.
The marriage, by the way, was not the problem. For the most part, I was the problem. Too young, too unhappy. Desperately insecure, flailing about beneath the weight of a miserable self-image. Doing my best, god knows, but that, in some ways, is not saying much. And though I married a lovely, intelligent, affectionate, talented woman, an excellent person all around, and with the finest intentions in the world loved her as best I could, I got hitched out of loneliness, not love. Not a foundation that would sustain the union, at least not in this particular case.
And when I finally precipitated out and bolted cross-country, I found myself in North Hollywood, ensconced in an apartment over a three-bay garage, making substantial money doing temporary word processing, a gig that landed me in a sprawling suite of offices in a high-rise building in Century City. Tandem Productions, home to Norman Lear, creator of All In The Family and The Jeffersons, and his two partners, producers of Blade Runner. Where I spent eleven months amid a strange, extravagant mix of personalities, a blend of IT geeks, show-biz types and a rainbow assortment of support staff, dramas and melodramas unfolding all around (some of which, with time, included me). Some great people, some truly weird folks, and some great, truly weird individuals, all of whom had their moments of shining, some in enjoyable, benevolent ways, others in darker, messier ways, their flaws and vulnerabilities on sad display.
(Blah blah blah.)
I had no direct contact with Norman Lear and his partners, apart from him passing silently through my workroom on a couple of occasions to use its access door to the floor's elevators. But I found myself at one point charged with inputting his rolodex into the computer, a collection of big-name phone numbers/addresses that gave me the illusion of rubbing elbows with the higher strata of L.A.'s entertainment industry. (Providing me with that year's perfect Christmas gift for two or three women I knew: Harrison Ford's details -- me printing them up, cutting them out to fit into tiny gift boxes that I wrapped with tiny red ribbons, presenting them to the women and savoring their wide-eyed, open-mouthed expressions on seeing the contents. None attempted to contact him, for which I gave silent thanks, though one claimed to have driven by his house at a moment when he stood at a front window, looking out at the street.)
Which describes part of my L.A. experience in a nutshell -- finding myself in situations or knowing people that provided encounters with famous faces. Vicarious encounters, generally -- once removed -- though every once in a while firsthand.
For instance: Century City, lunch hour, me at a local bank, cashing my weekly paycheck. Standing on line, minding my own business, looking at the check, looking out the bank's floor-to-ceiling windows at the lunch hour world outside, lost in thought. Glancing absently about, noticed at some point that someone I knew had queued up behind me. Or thought I knew. Someone who'd been in my home numerous times via the T&V, frequently enough that the experience of running into her in 3-D felt like encountering a personal acquaintance. Louise Jefferson (Isabel Sanford), looking far more human than she did on the tube: bags under the eyes, sagging skin below the chin. The real world version of Louise Jefferson.
She didn't look at me, didn't speak to anyone. I let her alone, cashed my check, went on with the day.
And here, years later, my teeny brain is flogging her theme music. Go figure.
The temperature yesterday and today has lifted itself above the freezing mark, the air softening, the snow softening, the expressions on people's faces softening into hopeful smiles. I've heard a couple of folks refer to it as the January thaw, which gets me looking around, puzzled. I associate thaws as occasions of sunshine, warm temperatures, abundant patches of green ground poking through, happy birds flitting about, singing with joy -- not gray, chilly, quiet in typical Vermont January fashion. I mentioned that to a guy in the gym lockerroom this afternoon after he used the 'thaw' word. His response: a laughing shake of the head at my foolishness, saying, "Hey, let's not get crazy now."
Heh.
The sadists in the local weather biz are promising things will get far crazier tomorrow, with temperatures rising giddily into the mid-40s.
We'll see.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Today, light streaming over northern Vermont:
Madrid, te echo de menos.
rws 7:51 PM [+]
Comments:
Someone with unlimited quarters seems to drop them into my mental jukebox with alarming regularity. Why, why can't it ever be a song I like?!
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