The famous

I'd rather not discuss the abject assholes I've encountered, like Tibor Machan, Paul Schrader, Tom Brokaw, and David Copperfield. Most of the famous were wonderful.

Chrissie Hynde, so lovely, so lively. Mickey Stevenson, Fred Williamson, Janet MacLachlan, and Edwin Starr were surprisingly fun to work with. Alejandro Rey and his friend Stacy Keach inspired and illuminated my creative career. Producers Howard Kazanjian, Al Ruddy, Tony Scotti, and John Lamb gave me important encouragement as a young filmmaker. I wish I could have said something more cheerful to Zappa and Spielberg. I had no reason to be cheerful with The Gipsy Kings. I was backstage to enforce their contractual obligation to me. I wanted to strangle their French manager. I never had any luck with Frenchmen. Christian Bourguinon stuck a knife in my back, although it was worse to be kneecapped by Striesand's hairdresser, Jon Whatshisface, because I wasn't spending enough money.

Without Gerald MacCallum's guidance, I could not have undertaken an intellectual quest of much depth. Without Peter Stringfellow, I could not have spent time with Mel Gibson twice, a dinner together at Stringfellow's nightclub, then in Charlotte Street the next day. I took him to a natural food joint, ate thick avocado, cheese and sprout sandwiches together, and I had little to say while he signed autographs for blushing chicks. Mel was at the zenith of his fame, rerecording Hamlet at the time, looping his voice and coaching the other actors, everybody in headphones at a studio. Always has to be done. Production sound while shooting is a guide track, sounds fake and amateur, lots of unwanted atmos. Rerecording a movie takes a week or so, if it goes well. Other people add sound effects and music, mix it in six channel Dolby.

There were numerous B list actors, actresses, singers, dancers, and musicians whose names you might not recognize, but they were at the top of their professions in Holland, Germany, and Australia. I came within a mile or two of success with Kubrick, and many Brits gave me vast resources and privileges. Somewhere in heaven, Leonard Zrnick is smiling.

I tried and failed to save Herman Brood. Someone should put poppies on his grave in salute to a great heart and soul, rock and roll junkie.

It was a huge honor to encounter Margaret Thatcher, interesting to film Helmut Kohl, a pain to write fulsome praise for dumbshit George W., and embarrassing to witness 41 fumble at a NATO summit. People often mistake physical stature for depth, which reminds me of smiling con artists Nathaniel Branden and Emmett Miller. The Grateful Dead were as manly as female mental patients. G. Gordon Liddy's vanity was tiresome, and Wink Martindale was positively scary. No sane person is quite that mechanical, unless he's selling Kirby vacuum cleaners door to door, enthusiastically spilling dirt on your living room carpet.

I envied Rob for hanging out with Sonny Bono and Slim Pickens. It was sad to meet tortured clowns like Robin Williams, Norman Wisdom, and Jonathan Winters, a delight to work with Orlin Grabbe, an intellectual giant and frequently funny. When beautiful Rosemary Forsythe married a restaurant owner, I saw an exquisite flower cast aside and trampled by Hollywood. 'Poison Dwarf' Charlene Tilton was one of the happiest moms on earth, and it was a privilege to show the world her private joy. It took a long time to convince her to open up. Lon Satton was such a ham, there was no point in looking under the hood. Ditto Ben Vereen. There is something fundamentally screwy about Broadway song and dance men.

TV execs Roone Arledge and Van Gordon Sauter should have been assassinated, but no one gets everything we want in life. Few cardsharps did more harm than opaque Alan Greenspan, however it was impossible to kill someone in a short phone conversation.

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One last birthday

I have the notion that I'm dying, no particular reason for it, a general sense of frailty. In two weeks I will be 68 years old. The last thing I want to do is shiver through another winter, and I don't see much purpose in doing that. How did old indians die? -- walk into a frozen cave, lay down and die. Better than suffering in a hospital bed, plaything for medical experiments that never work, bombarded by television. I can't think of a worse hell, inescapable TV made by evil shitheads. Maybe that's what mythological hell is like, tormented by the obscene, a long wicked laugh at my expense. Memo to Lucifer: it won't work, bub. I don't care what you or anyone else throw at me. I've been ridiculed plenty, no stranger to verbal punishment. Try physical torture.

I have to get in line with reality. No one will ever find my work, buried under a mountain of horseshit on the web, millions of people in universities pushing conventional wisdom. If you want to honor my death, play Led Zeppelin's 'When The Levee Breaks.' It propelled my first novel, listened to it looped endlessly while I wrote the action scenes. Make a note (hat tip to Alejandro): music first, then story.

Another note. Talented people are generous. I don't know that I include myself in that class, but maybe I am, always generous with other writers and filmmakers similarly situated, good work that didn't stand a micron of hope to be recognized or rewarded by the Jews. Sorry to be offensively blunt. Look around, follow the money in publishing, movies, music, stage. Drunk or sober, Mel had it right. Nice that I shared dinner and lunch the next day with him, a great guy. Not the best actor on Earth, certainly not a director, just a wonderful man with plenty of women and children. I understood him. I lost track of how many women and children I had. Someday someone will write a nice biography of Mel Gibson. That's the difference between him and me. When I die, everything I did will die with me, unacknowledged.

The world keeps secrets. Sigh. Too many to discuss. Obama's school records are sealed for a reason. Hillary destroyed emails for a reason. The Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. The U.S. Constitution had little to do with deliberate rational design.

Hmph. This wasn't supposed to be a political screed, damn it. I wanted to wish myself a last happy birthday greeting. Dead certain that no one else will. There is a wife and daughter up the hill who will ignore September 30th, dissing Dad for the thousandth time. People indulge bad habits to make themselves feel superior. My bad habits are slightly different. I smoke pot to see visions, feel the beat of life; cigarettes to kill the pain of loneliness.

I think I've covered everything in essays and autobiographical stories, clips and stills in a five minute salute to myself. Happy birthday, Dorf. Long way from juvenality to Wolf DeVoon. It could have been far worse, a machinist's apprentice or factory hand.

Bye, Clare.

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