Can a city writer make it in the country? – Page 6

LB: Live! From Paradise #226 – “Fan, Foe or ‘Fall Guy’?”

(The Intro above is from this column's previous web incarnation)

by Larry Brody

Back in the early ’80s, I was the Supervising Producer of an ABC series called The Fall Guy.

It was a big hit, and I ran it for three years.

We had our crises, but The Fall Guy was filled with action and humor, and for the most part it was so much fun to work on that I couldn’t wait to get to the studio everyday.

There was, however, one problem.

The star, Lee Majors, hated me.

In all my years on the show, he only spoke to me three times.

The second time was when I came to see him during the shooting of the first episode. He said, “Get out of my trailer.”

The third time was at a party at another producer’s house. He crooked a finger and beckoned me over to a corner of the dining room.

“Know why I hate you?” Lee said.

“Um…no.”

And as soon as I said that, he took me back to the first time. (You thought I got the numbering wrong, didn’t you?)

“Think back to when we first met. To the first words out of your mouth.”

I thought about our meeting. The show was three weeks away from production, and our little building at Fox Studios had been buzzing all day with the news that Lee was back from a vacation and coming over to say hi.

I was as buzzed as everyone else. I wasn’t a big fan of his work on previous series, but I’d enjoyed my experience as a freelance writer on The Six Million Dollar Man. Everyone on the show had talked about what a great guy Lee was, and friends of mine who also knew him agreed.

“Down to earth.”

“Fun to hang with.”

“Wait till he takes you duck hunting!”

So when Lee drove up in his red Ferrari and strode into the office, I was eager and prepared to make a friend for life. I thrust out my hand to welcome him and blurted out the first thing that came to mind, loud and strong, for everyone in the office to hear.

“Here he is, everybody! Here’s the hero!”

Lee’s forehead wrinkled. He frowned. Did an about-face.

Went back out the door and into the Ferrari.

Roared away.

“You mocked me,” Lee said as we stood in the corner of the dining room. “You made fun of me in front of the entire staff.”

“But I meant it. You were a hero to me.”

Lee’s brows knitted, just as they had that day years ago. Frowning, he left me standing there alone.

Again.

The reason all this comes to mind is that last Saturday night Gwen the Beautiful and I went to Donny the Storyteller’s house to meet an old high school friend of his who he’d described as, “Larry B’s biggest fan.

“Gil reads you first thing every Friday. Then he e-mails me to discuss what you’ve written. You should see his file on the Old Billionaire.”

According to Donny, Gil was planning on making the five hour drive all the way from Oklahoma City to show me his appreciation, soon as I gave the nod.

How could I not want to meet someone like that?

I nodded.

Twice.

Which brings us to Saturday night.

There we were. Donny, Gwen, Gil, and me.

Gil thrust out his hand. “I think I’m pleased to meet you,” he said. “But I’m not sure. This is Donny’s idea, you know. From what I’ve read of your columns you’re kind of iffy to me.

“Your early stuff about life in Paradise was interesting, but after the first year you jumped the shark,” Gil went on. “All that drivel about spirits and mounds and dreams! If I’ve got to read one more conversation with the universe, or the wind, or your horse, I’m going to throw up!”

My brows knitted. I frowned. I turned away, to a wide-eyed Gwen. I took her hand in mine, and out we went, taking off for home in our pick-up.

Later that night, Donny called, talking very, very fast. “Larry B, it’s not what you think. Gil’s the funniest guy I know, in a sarcastic kind of way. He can’t help himself. He was excited, and trying to talk like you write and—”

And I get it now, at last. After all this time I understand what I did to upset Lee Majors.

And I’m sorry, Lee. I’m saying it here in public, as loudly as I can.

I hope you’ll forgive me. And prove yourself the better man.

The Much Better Man.

Because I’m admitting here in public, also as loudly as I can, that I’ll never forgive Gil.

LB: Live! From Paradise #224 – “Here’s What’s Happening in the Nabe”

(The Intro above is from this column's previous web incarnation)

by Larry Brody

Time now for an update on what’s happening in Paradise. I like to think of this kind of reportage as a kind of blind gossip column but without the blind “Guess who,” bit, because I’m so bad at coming up with clues.

Here’s the nitty gritty:

Walmart

The Good News: Long lines for the cashiers at the Paradise Walmart seem to be a thing of the past.

The Bad News: Business in Paradise is down, down, down. Trucks picking up and delivering at the goat milk company near the Town Square no longer inconvenience other traffic because there isn’t any other traffic.

The Latest Cloud Creek Ranch Groundskeeper

The Good News: Billy Morningstar has moved in with Buck the Ex Navy Seal and Delly the Interstate Trucker. That means he lives right next door to us—only a quarter of a mile away—and has been taking excellent care of the grass, flowers, and weeds that sort of look like grass and flowers here on The Mountain all summer.

The Bad News: Billy is Delly’s ex, which sets some folks to wonderin’. Gwen the Beautiful’s analysis boils down to “People are always saying, ‘Why can’t we just get along?” Billy and Buck and Delly prove that at least some people can.”

The Old Billionaire

The Good News: The O.B. is still very much alive and, for the most part, alert. He and his wife Nettie have settled back into the loving life they led for so many years.

The Bad News: The O.B. Himself acknowledges that it’s his meds that keep him from getting too angry for those who love him to bear…and his fridge and the sticky notes he’s put on it are what enable him to remember far too many things that used to come to mind automatically.

The @#%$ Chicken-Killing Weasels

The Good News: Decker the Giant Hearted is feeling proud as punch after killing two of the varmints who made the mistake of coming in through the dog yard fence onto his turf. “I’ve redeemed myself!” he barked joyfully after dropping the last weasel onto the porch.

The Bad News: Cloud Creek Ranch remains chickenless. Because Ole Larry B is too chicken to risk more heartbreak if the weasels who haven’t faced off with Decker return.

Burl Jr

The Good News: Burl Jr.’s father’s health has improved, and he’s able to do more work on the farm.

The Bad News: Burl Jr.’s recording studio in the Town Square was broken into and his recording equipment was taken although his recordings and demo tapes were left behind. “Burl Jr.’s analysis is “Paradise people don’t understand the finer things in life. Am I doomed to be yet another artist unappreciated by those closest to him?”

The badder news: “I think we should go back on the road, honey,” said his wife Tara, “so we can go to a more sensitive place where they’ll appreciate your work enough to steal you blind.” And, according to Burl, Jr., she means it.

Doug the Dog Breeder

The Good News: Doug the Dog Breeder and his wife, Anita, have a new trailer, a cozy place for humans in love to nest in and regain the vigor of youth.

The Bad News: For all practical purposes, Doug’s out of the dog breeding business because of the economy, although he’s still open to those who need a clean, healthy place to board their pets.

Larry B and Gwen the Beautiful

The Good News: We’re still here. Together. Enjoying life and feeling fulfilled by its mysteries. The specifics:

Gwen the Beautiful

Gwen has discovered the value of hope. The peace that can come from peering into the future and knowing that with a little tweak here and maybe a twist there she can make tomorrow shinier and warmer and more filled with satisfaction and love than yesterday.

Larry B

The Wind and I are into a heavy conversation about whether reality is real which is delightfully compounded by the fact that we can’t even agree on whether or not our conversation is.

Oops, here’s some Sudden News: Right here, right now, “at this very moment and I mean it,” Gwen wants us to go outside and fill the bird feeders. And even I can tell that she’s running out of patience.

In other words, looks like this update is just about done. And, frankly, as Elvis sang on his first LP, “That’s all right, Mama.” The truth is that here at the top of The Mountain Bad News always loses because like another song on that album put it, “Any place is paradise when I’m with you.”

And I mean with all of you.

The Magic of CLOUD CREEK RANCH

LB’S NOTE: Last Monday I posted about the original Cloud Creek Ranch where Gwen and I lived and loved and worked and played, located in, depending on where you wanted it to be, Malibu, Hidden Valley, Decker Canyon, Carlisle Canyon, Westlake Village, or Thousand Oaks. (Mail sent to any area code in those areas always got to us at the ranch. In fact, it always got to us on time, which was just one of the minor magical aspects of the place.)

The response to that post has been awesome, and I’m grateful to everyone who has read and enjoyed it, so what did I do? Like any “retired writer,” I searched my files to see if I had anything more already written on the subject and found the TV series pitch below. I’m pretty sure I wrote (or should I say “overwrote”) this in the year 2000, but if anyone knows differently, by all means give me a holler.

Hmm. Am I really saying Cloud Creek Ranch was “magical?” You bet I am. How magical? Well, let me approach it this way. Everything in the following post is true, both emotionally and literally. Or at least it was true at the time.

Hope y’all enjoy!

CLOUD CREEK

A WEEKLY DRAMATIC SERIES
BY LARRY BRODY

In a world where science and technology have made more strides in the past fifty years than they have over the entire span of human history, CLOUD CREEK, a new one-hour drama series, takes us into the new millennium on a quest for understanding no computers or analysts can provide.

It is a modern voyage into our ancient souls, into our very essence. A spiritual exodus on which we embark each week, CLOUD CREEK is FANTASY ISLAND without Tattoo, TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL without the angels, with a touch of NORTHERN EXPOSURE to keep our viewers’ hands off the remote during the breaks.

A kind of spiritual dude ranch, Cloud Creek Ranch both a place and a state of mind. It’s the one place on earth where people can go and find what they need—even when they don’t know they even need it. Although the ranch is just a short drive from the urban sprawl of Los Angeles, it seems like it’s countless thousands of miles away once we drive through the simple wooden gates.

There, our hosts — ROGER “SWIFT ELK” BARNES, and his wife AMY-LOUISE BARNES — help us check our worldly baggage and bottles of Prozac, taking us gently by the hand for a weekend of soul searching and enlightenment. There are no Bibles at Cloud Creek, no churches, synagogues, mosques or altars. There are also no judgmental attitudes, edicts or commandments. Instead there is the magic of the place itself, and its one rule: Listen to your heart; listen to your soul—and listen to the wind.

CLOUD CREEK’s owner, HARRIS CONNORS, met Roger and Amy at a Taos Pueblo spirituality gathering where he sought answers for the untimely death of his loving wife. A successful, busy advertising executive, Harris was drawn to the calm and contentment the Native American couple radiated. “I wish there was something like this closer to Los Angeles,” he told them over dinner that night. “A place people could go for the weekend to shut out the chaos of freeways, telephones, deadlines and fast food — a place to learn what you really feel inside.”

Two months later, on one of those February mornings in southern California when the coastal fog begins to burn off around noon, Roger and Amy stood with Harris on an oak-studded knoll overlooking a ranch for sale near scenic (and trendy) Ojai. In the valley below, a winding creek made its way through the manzanita and buck brush. More oaks watched silently as mist crept from the creek and wound upward through the mountains like smoke, turning into billowing clouds the road the wind southeast. There was a feeling of peacefulness about the place, and to Roger and Amy it seemed that the trees and the creek—the very land—spoke to them in a voice they could almost hear.

“Mmm…Cloud Creek.” Amy said softly, as she rested her head on Roger’s shoulder. “It feels so… right.” Roger looked at Harris. “We’ll do it,” he said. Harris nodded. “If nothing else, I’ll get rich..” Thus, a strange partnership was born. Cloud Creek Ranch became a gathering place for those searching for meaning and answers — a place to leave the heaviness life can bring, and to take from it the soaring spirit of the clouds made by mystical waters.

On a map, or when driving up the winding road that leads to it, Cloud Creek Ranch seems small, just a few acres. But once a visitor is on the land the geography changes, and the place seems almost mythically large, its terrain laid out so that all who are on the property feel themselves within a vastness that encompasses a multitude of geographical areas: rolling hills, craggy rocks, flower-filled meadows, secluded canyons, dangerous rapids, even roiling surf, each with matching weather. For most people the distance from the office to the dining room is a walk too short to even notice, but for some it can become an adventure-filled trek to rival the Oregon trail.

And the animals! In addition to the horses Roger and Amy keep in the corral, and the Sioux Indian dog that roams around the guest lodges, it’s easy to spot hawks, bluebirds, quail, deer, raccoons, chipmunks, as well as coyotes, bobcats, and a mountain lion or two. There is even a golden eagle—Roger’s spirit animal, the guide on whom he calls in moments of need—although no one can say for certain if it is real or an illusion spun from clouds, shadows, and hopeful minds.

With each new episode, a variety of guests from all walks of life will bring our hosts at Cloud Creek new questions, new situations for which both they and the guests must reach deep inside themselves to find answers.

Some of the situations will be heart-wrenching: A couple struggling with guilt they feel from years devoted to raising their terminally ill child, almost wishing the end would come to relieve their burden, learns their emptiness and guilt after the end does come can be replaced by the bond their child left behind for them.

Some of the situations will be mystical: A spoiled little rich girl’s father forces her to go to Cloud Creek or suffer immediate cut-off of her substantial monthly subsidy, then discovers a whole new world, exists beyond Saks Fifth Avenue, one where nature itself responds to human beings…to help or to hinder.

And some of the situations will offer comic relief: An obnoxious lounge jackal who lives off the affections of wealthy women comes to the ranch to seek new prey, only to learn what it’s like to be the victim instead of the hunter.

The lives of Roger, Amy, and others who work at Cloud Creek will also have their own stories, their calm and contentment proving difficult to maintain. Dealing with strangers is new to them, and far from easy. And dealing with Harris is no walk in the park either. No matter how hard he tries to be “enlightened,” the owner of the ranch is for the most part immune to its charms. Business is foremost on his mind, leading to conflicts he never could have imagined before.

Is Cloud Creek really magic? Do the trees talk? Does a golden eagle whisper sage advice and the landscape truly change to reflect what is going on in the hearts of those passing through it? Or is it all just an illusion created by hype—and hope? We’ll never really know.

What we will know is that CLOUD CREEK, the series, will serve as an electronic mirror where we see bits and pieces of ourselves every week. Like the ranch for which it is named, CLOUD CREEK will never preach to us; yet it will always teach a lesson, leaving the audience with something to think about, something to talk about…something to make us all feel better about our own lives.

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LB: Live! From Paradise #223 – “All Woods are Magic Woods”

(The Intro above is from this column's previous web incarnation)

by Larry Brody

Before we came to Paradise, Gwen the Beautiful and I lived just outside L.A., in an area known as Malibu, Hidden Valley, Westlake Village, or Thousand Oaks, depending on who was doing the knowing. Mail addressed to any of those towns would arrive in our mailbox at the original Cloud Creek Ranch.

Yes, I said “original.” Before we came to our mountaintop in the Ozarks we lived on one in—well, in Malibu-Hidden Valley-Westlake Village-Thousand Oaks. The ranch spread out over acreage with craggy cliffs, level pasture, rolling hills, a seasonal stream with a funky land bridge, 40-foot cedars and live oaks.

At the time, the live oaks were the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. Green all year round. Trunks three feet around that called out to be leaned against because each tree could, and gladly would, hold you upright forever.

The woods that surrounded our compound were a year-round trove of beauty. I still remember the first time I walked through them, and how I called out to the Wind:

“I love this place! It’s perfect! I’ve got to live here…forever!”

And how, for the first time in my life, I heard the Wind call back to me:

“Forever? Absolutely. As long as you do your part.”

“What’s my part?”

“Take care of this land. Guard it. Keep it safe.”

“Guard it how? From what? I can’t stop fires. Or earthquakes.”

“Keep its spirit safe. Keep it pure. The land and the trees have a purpose. They love to be lived on…and in. To provide. Don’t do anything that would make them regret their love. Live well here, and you can live here forever.”

“I’m happy to make that deal,” I said, and I barely got the words out of my mouth before the Wind rustled through the oaks with a long, drawn-out, and oh-so-beautiful to me, “Done!”

The first Cloud Creek Ranch’s magic held true. It was a place where my highly allergic self never reacted badly to the touch of any plant. Where any sore on any horse—even cancer—healed. Where no matter where on the property you stood, you always were looking down at the rest of the land, including the place where you’d last stood and which at the time had seemed so much higher than where you were now.

The trees and I talked every day.

The stars and I talked every night.

Day or night, Gwen could sit in the living room, on the Saltillo tile floor, and talk to the spirit of a gnarled Old Cowboy who would appear in the periphery of her vision. Translucently beautiful in his well-worn buckskins, he would rock in our old rocking chair and smile, leaving only when she forgot herself and turned to make direct eye contact. (That’s when we learned such behavior is a no-no when dealing with ghosts.)

Oh, it was quite a place, that property deeded to my heart by the Wind.

There were problems, though. Aren’t there always problems? Everywhere?

The beauty of the woods made for a huge surcharge on our homeowners’ insurance, adding a sum greater than our entire monthly mortgage payment here in Paradise to our monthly budget…and our house payment itself was six times what we pay now.

California property taxes weren’t exactly nickels and dimes either, and the fact that our stream was seasonal combined with the complete lack of any underground water source to create a situation where we had to pay to have fresh water trucked in and stored in a tank so massive it could’ve said, “City of Malibu-Hidden Valley-Westlake Village-Thousand Oaks” on the side.

To say we were “house poor” would be understating the situation. We were “house destitute.” No matter how much I earned, it wasn’t enough to stay where we were.

We had no choice but to sell and move on to new magic.

The situation enraged me. I ranted. I raged.

“You lied to me!” I screamed out to the Wind. “We had a deal! I kept my part of the bargain, but you betrayed me!”

“Not so,” said the Wind, quiet as a breeze, the night before Gwen and I left for Paradise.. “I said you could live here forever, and I meant it. All woods are one wood. You’re just heading into a different neck of the woods now.

“You won’t be missing anything,” continued the Wind. “I promise. This place is magic, but so is where you’re going. All woods are magic. Every last one.”

And, as Gwen and I and everyone who visits this space knows, the Wind spoke true.