Well, dear readers, I have been happily divorced for some twenty-seven years now. Now, that’s a way to start off the notes, isn’t it? So, how did I come to be married at the tender age of twenty? Stupidity, that’s how. What else could it have been? What did I know when I was twenty? I can’t even remember how it happened? Oh, I remember meeting the girl who would become my wife. She’d just started LACC and I was in my last year there. I think the first time we met I was in the men’s dressing room getting my makeup on. She came in with the costume rack or something. I took an instant dislike to her and she to me. Right there, that should have told me something. She was sort-of dating someone in the department, some straight-arrow type. At some point I guess we became friendlier and then friends because she introduced me to her best friend – a really cute girl named Terrie. Terrie and I hit it off right away and started dating. And then, if I’m remembering the trajectory correctly, my soon-to-be wife got it into her head that WE should be together. I was young and very susceptible to charm and flirtation and someone chasing me (I’m sure my ex-wife would remember this in just the opposite way), and somehow I broke up with Terrie and started going out with my soon-to-be wife. I met her parents and the next thing I knew we were engaged. How did that happen? I honestly don’t remember. A date was set for September of 1968. I’d barely known her eight months. It was decided we’d marry in a Catholic church – I didn’t care, but my mother wasn’t too thrilled. The real problem was that I was twenty and not ready to settle down. I was very flirty and to suddenly not be able to flirt and have fun and do what I wanted was very odd indeed, but we were engaged and that was that. Why I didn’t stop it is anyone’s guess. And so, the wedding rehearsal came and we did that and I was really uncomfortable, especially with the priest, who I found rather pompous and unfriendly. And then, our wedding day. I decided to go to a barber and get a professional shave. Now, I have VERY sensitive skin (to this day) and the one thing I should not have done was go to a barber for a professional shave. The shaving part was fine – him splashing some sort of after-shave on my face was not – my face reacted badly and turned beet red. And remained beet red for hours. It also happened to be the hottest day of the year – something like 103 degrees. All THAT should have told me something.
The ceremony was amusing. My best man was my friend Mike Lembeck. I don’t think my about-to-be wife’s best friend Terrie was there, because Terrie now HATED my about-to-be wife. When the priest got to the vows he forgot my name. THAT should have told me something, like RUN FOR YOUR LIFE. And then we were married. The reception was weird and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Some people gave us money, which was good since I didn’t have a penny to my name.
We honeymooned in Santa Barbara. I was already not wanting to be married. I didn’t like Santa Barbara, I was bored to tears, and I couldn’t wait to come home, home being a tiny one-bedroom apartment on Fair Ave. in North Hollywood. We began our married life. For me, that consisted of eating non-stop. I wonder why? I gained about forty pounds in three months. I’d gotten a job at Sight and Sound Records in Van Nuys. My wife was working downtown in a bank. I don’t know where we got it, but we had an old Volkswagon, I think, but she drove that (I couldn’t use a stick-shift) and I took the bus to and from work. At night, I ate and ate and watched TV relentlessly. I was out of school, not acting, and not happy. I was attracted to every girl I saw. And, funnily, they were attracted to me – it was probably the wedding ring. Oh, and I hated the wedding ring. We made the decision to move to New York. We were to leave in December. My Aunt Minnie had gotten us a single apartment in her building in Brooklyn.
We moved to New York. My wife went to work in a bank in Brooklyn. I auditioned. A former LACC grad was living in New York and I hung out with him, and with various and sundried people I met. And went home to Brooklyn. And hung out on Flatbush Avenue and went to the movies a lot. And missed LA – a lot. I did a show in summer stock while my wife went home for a visit. It was very nice to be alone and I hung out with the cast of the show – a LOT. My wife came back and told me she was “late.” Following that news, she told me she was pregnant. I found this news rather astonishing, since she was on the pill and had been for several years. We discussed our various and sundried options, but for me there was no option – I was going to be a father because if my wife got pregnant while on the pill then someone was trying to tell us that our soon-to-be child was meant to be. I liked my wife when she was pregnant. We moved back to LA. She had our daughter, the cutest child who ever lived. A happy baby. I was too young to be a father, and I regret my occasional impatience and temper, but I LOVED having a daughter and if you want to know what our relationship was like, read my short story Adventures With My Father.
Having a child did not make me closer with my wife. I simply found her humorless and not fun, and I’m sure she found me the same way. I lost the forty pounds. I was working a lot in TV. And then, as I wrote the other day, I separated from her in 1974 to have a fling with a TV actress. The separation lasted one year. I didn’t like what it was doing to my daughter, who was not reacting well to it. We got back together and leased our first house, which, one year later, we bought, thanks to The First Nudie Musical. I still didn’t care for my wife. I was still attracted to anything that moved. But we stayed married. And stayed married. Sold that house and bought a bigger house. I got reacquainted with my wife’s former best friend Terrie. When Terrie would query me if I wished I’d stayed with her, the answer was yes, BUT that my daughter was somehow meant to be, so, in that regard, I’d done the right thing. In late 1981 I’d had it. I sat in my office (in my house), lights off, and just realized that you only go around once – and I did not want to spend the rest of my life with someone I didn’t have romantic feelings for.
I had a discussion with my wife. She was not happy. She would have stayed married forever. I couldn’t. I said I was done. A few months later, we divorced. It wasn’t the best divorce and it wasn’t the worst divorce, but for me, even though the ensuing eight years were awful, it was the best decision I could have made. I never regretted it for one moment. My daughter’s reaction when I told her that her mother and I were getting divorced was one word – “Duh.”
Over the years, my wife has remained quite bitter and negative about me, while I harbored no ill will or any negativity whatsoever. She still remains bitter and negative about me. At my daughter’s wedding in 2001 she said to me, “Let’s just get through this, okay?” I looked at her and told her that I was having a great time and if she wanted to consider the day “getting through this” that was her problem. If anyone had the right to be annoyed it was me – after the divorce, she “took” several of my close friends. After listening to her they took her “side” – it was nauseating, and I didn’t talk to those people for years. They now regret that because they see what was really going on. My wife has never remarried. She had one serious boyfriend who adored her and wanted to marry her, but she shined him on. I have never remarried. I met one gal who I thought might just be the person I’d take the plunge with, but after a few months it became apparent that she was a little nuts in the head, which thank goodness became clear to me. You simply can’t marry a nut, even though the nut was really cute and really my type. I have no idea where the nut is today – I had to stop seeing her because her nuttiness was driving me to distraction. Will I ever marry again? Gee, it’s not looking like it, is it?
And there you have the story of my marriage and divorce. It’s not quite as entertaining as the story of The Randy Vicar and the Schmaltz Herring, but it was fun to tell. Why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because now it is late and I’ve got CDs to listen to and sleep to get.
Yesterday was actually quite a nice day. I got a pretty good night’s sleep, I did the long jog, I did errands and whatnot, I visited Mystery and Imagination Books, which was fun, I had a nice, early dinner, I delivered a big box o’ CDs to a local dealer, and then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture entitled Brainstorm, which was not the same motion picture entitled Brainstorm that I wrote about the other day. THIS Brainstorm is the Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood Brainstorm, the Douglas Trumball Brainstorm from 1983. I enjoyed the film when it came out and saw it two or three times. And I enjoyed it last night. It’s a film of interesting ideas, but it never quite gets to where it should get and its ending is very unsatisfying and abrupt. I believe some of that stems from the fact that Natalie Wood died before the picture was completed, but I can’t remember if I’ve got that chronology right. The best performance in the film is given by Louise Fletcher, who is just terrific. Her final scene in the film is quite memorable. The effects are good, and, as I said, the ideas are really interesting and the film was quite ahead of its time, but ultimately the script doesn’t do the ideas justice. The transfer is fine – not exceptional, but fine.
Today, I have very little planned. I do have to read the latest draft of the long musical, and I think I’m having an Easter dinner, but that’s about it. I do have to create a lot of questions for our Tuesday LACCTAA event and must get that done at some point by the end of the evening.
Tomorrow, I have to listen to tapes of potential Kritzerland releases, as well as do some important errands as well as prep for the Jason Robert Brown/Georgia Stitt event on Tuesday night.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog, read the long script, write the long questions, eat the long meal, and do the long relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland.