I Feel the Earth Move
"It’s like someone’s shaking the bed."
You hear the blinds on the window move as if a slight wind has rustled them, but you remember the window is closed, so that can only mean one thing: Earthquake.
My mother always assumed the entire West Coast would fall into the Pacific the moment she’d arrive in Los Angeles. She liked to amuse the rest of the family with her catastrophic visions of the first time she’d visit her only child on the other side of the country.
I am happy to report the earth never crumbled and swallowed the Southland whole during the four trips my mother made to L.A. No crackling of the boulevards. No flash floods. No raging fires.
I remember my first EQ. It had been on the morning of the day before Halloween 2004 (the farms of the Midwest have roosters; southern Californians have the San Andreas fault). It lasted three seconds. I sat up in bed expecting an intruder in my room. All was quiet. The digital clock read 8:00. "Cool," I whispered, realizing what had just occurred. Later that morning I walked down to the kitchen and, like a kid spying Santa Claus flying through the night, I asked my roommate, "Did you feel the earthquake this morning?" Leah shook her head no and carried on with her breakfast. Of course she didn’t; the girl’s from San Diego. For the natives a little shaking of the earth is as mundane as buttering toast.
Too bad "Baby’s First Earthquake" wasn’t included as an entry in the baby book my mother kept in the early 80s.
I still get a kick out of the whole thing. Like this morning. 5 AM. The bed shook (for all the wrong reasons). The blinds rattled. All in two blinks of an eye. My mind conjured up images of the 1974 disaster flick in which Charlton Heston had to rescue Ava Gardner and Genevieve Bujold in a city ripped apart by devastation…and George Kennedy’s scowl.
I was obsessed with disaster films as a little kid. "The Towering Inferno" (a before-its-time "Backdraft"). "Meteor" (a before-its-time "Armageddon"). "Airport" (a before-its-time "Snakes on a Plane"). I studied the TV Guide as my second Bible and watched these movies whenever they aired on TBS or TNT. For my fourth-grade science project I did earthquakes, complete with the wrecked model town I had built for my non-existent train set. In the sixth grade I played the pivotal scene from "The Day After" on a loop as a part of my project on nuclear energy.
Death and destruction - it’s what’s for dinner.
Needless to say, I did not need the early wake-up call from my friendly neighborhood plate shift. My schedule has been filled to the brim with…well, work…and the extracurricular activities in which I have been involved. That’s right. You’re looking at (or receiving this from) the volunteer coordinator for "Hot in Hollywood," a celebrity-filled charity event benefitting the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. I had my first meeting with the board last week at Starbucks. Tonight is a barbeque for board members who will be offering progress reports as we near the party date, August 12. My report? I still have a crapload of people to contact and wrangle on my list.
For more information on how you can help, visit: http://www.hotinhollywood.org OR http://www.myspace.com/hotinhollywood.
My other venture is that of the theater kind. Troupe West is a non-profit organization founded by some of my alumni friends who performed in BU Stage Troupe back in Boston. Together we will try to put on a small show in the fall, theater space permitting. TW’s first stab at it took place this past April at the Raven Playhouse in North Hollywood, a small blackbox reminiscent of the one we played in during college.
During those more innocent, rent-free days, I was exposed to the drama behind the dramas performed in our little underground theater at the Armory on West Campus. Playing a Jewish doctor in "Six Degrees of Separation," I enjoyed the ethnicity-blind casting. However, a line or two had to be altered since the actor playing my son was Korean. "I mean, I’m Jewish. My grandparents died in the War." The persecuted group in question was easily switchable with "Japanese." Then, it was sophomore year that saw me play another doc, a guy actually named Doc, in "West Side Story." Please refrain from your Jet or Shark riffs. Thank God I didn’t have to embarrass myself in an elaborate dance number. I still shudder at the memory of frosting my hair gray for the part.
Theater people are a hoot. The in-jokes. The marijuana-tinged cast parties. The biting sarcasm that manages to stay fresh despite the post-ironic times we live in. I look forward to what we’ll do, who we’ll touch, where we’ll drink when the curtain falls.
Next thing you know, you’ll be getting headshots of me attached to future emails.
As. If.
Earthquake-proofing my bedroom when I get home,
H.P.M.
