I'm really sorry I've been slow on furnishing these blog posts. I have been so busy and loaded down with activities and even on the trip took too long describing things. I will get all of them eventually, just keep looking on here.
Alright, let's go back in time. This age is the 20th century, and we're going to the years my mom was in high school, 1981, the days when...well actually that a pretty conservative year. They wore khakis and shirts, not unlike what we wear today. Not very weird or exciting. But anyway, Tom Grane asked my mother out to go to the dance, probably by her locker, a scraped metal lock contraption with a combination on it. She probably blushed and then said yes, smiling a lot. I can just picture the scene now. Scraped metal compartments, smiling gals, and then...the Nascar Atl. Pace car! It was a shiny, beautiful, loud machine, generating exhaust more than a thousand factories. This green Ford Mustang excited and jaw dropped my mother, as they zoomed away to the dance, making people stare and gape at this wonderful mode of transportation. Imagine that! Going to the dance in a Nascar vehicle. They must of been the couple of the night. Parking, they came in, and danced, as was accustomed to being done at a dance. It was a great night.
Then, Tom Grane moved to California, became a
Alright, let's travel back to the 21st century, 2012. March. The 17th, St. Patrick's Day. This feels like James Bond subtitles. Does it to you?
After years of not speaking, they contacted each other on FaceBook, talking of the reunion that Mom was not able to make because she was on the trip. Mom called him to tell him that we were in town, Hollywood, and then, Tom Grane, Pace Car owner extraordinaire, invited us to his house. WE WERE GOING TO A DIRECTOR'S HOUSE!!
You couldn't imagine my excitement. This guy had worked on movies, and wasn't just a special effects guy like the people we had met earlier...no, this man was a real director, in the field, and he had worked and talked with Steven Spielberg! As we drove all the way to the town of Sherman Oaks, in the jeep, all my video camera equipment around me(I guess I was gonna video tape some of it, but that video camera didn't work on any editing thing so I got a new one and all the video taping I did was for nothing.) I got ready to read more of my Ireland book. I wanted to finish it today, because it was St. Patrick's day, one of the biggest of the Irish holidays. I read the climax, and about the kid traveling around and all, and the stories he heard from different people around in the countryside, still chasing that old man. I was almost to the end of this very thick and intriguing, descriptive book. After a while, however, I came to observe the scenery around us.
It was nothing like you would suppose a director's town to be...forest filled, wet, and relating to a rainforest. It was hilly, with many canyons and drops, gravel roads, and filled with one suburban tract after numerous gas stations and restaurants on the way. But don't get me wrong, the town was nice, when we rounded the corner and approached their house, all the other nice big houses on the street, and their large driveway, shut off garage, and garden with a stone strewn path up to a large grey house, plastered rock and a grand oak door, many windows in the stately house, two levels, like many houses that we have in Georgia.
We parked on the street, the side of the jeep facing the house, and thereafter strolled up to the front door. I had only taken my Movie Speak book and a biography of King Vidor, just some old film books and then my video camera in a satchel/bag type thing. I wouldn't read these in front of the company, but I'd show them to Tom Grane, who I was sure when the day was over would become my new hero. He was a director from GA, me in the future, and he had been very successful!
We rang the doorbell on the rainy day, and then it was answered by a blonde haired pretty woman, Tom Grane's wife. She smiled, and was very kind towards us, as another women left the front room. The house had a staircase in the middle of the entrance area going up, with a pretty chandelier and then a balcony going to the carpeted floors bedrooms. It was a massive block and under a little hallway to the rest of the house. Expensive paintings lined the walls, and to our right was a sitting room, piano, coffee table, and old wooden furniture, including nice plush leather couches. The window was enlightening and broad, and a black haired lady came and dropped off her daughter, thereafter leaving. Tom Grane came to meet us, and Mom and him hugged, saying the usual, "Oh you look great" "Wow haven't you changed bit" I was introduced and Mom mentioned that I liked acting and movie- making. He was very nice, mentioned his connections, as we sat down in the back room, filled with plush couches and by a fireplace and large flat screen TV. Opposite us to the right was a sparkly kitchen counter, with smooth pretty granite and a lot of nice cabinets. Then there were the open French doors with their white pane square separations. A shaggy large hairy dog immerged from there, led by Grane's wife as they left the grassy area.
Dad talked with him about the economy, politics, as two girls game down from the long staircase. Grane had called for them, and Tom told them to introduce themselves. There was an 11 year old named Ella, who had brown hair and was rather tan, and Sophie who was a lot younger, littler hear but not blonde or redhead. An interesting carmel color. They said hello, like any other awkward feeling children when people they didn't know were invading their home. I've had the feeling many times before, where kids come over and they're not really my friends. However I have gotten over that by now and usually welcome friends and foe, as I met new kids almost every day in the R.V. But, they were cordial and smiled, and Rebecca went off with Ella, who aspired to become an actress, and had to go to a dance thing later today.Rebecca and Ella were rather nice towards each other. They saw her room as the younger kid hung out with her friend, who the dark haired lady had already dropped off. The house was teeming with life.
As I waited to interject on the conversations of Tom(I had called him Mr. Grane and he now said I could call him Tom), Mom, Dad, or his wife, I walked around a bit, going to the restroom in a nice painted blue room, with a glorious gold sink and several other wonderful appliances. These people didn't need a large house to live in style. I saw some paintings in the hallway under the staircase, and several of them included naked ladies, of which I turned away in disgust the moment I saw them. However, it has been a long practiced expression of art and nobody in the household seemed to notice. Perhaps it was only a big deal to only me.
There were posters on the walls, encased by frame, of some French movies that had action and girls and all that. One bust of Caesar was on a little stand. I went back to sit down to the blush couches, as Tom was finishing up telling Mom about the iTV. All this time the flat screen plasma was alive and teeming with pictures of Halloween, and of Sophie meeting Hannah Montana or Demi Lovato. And of Tom on a Hollywood backlot, with a bugle, talking to a number of famous people, just walking along. HOW LUCKY THEY ARE!! To grow up in this melting pot of famous people, to have so many connections, and to be able to say at school,"Yeah my daddy worked on Avatar last Easter." or when they went to their grandparent's house and when the gold old folk asked what they had been doing recently, they could say, "Well, we went to Universal Studios over the weekend and had to sit in my Dad's office and watch a film being made. Sigh." They would consider what I would be fanatical about only an everyday occurrence. I wonder if they know how lucky they are! But, I wouldn't trade anything to go on this one year trip around the nation.
But anyway, he told her how to get it and that all she had to do was connect a slideshow to a special software and it would run all day. It was connected to a desktop upstairs by many wires going through the halls. Sitting down, Grane's wife asked me about The Hunger Games, a book series, and then I gave my honest opinion about it as she nodded, getting a little afraid of my flustered spirit.
I started out calm. "I honestly think that it is a really gutless, evil, really disgusting and gory book series, filled with romantic love scenes and a broken, dismal world as the location. There's no happiness at the end and" here came the flustered, "why did everyone have to die? I mean, this book is a TERRIBLE representation of American AND WORLD LITERATURE! Suzanne Collins is an evil atheist witch and it puzzles me why all of my friends enjoy this jarring and stupid book!" The conversation was thereafter dropped.
I then asked Tom Grane where he had gone to college and how he had gotten into the business, after sharing some movie terms with him with my little MovieSpeak book. He told me,
"Well, I went to USC, and then I became an intern for some people, using my resume and going into the film and directing classes. That got me more connections, and I just kept building myself up, rising higher with more connections and more people knowing me. If you play it right, stay with the right people, sign on to the right movies, then you can be a director like me. I then started my company, Mob Scene. Our logo is a fish with the Mob Scene in red on it."
Tom Grane was now an inspiration to me. I will become him, and I will follow his advice, I will, I really will. Go to a highstanding college, then get an internship somewhere. He really inspired me. By and by in the conversation Steven Spielberg was brought up, and then I asked Tom if he had met him as his wife got all the different fruit plates in pallets that they had gotten(a delivery person had arrived earlier) along with fried chicken and a lot more great food. They were very hospitable and it was very kind of them to feed us. Tom said that he hadn't just met him, he had worked with him on several movies and Spielberg knew him and wasn't one of the millions who happened to meet him in their lifetime. That's so awesome!!!
Well, I went upstairs after a while and saw that the hallways were decorated with Incredibles, and Indiana Jones! Harrison Ford had signed the poster that was in the master bedroom! How lucky were they! To wake up and look at that each morn, to see that he had actually signed it...wow. Even their bathroom, littered with tooth brushes and nail polish, had a small movie poster of The Little Mermaid. The two little girls were sitting in their room, not paying attention to us. I talked with Rebecca and Ella in a nice room with a big bed and a window, her room. She was drawing with Puck. I asked what video we could make after we all decided we wanted to do that. Finally it came down to gameshow, and we eventually got the little girls to join in this. In the play room, with cabinets and barbies and toys abound, they made a sitting area with the couch as Rebecca was the host and Ella and I the two contestants. Sophie and her friend would throw things at us when we got the question wrong. Rather barbaric. I went to the jeep, got my camera and tri-pod, Grane asking what was up as I went upstairs, talking to them before I proceeded up. I videotaped a bit of Rebecca talking, and then Rebecca videotaped us answering the questions. My tripod was off balance, and there were too many cabinets and toys in the small room, with me stepping and tripping over them galore, but it was fun for a while before Ella had to leave to go to dance practice and the Mom came in and told she had to go get ready. We had lost a contestant, so shooting therefore ceased.
But it was time to eat lunch anyway. We feasted on the great scrumptious food of the Grane's, numerous fruits and sweet tasting flavors, all in an assortment of richness and color. Juicy chicken breasts, brown as bears and cooked as an old woman's skin, dominated the counter top island. Together with fat red beautiful strawberries and green silky lettuce and bread, we ate with a zeal and love for the tasty ingredients. Soon after we ate and digested, we soon saw it was time to leave. The mom had to leave to take Ella somewhere and the friend had left, so we got all the tripod movie stuff, and I collected my books. I then reluctantly said goodbye to Tom Grane. He was a very nice guy, and had given me many tips in camera work and directing, more than I can say or count. He led me in the way of my future career. We thanked him for helping us out and inviting us over, after we said goodbye to Ella, Sophie, and his wife. Those three were very nice. Shaking Tom's hand, we dispersed and left in our jeep. For the rest of the day I tried to finish the book as we went and drove to all these different places. It was very late when we had gotten home and didn't not allow for playing time with the kids of the R.V. As the night fall came we found something odd.
Our two bikes on one side we're moved to the other, in the middle of our R.V. and another one, with a small granite area. This was most puzzeling, why he had moved that. He said it was his space in the letter. Made us sigh, and a little ticked, but we were too tired. You're probably reading quickly to see if I will tell you what the letter said. Alright, fine, I guess I will.
Your bikes were up against your motorhome in my area. I moved them back.
-Your neighbor.
Very frank, to the point, without any mean comments, but a little curt if you ask me. Too tired and worn out by riding around at different places, we retired for the night without making any fuss. This was the most claustrophobic park ever, and we had hated manuevering with the bikes there, trying to avoid the slid out slides of the R.V. and all the other stuff. Oh well.
That was a great day. We got to go to a real director's house, meet his actress-aspiring children and Beverly Hills wife, and eat in company while admiring the movie posters and talking to his wife about The Hunger Games. It was an interesting day that ended in a bike mystery, and a creepy note that shook us in our sleep. The Tom Grane day.
Nos vemos para ahora.
"Yeah Steven, it's me. I was wondering if you could get me a coffee on the way to the studio. Thanks, dude."
I wish I was that close to Mr. Spielberg. -----
Andrew.
