Saturday, April 29, 2006

Phil Hartman V: Coming Soon

The author is currently on assignment and will return next week.

Fun In The Sun

The following is from an upcoming review for PRC Online. Since the readers of Playdate are, unlike some blog enthusiasts, generally known to be the kind of people who actually do get outside their homes on a regular basis, and since May is Skin Cancer Detection and Prevention Month, I thought you might find this of interest.

Sun Protection For Life
By Mary Mills Barrow and John F. Barrow

Review by Valen Watson


Fair-skinned and freckled, I’ve never really liked being out in the sun. Back when I was a kid that made me a rarity since everyone I knew spent their entire summer vacation trying to get as dark a tan as possible. But now we live in the sunscreen era and as the mother of a toddler I am even more cautious about UV exposure and it’s not an easy job when you live in sunny Southern California.


In The Barrows’ book, Sun Protection for Life: Your Guide to a Lifetime of Healthy & Beautiful Skin, the message is still clear: stay out of the sun during peak hours whenever possible, and if you can’t, use protection. But according to recent statistics cited by the authors, the percentage of parents who put sunscreen on their kids has actually declined in recent years. And sun-protective clothing, which the authors advocate and describe in detail, is still not widely available or used.

A Change in Attitude
In the face of a nationwide epidemic* of skin cancers, this is disheartening news. And even as aware as I am, there was information in the Barrows’ book that was helpful to me, both as a parent and as an advocate. I didn’t realize, for example, that my daughter should only be outside playing or swimming before 10:00 a.m. and after 4:00 p.m. I knew there was a timeframe but I thought it was much narrower (the few hours around noon). And after reading Sun Protection For Life, I looked around the Palm Springs hotel where we were staying and saw that no shade was provided for the child-friendly pools our kids spent their days frolicking in. I'm going to write a letter to them recommending the installation of shade sails, stretched fabric that is used extensively in Australia and in many theme parks here to protect visitor line-ups. These fabrics let in soft light but block most of the UV rays. A few statistics from this book will help convince the hotel that it makes as much sense their other safety features, and would make a good marketing tool as well!

But sun shades everywhere? No likely. It seems a bit extreme to forgo the benefits we all got from the hours of outdoor play we had when we were kids, but we need to heed the lessons learned by Australia, a sun-soaked country that has had to combat an alarming increase in melanoma and other skin cancers with a comprehensive public education program to change attitudes about the dangers of prolonged exposure to the sun. There, peak hours mean avoiding exposure, applying (and reapplying) sunscreen, wearing protective clothing, and generally adjusting lifestyles to minimize UVR exposure. Wearing hats is mandatory in school playgrounds, and sunglasses, which are often banned in U.S. schools (as well as hats) are recommended for those as young as six months old.

Skin Cancers Reaching Epidemic Proportions

The SEER data on skin cancers from The National Cancer Institute included by the authors in their statistics chapter underscores this warning: the incidence of skin cancers has reached epidemic proportions. Only a recent rise in awareness and early screening has taken the edge of the mortality rate from the more serious melanoma. But this is not enough to stem the tide (projected at a million new cases of basal cell carcinoma this year) - we need to accept both a change in lifestyle and attitude toward outdoor living, instilling in our children a healthy respect for both the life-giving and damaging power of the sun, advocating awareness with schools and other institutions providing services to the public, and then…enjoying life.

Be AWARE
The message from the Barrows summed up in their acronym: AWARE

A: Avoid unprotected exposure any time and especially during peak UVR hours
W: Wear a long-sleeve shirt, hat, sunglasses, seek shade whenever possible
A: Apply sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher and reapply it every two hours as long as you are outdoors.
R: Routinely check your skin for changes
E: Express the need for sun protection to your employer and co-workers

The book also has helpful information on sun-protective clothing and sunscreens, how to create outdoor shade areas around your home, and how to keep a body map of your moles to help in a yearly screening exam with your doctor.

Of course, anyone who finds a mole or a raised spot (colorless or pigmented) on any part of their body that looks suspicious or has changed in any way, have it checked out by your dermatologist.

Sun Protection For Life is available at your local bookstore and online at Amazon.com.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Phil Hartman IV:Have I Got a Deal For You

Yesterday a travelling examiner came to give me a comprehensive medical check-up to qualify for life insurance. Having my blood drawn at the dining room table and an EKG while lying on the couch is a strange enough experience but it got even stranger when the person, a pleasant, talkative woman smartly dressed in a black suit and jet accessories, turned out to be separated from my life by a mere whisper during the time that I had become friends with Phil Hartman. This city may make it impossible to know all the connections we have with others, so anonymous is the web, but once in a while a little magic settles on a perfectly innocent encounter and all the hair on your neck stands on end.

"You know, I've had an interesting life", she said out of the blue as we were getting ready to wrap up the exam and go our separate ways. "I dated Phil Hartman." Her eyes were glowing and the world took a little skip. I stared at her in utter amazement.

Why this woman decided to tell me about her fling with Phil is a mystery. She didn't know anything about my film career (I'd listed my profession as 'writer' and told her I was a freelancer) so it wasn't as if she had an inkling that we might have something in common. But Phil, it turns out, was her brush with fame. Her memorable moment, a little jewel to take out of the box once in a while to admire.

It was the timeframe that was also so extraordinary. Candy (that's her name) came into Phil's life just as he was about to enter mine. For a heart-stopping moment I was sure she was the blonde woman who'd been Phil's date to the red-carpet premiere of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. It seemed an unbelievable coincidence.

My understanding of Phil's love life was tied up in his dwindling relationship with wife Lisa who treated Phil like the disposable appendage he was about to become. I'm not criticizing the woman - in this freer social climate where intimate relationships come and go we often treat those we've once loved and protected with our lives in ways that we would later find shameful. And back then especially,it was politically incorrect to be admonished for it (I gotta be me. Keep it real, and all that).

So Phil was dealing with a blow to his ego when I met him - his pretty, ice-queen wife with the glossy, razor cut helmet of dark hair and the size 2 figure, probably wasn't giving him much in the way of strokes. In bed or otherwise. Perhaps that's why Phil seemed a little embarrassed and somewhat emasculated at this particular period in his life. And perhaps that's why I felt drawn to him - I knew what it was like to be in a place where body and soul were out of sync. We both had demonstrated lousy instincts when it came to the people we chose to let into our lives and we were both all the more vulnerable for it.

I didn't realize it until much later but as middle children both of us had the veneer of likeablility. In our cases, being easygoing just meant we never got what we really wanted and in Phil's case the classic clown response kept him at arm's length. I have to say I admired him for it because at least he was getting something out of the deal. He was truly funny, and his gift for impersonation was breathtaking. It would pop out of him at the best times, when for instance, there was an akward silence at a dinner party when everyone had run out of interesting things to say, Phil would ask for more pie in a John Wayne voice and then riff on the pie thing for a good ten minutes. By then the mood at the table would have taken a turn upwards and almost as if he had sprinkled a bit of fairy-dust, everyone would suddenly get their game back. It was the reason we saw Phil as the perfect dinner guest - Lisa had disappeared by then and he was single, willing to fill an empty chair, and always made us look good.

So when Candy decided to tell me about her moment with Phil, I felt as if I had been given a gift. A part of Phil I had never seen, a passionate, sexy, confident man who had been such a remarkable lover that the one night he'd shared with her had never been forgotten. "It was an amazing experience," she remembered, and told me that if it hadn't been for the fact that she was getting out of a divorce, she would have, might have, could have made it much, much more than one very magical night.

I had to wonder about all the things about Phil I didn't know. Why I saw only the parts of Phil that I understood and empathized with. Perhaps it was that I wanted to know I wasn't alone in my isolation, that there was someone like me who was making all the same mistakes and yet perched on the edge of greatness. I wanted to know that potential would out in the end. And Phil was on the verge of a great change in his life. He was at that apex of a realization of the kind of dreams that people have in their secret thoughts but never see come to fruition.

In Hollywood we were surrounded by people like this. They were crushing in their numbers and all of us were only too aware of how few would actually get there.

Spring came and we started shooting Pee-wee's Big Adventure. The director was a young filmmaker who had made a little short called Frankenweenie about a dog who had been brought back to life by it's young master. Tim Burton, his dark, quirky take on reality adding to the mixture of kitch and syrup in Pee-wee's world, joined our team and as the project began to pick up speed, Phil hung around the edges like an eager puppy, looking for a way to get in. He was digging around for some small scraps as befitting a guy who lived in a tiny house in the Valley, drove a clunky old car and showed up on time for every audition he never got.

Next: Phil and Saturday Night Live

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Stickin' it to The Man

It started with a notice on our door: Next week The Handy Dandy Plumbing Company is replacing all the existing plumbing with new copper pipes and for "approximately" 10 days will be requiring unsupervised access to your home from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at which time they will turn off your water, tromp through all your stuff, bang and clang new pipes into place, bash gaping, dusty holes in lots of walls and generally make a lot of mess"....or something to that effect. I threw the thing down in disgust and had myself worked up into quite a lather by the time my husband got home. The three page addendum on the dangers of lead poisoning from painted surfaces in old buildings (like ours) wasn't making me feel any better.

But what can we do? my husband asked, quite reasonably. The plumbing in our quaint Los Feliz building was old and although we hadn't had any major problems our neighbors had put up with lousy water pressure, showers that would scald them if anyone in the building used a tap, and toilets that dribbled 24/7. Our landlords, an ancient couple as wrinkled as apple dolls and 85 if they were a day, had hoarded untold millions from their various real-estate holdings but were infamous for spending ten cents if a dollar were needed. They once replaced the back door of one of our apartments with one that they had stored in a nearby garage since the Nixon era. It was as warped as a potato chip but somehow they managed to screw it into place. Total outlay for this job: $$0.00

So investing this kind of serious dough into the building seemed quite out of character for them, but not the short notice. We were used to ill-timed, invasive visits for repairs that always seemed to take longer than promised and involve workers of dubious qualifications hired from the local Pennysaver.

Only a few months ago I asked the landlord to look at the ceiling in our toddler's room which had sprouted a couple of long cracks that looked like they were about to circle around and shake hands. After a few pokes he told us it was fine. But when the painter came in to patch it up he discovered that the screws he was planning to put in to reattach the plaster to the ceiling frame were about a foot too short. Shaking his head the man told me that the ceiling was literally hanging by a thread and any shaking (uh, earthquakes, anyone?) would send it crashing to the floor (and the top of my daughter's head).

And so we endured the dusty mess that resulted when said painter took a swipe at it with a chisel and the entire ceiling did come down as promised.....sending a mushroom cloud of toxic dust scurrying into every nook and cranny of our home. We still haven't gotten the paint splatters out of the places they forgot to cover.

So this notice from the Handy Dandy Plumbing Company didn't go over too well. They said they'd be in and out in 10 days, my husband (whom I trust because he is an expert in such matters) said that it would probably take twice that amount of time. I scurried over to the neighbors for a meeting and we both decided that the massive inconvenience plus the ominous attachment about the dangers of lead poisoning from disturbed paint surfaces was reason enough to investigate our rights.

Cut to the morning of the planned work. So far I'd done a lot of grumbling and my husband had hung a lot of plastic. I'd called the plumbing company a day earlier, which netted two irate secretaries and one owner who called me "honey" and said that my daughter would have more exposure to toxins driving down the freeway than from the repairs, but could not provide a satisfactory answer to my pointed questions about their procedures or training in working with lead-based paint surfaces.

All the time I was talking with our closest neighbor (there are six families living in the building) and because she is newly pregnant we shared the same concerns about the dust contamination. On the morning of the day work was to begin I was running around the house still finding places to put things out of harms way and hanging the last of the plastic covers when I got news from across the hall that an online search had unearthed a L.A. City ordinance passed in 2005 specifically adressing tenant rights when it came to major renovations. I downloaded the material and discovered that our landlords could not undertake a job like this without first submitting a Tenant Habitability Plan to the City, getting approval, and then giving us 60 days notice, and....here's the kicker....if necessary providing alternate housing (or reimbursement for hotel costs) plus proper protection and cleaning of our home and contents.

City Ordinance #176544 was our lifesaver. Waving the paperwork in front of us we confronted our landlords and after a passionate exchange (just shy of a shouting match) they scurried away and took the plumbers with them.

Plastic came down, dishes unpacked, dogs retrieved from temporary quarters, children hugged, and life went back to normal.

We heard later that they'd abandoned the entire plan because of "uncoperative tenants". Showers will still scald from time to time (sorry, Merrilee) but our kids are safe for now and we won't have to endure displaced lives, bad plaster jobs, mismatched paint, and the uncertainty of toxic contamination in our walls, carpets, furniture, and stuffed baby toys.

Our thanks to the people who fought for this Ordinance. We are really, really grateful.

p.s. According to US Statistics, 1 child out of 11 has unsafe levels of lead in their system. If you live in a building built before 1973 or suspect contaminated soil in your yard, get your kids tested. It's a quick finger stick and since lead poisoning doesn't always present with any symptoms (but can interfere with brain development in children) you won't know unless you test.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Phil Hartman III: Just Horsing Around

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure was our big break. Although I married more out of misplaced desperation than romantic love I did pull my weight in the marriage when it came to keeping a roof over our heads and a meal on the table. So when the chance for Michael to write this movie came along it was our shared good fortune.

I was also Michael's editorial critic when it came to the developing script and I read every page when it arrived daily from the writing office where he, Paul Reubens, and Phil Hartman were holed up in a tiny, windowless room on Wilshire Boulevard (sagging furniture included). And there was real concern about the commercial prospects for the script - Paramount had passed on an earlier version written by Paul and other writers (Phil may or may not have been involved in that one....), which was a strange tale of Pee-wee the man-child having romantic love in a kind of 40's Betty Boop creation where you might find dancing flowers and houses made of gingerbread. Knowing Paul as I did, I think he had delved too far into his strangely conceived magical fantasy world for comfort - and revealed perhaps a little too much of what I believed was his ambivalence about his sexual orientation.

So when they were working on a new version all three writers were keenly aware of the dangers of straying too far away from the innocent, kiddie-fun aspect of Pee-wee. A sanitized version, perhaps, given the double-entre, darkly wicked side of the live show Paul was doing at the time, but if this character were to debut in a studio movie (and not a dark indie version) then they had to find something universal to drive the story and appeal to the widest possible audience.

Paul, Michael, and Phil worked well together because they each brought unique talents to the process. Paul was the heart and soul of (and window) into the character he'd created. Phil was the quick jokester with a million ways to make something funny, and Michael was the disciplinarian.....he often said that without his attention to detail and eye for storyline the other two would have laid around on the office's dihlapitated couches all day and made each other laugh. Incidentally, this pattern was to continue in Michael's short career as a successful screenwriter. He partnered up with funny guys and provided them with structure. When this source dried up a couple of films and a television series later, Michael disappeared from the business without a trace.

I heard more than once that Phil was not the most focused of individuals when it came to the rigors of a long-form script. I always had a picture of him draped over a chair (or lying on the floor) basically riffing off Michael's story ideas or Paul's suggestions for characters to interact with Pee-wee. Certainly this strength was evident later in SNL - he was a sketch artist, a master improvisor. Whatever the combination, it did work. When their final draft was finished (after the first pass received a luke-warm reception), they had hit on a winning formula: a wacky, 80's hip version of Vittorio de Scia's, The Bicycle Thief.

Winner of the Golden Globe and New York Film Critic's Awards in 1950, De Scia's, Ladri de Biciclelle, became one of the classics of cinema verite defining the 50's and 60's arthouse film. Further defined as neorealism, the film used non-professional actors and portrayed the gritty, desperate lives of post-war Italy when life for most working class families was still on the desperate edge of poverty. The main story revolves around Antonio's search for a stolen bicycle, on which his livelihood depends. He and his son search for the bicycle in the streets of Rome, reeling from one frustrating event after another. And and in the course of their struggles we come to know and understand Antonio, his relationship with his son, and the truly heroic obstacles postwar survivors had to overcome to rebuild their lives.

Pee-wee's Big Adventure followed the same basic storyline of the stolen bicycle and even though it was as different as chalk and cheese in every other way it proved the old adage that everyone loves a hero. Pee-wee, like his counterpart Antonio, was vulnerable in his world, prey to bullies and forces beyond his control. His naive journey out into the big, bad world to search for his beloved bike provided numerous opportunities to introduce a series of bizarre characters to play against and obstacles to overcome, often with comedic results. Unlike it's black & white predecesor, Pee-wee's world was populated with cartoonish characters and technicolor hued landscapes with an 80's preference for aqua and pink, but it was a brillant idea to put a new spin on this classic journey tale.

The other thing that the script specialized in was the liberal use of the double-entre. It allowed for a wide audience range: the kids loved Pee-wee at face value and the adults heard all the sexual and social inuendo of the man-child he was.

Because Pee-wee's Big Adventure was fresh and hip in an Andy-Warhol kind of way, our cache in the world had risen. Word was spreading around town about this new sensation and the boys were beginning to feel both the rewards and the pressures of being on the leading edge of a cultural wave. We were in a social whirl and became a kind of pack, moving together to parties, media events, and photo opportunities. At a Prince concert I remember the four of us having better seats than a rising pop singer who had just starred in Desperately Seeking Susan. We were in the front row and Madonna was several rows back, blonde hair teased to the max and her trademark black lace bustier-clad figure lost in a sea of undulating bodies.

Through it all Phil seemed the most amazed by his change in fortunes. He had more talent than all of us and yet he often looked awkward and out of place, that thick grin most in evidence when he found it difficult to be himself.

Next: Filming begins and Phil vies for a tiny role in the movie.