When I Was 30
I don't generally derive writing inspiration from outside sources--instead preferring to think that my essays come entirely from original thought. But we know that there is no such thing! Every idea rides on the shoulders of a previous idea, and let me say "thank goodness for that", because we would otherwise struggle to relate to anything created in the arts. In my opinion, originality is in an individual's take on a previous idea, and if you can accept this being about as original as we can get, then you will likely suffer less than most.
That being said, I am firmly placing this essay on the shoulders of an idea I recently read--a NYT article documenting several LGBTQ artists looking back on their 30th year of life. I thought it might be fun to jump on board this theme since this blog does allow room for reflection. So let's take a look at what was happening when I was 30 years old...
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It was 1992. I had moved to Los Angeles from San Diego just a year earlier, in January of 1991, which resulted in my life turning into a fucking mess. I left a great bartending job and a great apartment in San Diego to be roommates with a dancer friend in a small studio that didn't even have a proper kitchen--just a hotplate and mini-fridge. I used to stock up on canned baked beans and boxed mac and cheese, and would create variety to my dinner options by pairing them with cut up wieners on alternating nights. The reason for my move to Hollywood was the hope of breaking into the "big time" of the entertainment industry, as a performer and creator. I thought I would take the city by storm. Instead, it barely noticed my arrival.
In April of '92, a few months before I turned 30, the Los Angeles Riots erupted after the acquittal of police officers who had viciously beaten Rodney King. I remember watching the smoke from the fires set by rioters and wondering whether the whole city was going to burn down. It didn't, but maybe it should have. It might have benefitted from starting over.
I eventually moved from the small shared studio into a larger studio that was all my own, with a proper full kitchen, just off Hollywood Blvd. It was in an old building that was well maintained, and if I remember correctly the monthly rent was $450, which was just over my budget at the time, but worth it. There was an alcove in the main room where there once was a murphy bed, and I stuck with tradition by putting my bed in the space and pretending, if I squinted, that this was an actual bedroom and not just an alcove.
My 30th year was confusing to me. I was still young, but I didn't feel that I looked young anymore. My hair was rapidly receding, and as a dancer, I was going to auditions where the median age was 20. It began to dawn on me that I had missed my turn without realizing it--trying for a big dance career at the age of 29 was too late. I supported myself by working at a supermarket--in a kiosk that sold Starbucks Coffee--a union gig, but not exactly what I came to the city to do. I was looking for love and looking for fame and I didn't give a damn which one came first--I was still young and crazy enough to believe that I would get both of them. That's 30!
I had started formal dance training at the age of 19--late for most, but for men in the 80's not so unusual. Looking back, I realize I should have moved to L.A. when I was 22. I remember asking my mother one time if I had ever expressed interest in the performing arts as a child, and she told me in no uncertain terms that I had not--she had tried to offer me some arts classes, but apparently I would have nothing to do with them. I was a very shy boy.
At 30, I was not so shy, but I also was aging out of an industry that had no compassion for my receding hairline or advancing years. I felt like I was an "in-betweener", but what I was in-between was less clear: youth on one end, and something else on the other.
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Here is a fun fact: I was the first person hired to work for Starbucks Coffee in Los Angeles. In the early 90's, the company began to expand out of Seattle, and they chose to start in L.A. by placing booths inside a few Pavilions supermarkets to test the market. I was the first hired in a ragtag group of misfits who bonded over not knowing what we were doing, but we were at least trained how to properly make an espresso drink.
My favorite of the other employees was a gal named Sheryl--she was a geek like me, and we connected over a love of film and sarcasm. Sheryl and I would create skits to perform for the customers, and I would like to think that they enjoyed them as much as we enjoyed performing them, but who is to know for sure. Sheryl kept a journal with a list of all the films she would see--back then the journal was analog--and for a while she inspired me to do the same, since it was cheap for me to check out VHS movies from the public library and watch at least one film a week. I started with the classics--many of which I had never seen, and I would work my way through the films of the great Golden Age actresses: Hepburn, Bergman, Crawford, and Davis to name a few. It was a delight to discover how good these films were.
When I wasn't working, I was taking dance, acting, and voice classes and submitting my resume to plays and films listed in the weekly Drama-Logue magazine. In those days resumes and headshots had to be mailed out in manila envelopes--can you imagine?? I must have mailed out hundreds of those damn envelopes, and the most I ever booked was a couple of college student films that are now lost to the wind.
Meanwhile, at the kiosk we would mostly serve those who attended 12-step groups that met nearby--I clearly remember one guy who would regularly order 13 shots of espresso in a cup. Talk about a case of transferring addictions! I often wonder what happened to his stomach. We also would give out sample after sample of coffee, both to the curious and the homeless. There was one homeless woman who would come in everyday and go through the same routine. She would walk up as though she had never had Starbucks before and politely ask for a "sample". I'll never forget the day we celebrated her "100th" sample. We were both honoring and mocking her, which is a sign of true affection if you think about it.
I eventually fell for one of the 12-steppers--his name was John, and he was a balding Jewish hunk with a hairy chest and a seductive smile. So many of the newly sober quickly because addicted to something else--like the guy who asked for 13 espresso shots, but John transferred his addiction to working out, and I was not one to pass up noticing this.
I was always hoping to fall in love in those days--I think I believed that love would "fix" everything, even if I was not sure what it was that needed to be fixed. I remember one day when John came in to order coffee and told me that he had just gotten his teeth cleaned. He proceeded to show me how clean they were with a big goofy smile (they were very clean!), and yet if this had been a Woody Allen movie the subtext would have been "Let's have sex on the floor this instant".
There is no need to further detail my endeavors with John, other than to say that I kind of lost myself in him, because I was completely lost in every way at the age of 30--I had leaped from the familiar to the unfamiliar and in the process found myself in a world that I not only did not recognize, but that also did not recognize me.
I was definitely out as a gay man, but I don't think I realized what that meant outside of my attraction to other men. I remember desperately wanting to be "in love", but having not yet dealt with unresolved trauma, I didn't really know what the love was--either as a giver or receiver. My search for a relationship was like going shopping for really nice shoes with both feet broken. You think that nice shoes will fix the problem, but once you put them on they painfully remind you of your injuries.
***
I rounded out my 30th year licking my wounds from failing at finding a relationship, failing at becoming a star, and failing to feel young anymore. But I have no regrets about the choices I made that year because of what it took me to make them and where they ultimately led me down the line: to relationships and success, even if they did not look the way I thought they would look. For me, and for many of us in the early 90's, being 30 was the beginning of our true adulthood, with all its disappointments and surprises and compromises.
I just wish someone would have warned me about it.