AlBarclay

Day 52. Sometimes when it feels like you have a mountain to climb, it can be therapeutic to climb a mountain. Lyndon and I start by going for an innocent walk in the park. That’s the plan. In the middle of the park there’s a massive rock. One of those gargantuan glacial deposits. There’s fencing around the edges at the top to stop drunks falling. And fencing around the edges at the bottom to stop idiots climbing. We look at it. We look at each other. That’s all it takes before we’re hacking our way up a runoff trench towards the fence. “How do you think we get through the fence?”
The thing with being in the middle of a city is you’re never going to be a pioneer. We are walking over discarded Twinkie packets, condom wrappers, flattened cans, water bottles, tissues. But before long we are at the base of a high rock. Someone has neatly cut a rectangle out of the fence with bolt cutters, and folded back the sharp bits. We are under in no time. We look up at the rock. It looks pretty sheer. It IS pretty sheer. It’s a vertical rock. But there’s a guy at the top. “How do we get up?” We shout. “That way. But it may be too hard for you.” I’m in skinny jeans that restrict my legs. I have a hat on that restricts my vision, and glasses. I’m wearing a nice watch. My walking boots are like two big rubber bricks on my feet. But this is red rag to a bull. “We’re fine.” I lie. And we go the way he’s pointing.

 

It’s hot. After a while we just make an arbitrary call. “Shall we just go up here?” It doesn’t look promising. But none of it has. And we are on a mission.

I’m not twelve any more, but I’ve always loved climbing. And fear is something that, for better or worse, only tends to afflict me in social situations. This is no problem, I tell myself. I’m climbing a metaphysical mountain, so it makes sense to conquer a literal one. By the time I am halfway up, I’m in a very different headspace after having lost my feet to these damn boots a couple of times, utterly regretted my hat and watch, got myself covered in dust, and taken the skin off my hands. I stop on a ledge and realise my legs are shaking. But it’s beautiful. We sit in a natural recess and admire the view. “I wonder what made this recess,” we peacefully muse. The answer is all around us. Bees. Bees dug our happy little resting place out of rock over millennia. They don’t seem too pissed off yet. My parents told me I was allergic to bees. My parents told me a lot of things, so I have no idea if I am or not. I don’t want to find out when they start ganging up on me. So on one side there’s a big drop, on the other there’s a load of bees, my legs are still a wobbly and I’m in stupid shoes. Thankfully I know that bees are totally chilled so they aren’t a concern. I love that this is their mountain. I imagine the intricate passages of the bee maze they have dug over so long, so vast that they can abandon our little perch when the wall caves in. I’ve got hands. There’s a route, of sorts. You can tell because there are crampons hammered into it. “I hope there’s a path at the top so we don’t have to get down the same way,” Lyndon says. I am in full agreement. I end up using crampons as emergency handholds. I’d never be stupid enough to stop and take photographs.

 

By the time we get to the top we feel like we’ve achieved something. We are the englishmen that climbed up a mountain that’s really a hill. There are a million ways up here and all of them are easier than the route we came. But we went up that way. And in doing so we have conquered a form of fear. Which is a strong metaphor for what I am trying to do in writing these letters to people who might want to start a lovely working relationship with me.

  

It puts me in mind of that overshared inspirational quote by Marianne Williamson. Everything in its context. If you can’t share enthusiastic overshared lifestyle advice in California, then where the hell can you? Here it goes people.  Switch off your bullshit meter:

  

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

 

There we go. Fear. Screw you fear, me and my friends are kicking your ass from now on. HOO AH. Sing it with me, brothers and sisters. California. Aaaaargh. etc etc etc repeat until sick

51 days here and quite a lot of my focus is having to shift to what happens when I get back. This morning was rather schizophrenic in that I was mixing emails to managers out here with emails to agents back at home. I’ve been put into an interesting situation. 

Over here, actors tend to have three business relationships. An agent, a manager and a publicist. In the UK, more frequently, there is just the one, under the umbrella of “agent.”

 

Fiction has brought us many examples of dysfunctional relationships between actors and their agents. Frequently my friends outside the industry have these as touch points for what it must be like for us. Richard Griffiths as Uncle Monty says “I remember my first agent. Raymond Duck … Four floors up on the Charing Cross road and never a job at the top of them.” It’s important to note that Withnail and I is not a documentary. I do know some actors who seem to think it’s the manual. And I have some friends who seem to assume it’s how I live. But it’s nothing to aspire to. I think of it as a beautifully told cautionary tale.

Stephen Merchant’s Darren Lamb in Extras is another painfully observed fictional agent, where all of the worst experiences of a pool of actors have been honed into this blithe venal cheerful incompetent dead weight. The reality is scarcely as extreme as these examples. Oh, I could tell you some stories. But I won’t.

 

It’s a business relationship. A professional one. I’ve been unfortunate in that a lot of my previous agents have retired, due to age, kids or pressure. I’ve not had time to develop a strong understanding with anyone, and the best actor/agent relationships are forged by time. I am lucky to have a manager who has had nothing but time, in that she knew me when I was 12 and has seen me change and grow. My most recent agent, though, never saw me work outside of my showreel. He was working hard on my behalf, doubtless, but juggling alongside that his work as a producer, actor and musical theatre jack of all trades. We have both admitted it wasn’t working for either of us. I will be leaving his books at the end of the month.

 

So now when I get back to London I’m going to need a new agent. This is a brilliant position to be in, as I can try to shop around and see if there is somebody that I get on with that gets what I’m about. A blank canvas, if you will. It’s an opportunity for a really positive change. I’ve fallen into the last two relationships I’ve had, so this time I’m trying to paraglide. Maybe I can find someone who operates on both sides of the Atlantic. More than that, maybe I can find someone who understands what they’re selling and wants to run alongside me. I’d love my next agent to be the one who, in twenty years time, we go on holiday together and laugh, because we actually really like each other. I might need to be in something visible in London, but that should be easy enough to make happen if I keep my ear to the ground.

 

Today I’ve found a rhythm that I can handle. I hate selling myself so I send emails until I can’t bear it anymore. Then I stop and meditate in the sunshine for a while, and pet the dogs. Then I send more. Then meditate and dogs. It’s slower than doing a generic mailshot, but the dogs love it, and at least every email is personal. Past experience of this sort of exercise has taught me that it will probably yield nothing but a couple of generic autoreject emails from an assistant. But despite saying that I feel strangely positive. Probably because of the sunlight and the dogs. If I can yield a few meetings when I get back then it’s all good. All I need is one click. I suppose it’s like internet dating, which is the other thing that I utterly hate loathe and detest. But some people swear by it. Never fear though, I am not sending cock shots to agents.

 

Or am I?

50 days. That’s a long time. Shortly after I first got into town, I saw posters all over the place saying “Do you belong in this neighbourhood? Get Out.” They stuck in my imagination as I had just arrived and I had to be careful not to take it personally. At the bottom it said “Playing in theatres” and a date. I initially thought “How can they play it in multiple theatres at once?” and then I remembered that it’s another translation error. A movie theatre. A cinema. It’s a film, not a play. Called “Get Out.”. It’s a brilliant poster, especially in this political climate. A visitor from the UK clocked it and was initially shocked. You could believe that some validated bunch of xenophobic dorks had clubbed together to put it up.
I went to see it today. It’s described as a comedy horror film, and I suppose it is. It’s very funny at times. But the humour is edgier than Tucker and Dale vs Evil. It’s a compelling  watch. I went in knowing nothing about it but the poster, and came out happy. Every performance was superbly well turned. Rather than spoil it I’ll just say I loved it and leave you to catch it if you want to. I suppose it’s a comedy race horror. It’s got plenty of good shocks, and some truly joyful performances and it’s really dark. It’s a very American film, but it carries.

 

Fifty days have flown by. I am feeling ready to get back to the familiar. I want to make the most of my last two weeks, but the weather is still a total let down. It was grey and drizzly again today. If it’s going to be like this then all the other things that scream “home” should be in place. I want to say “Hello” to a stranger and be treated like I’m an axe wielding maniac. Here they say “Hello” back and then start a conversation. I want to walk across the road and have the traffic speed up : “it’s my right of way and I’ll hit you if I can.” Here they slow down and let me cross. I want a waiter to behave as if he actively hates me and wishes I was dead, but here they smile like lying bridegrooms. Also I want to eat chocolate, not this sugary crap. How can standards have dropped so low? It’s the profit motive all over again. Look what happened to Creme Eggs when they were bought by Kraft Foods. They were great and now they’re made out of goat shit.

 

After the movie I went home. Self imposed early night tonight so I can get up and be my own office for the coming week. I ended up in deep conversation with my flatmate Mark. I can’t overlook how lucky I am to have landed here. My room is beautiful, and Mark and Laural are great fun and kindred spirits. It seems all the people I hang out with in this town used to be on one soap or another. Mark was on Home and Away, Lyndon on Emmerdale. Both for years. Both are now out here fielding movies, and the thing that binds them together is an easy going nature and a generosity of spirit, coupled with a drive to create. I suppose that’s important when the schedule is so packed. For the first time in my life I see how my energy and approach, coupled with my spongebrain, would fit that sort of dynamic. I’ve never thought to target TV before but if those two are anything to go by it’s a lovely fellowship. At base I do this work because I love it. And this has been a long time for me without doing the work that makes me who I am. Maybe it will prove to have been an investment down the line. Certainly it has been a personal investment, in the sense that I’ve had time to get to know myself. But thank God I’ve had these words every day as a vent for the creative impulse. I’m sure I’ll find a use for the next few weeks. There’s a few things I’m writing that I want to finish, and a company me and a friend are very seriously meaning to start rolling with immediately on my return (more on that anon.) But not being able to work is beginning to take its toll. I need to do some acting, pronto.

 

London, I am ready for your face.

Day 49 and we woke early. Last night we were lost in the woods. We burnt until we ran out of logs, then burnt sticks and cones, and eventually succumbed to the cold with sleep. We had had no cutlery so we were hunched over chargrilled steaks clawing and slurping like cavemen. My hands looked like ape hands in the morning. Miraculously there was hot running water in the campsite as well as wifi, so I washed the blood, juice and marshmallows from my beard in a hot shower while considering the long road home. 

First we decide we need to go to the ocean. We still smell of smoke. Sea air will help. The Pacific is punishingly cold at this time of year, the water drives an ache into your bones almost immediately, so a long dip is out of the question but we spend some time on Carmel beach before the long drive home. Such a gorgeous little town, built consciously to look quaint but they’ve gotten away with it. I spend as long as I safely can in the sun before getting back in the car. I don’t want to be falling asleep at the wheel. “Let’s have a road trip and not a mission,” we decide, appropriately enough as the road is an old mission trail. As we drive I start to notice distinctive bells again and again on the path beside us. “Historic Camino Real” some of them say.

 

We stop for coffee at the pinkest hotel in the world. The Madonna Inn. It’s trying to look Swiss, so I feel oddly at home having spent so much time in the graubunden as a child. There are 110 rooms spread out over a 1000 acre ranch. All of them are done up in a different theme. Cheapest is $210 a night. Jungle rooms, stone grotto rooms, pink fairy rooms, Flintstone rooms. It’s so kitsch I’m almost sick on myself. We sit at a vast wooden bar where a lady dressed as Heidi pours us odd coffee. If they were playing accordion music I think I’d regress almost immediately. Thankfully they aren’t, even though it’s very popular in Mexico. Next to us, identical twins are celebrating their birthday. They eat three gargantuan slices of cake. Their conversation is as scattered and enthusiastic as the decor. Nobody is talking backwards yet and there are no dwarves or giants. The twins want us to eat cake. We eat cake. Cake is delightful. Fuelled by sugar we go and find the receptionist. I ask him about the bells. “They’re mission bells.” So THAT’S a mission bell. Another line in Hotel California cleared up. In a hotel. In California. We get back on the road before the Captain brings us his steely knife.

 

The Camino Real stretches for almost 1000 miles. It’s the route that the early Jesuits and Franciscans used to spread their faith across this huge region. The bells are made to resemble the staffs that the Franciscans carried. They are very distinctive and attractive objects, these bells. Part of their appeal to me is that they are almost completely pointless. They just sit there in inaccessible laybys looking pretty. Good for them.

 

Back on the road. As the sun falls, Lyndon keeps looking behind us. “The sky is incredible.” That’s all the excuse I need to pull into a layby and crouch down as the juggernauts are blaring past, to take this shot of Lyndon, a mission bell and the sunset.

I’m back in my room now on Saturday night, with an early bed ahead of me so I can properly stand up and be counted for the last two weeks I am here. This has already been an immensely positive experience, in that I have had the space and the context to overturn a huge amount of the nonsense that my overactive imagination has been running on myself. No harm in throwing myself around a bit more before I come back, seeing who else I can meet out in this glorious ridiculous town.

Day 48 and when Lyndon first arrived in town, before the tow truck struck lucky and fucked us, we had booked a tent for this weekend. A Californian getaway. Something to look forward to, we said at the time. Here we go, crashing through the prairie in my beat up old Chevy for a weekend in Carmel at the top of Big Sur. The Big Sur is an area of vast natural beauty. Big woods, Big sea, Big views, Big stars, Big Sur. Only a few hours drive from LA. It’s enshrined in culture as the place where Kerouac went over the edge into alcoholism and supreme self indulgence. He went there to recover but just got more tangled and started his descent into wasteful death. We eat up the miles, and very quickly we are on roads like scars through rolling hills as far as the eye can see. Right now they are shocked with green. All this rain has done the area the world of good. We stop at a roadside rest stop. Wooden counters and country music. Beware of the rattlesnakes. I’m surprised there is no spittoon. The man behind the counter tells us “Nah it’s the wrong time of year for the snakes. All you got to worry about is the tarantulas.” How can this place be only 2 hours drive from the city?
It turns out Big Sur is inaccessible. We are going as close as we can get. The floods have taken their toll, and the bridge is not safe for traffic, and it seems Big Sur is only accessible by bridge. We have had to compromise.
A further 2 and a half hours drive from the rest stop and we think we have found the campsite. It’s pitch black by now. The grounds of the site are stratified into a hillside like an Inca Garden. The whole place has been flooded out with soaking wet mud roads and runoff ditches carved so deep into them that driving to the tent is too treacherous. Nobody is staying here. And we can’t find out tent. Has it even been set up? (We had no tent so we paid for it to be done. Oh the glamour.) 
Lyndon and I get out of the car and walk up the hill. Better that than accidentally drive off the ledge. It’s a long drop. What we find is not promising. Passing a sign saying “No entry, maintenance only,” which in retrospect hints pretty clearly it’s the wrong direction, we stumble upon a destroyed tent city. Ripped and collapsed structures. Piles of rubbish. Dumped gas canisters. We are in blackness lit by only the halogen glow of my mobile phones flashlight. Two little Englishmen in the wrong part of town. The back of my neck starts to prickle. I don’t want to end up getting raped by zombies again. I think the first time was a dream. We go back to the car a little quicker than we might, and try another direction.
Everything is so washed out here I eventually leave the car in a pool of light announcing the presence of washrooms. Suddenly it’s the veneer of civilisation. Even out here I momentarily worry that the tow truck bastards have snuck out and followed me. But we leave the car, puddle jump over a load of ditches, and find a massive great bell tent that has our name on it. Paydirt. Literally. In that a few weeks ago we paid to sleep in a load of dirt. But there are two fire pits. One that was here already and one we carried up the hill because nobody was using it. We have filled them with logs and got them blazing.

I am now sitting between the fire pits wondering how I am going to be able to send this out. My legs are boiling. We are in a pool of darkness and I can hear the cicadas mimbling in the trees. Lyndon brought red wine and I brought five fillet mignon for a tenner, left over from last week’s amazing Japanese supermarket. They’ve been marinating for a week. Who says luxury needs to be expensive? If I can post this it’s a miracle… go go gadget gadget.
… You’re shitting me. They’ve got wifi. How the hell? Ours not to reason how. When it’s light I’ll probably realise I’m in an industrial estate. Right now it feels like I’m lost in the woods. Darkness is great like that…

47 days out here. The morning was a strange and beautiful thing, where people got in touch with me and offered to help me out with this pickle I got myself into when the car was towed. I woke up still a bit upset and demotivated, but was very quickly galvanised into yoga and seizing the day. Throughout my morning I was talking with friends old and new online, and at the time of writing more than half of the ridiculous fee for the tow has come back through a gradual drip of kindness. Considering the context, that I’m an idiot with the luxury of a car and a roof who made a stupid mistake, I feel extremely fortunate. 

The morning was spent with a woman who deals with a Buzzfeed channel covering issues in the Native American community. She is also an actor. She was at RADA so we have a lot of friends in common. We had a remarkable conversation that overlapped Shakespeare with the DAPL, London with Trump. One of the things that we touched on was the sheer size of America. I think about this a great deal after my experience travelling the country two years ago with Much Ado. It’s remarkable that a place this big and this diverse has a single government. And taking into account the Native American history in this land, the people running the show now are short term visitors. We know so little about the stories of the land before it was colonised. I spoke of my confusion on this, about how little the culture of the original inhabitants of this country is shared or celebrated in a way that can be accessed by a visitor. I wish the stories of coyote and deer and so forth were more widely told over here. They are the myths of this land, born from the colours and shapes and stars of their areas, and myths are always more relevant in the place where they were born. But if you kill the storyteller you kill the story.

 

In an oral tradition every teller has their own embellishment, and those details are lost if the teller dies without passing them on. Also a true story with a true teller can change every night, and will do depending on the circle where it’s told. The written versions we have of oral tradition stories come from one single telling that was recorded. They are only definitive in that they are all we have. There are times in the recorded Homer version we have where it feels the story could branch and the bard chooses tonight’s version based on his crowd. Whoever recorded the homeric bard gave a great gift to the world, as did Plato recording Socrates. But it’s just one version. Like Armin and Kempe the Shakespeare fools, who likely improvised and then had one version of their improv recorded in the folio. There must have been some great details of Native American myths, and indeed whole sagas that have been utterly lost over here. I’ve always wanted to travel this country and Canada, immersing myself in what remaining reserves there are here, collecting and learning what remaining stories I can, celebrating this series of ravaged and contained cultures that have had it practically demonstrated to them recently with DAPL that their concerns are of no importance.

 

Walking away I found myself thinking about a project I was asked to collaborate on about a year ago. It’s a one man show and it deals quite closely with Native American myths juxtaposed with English Society in the seventeenth century, through the prism of a real life story of immense hardship and resilience. It was first pitched to me by a friend and director, Alice, who I met about five years ago filming a short. The View from the Window. We picked up some plaudits and festival screenings and all that nonsense. Working with her again on a piece of theatre sounded interesting, but at the time I felt swamped and not in a place where I could commit to making it the show it should be. It’s a very big story and I couldn’t think of how it could be keyed in to what’s happening now. Thinking about it again a year or so later it feels far closer to the right project. Standing Rock has provided the answer to the all important question “why this project now?” And I think I have a better notion of the journey through it. So I want to pick it up again. Not to put too many irons in the fire. But being out of context for this length of time has given me perspective on how I can better husband my hours when I’m back in town and again surrounded by all the little day jobs and concerns of London. And also I have better perspective on what’s important to me. Like my friends. I’m really beginning to miss my friends. Don’t forget, jet lag party all day on the 19th March. Whoop whoop.

Day 46. Driving a car is an expensive habit. Particularly as an actor. I made the mistake of telling one insurer I did this ridiculous thing for a living once, and now they all offer me fantastically high premiums. I can rarely if ever afford a car for a whole year. Their given reasons for these premiums vary depending on who you ask “You might be driving Jordan and her boobs are insured for x million”. But I suspect it is just that there’s still this notion that actors are constantly getting messed up on substances, jack-knifing off cliffs into buses full of tourists and generally blowing things up for giggles. Maybe I’m missing a trick by mostly trying to use my cars as vehicles rather than physics experiments.

I was a month out here before I splashed out on renting my geriatric Chevy. It makes things considerably more accessible, allows me to zoom around and meet people, but comes with a price. Like in London, drivers are targeted for revenue generation here. The tow truck industry is huge. In my area, different random streets have to be cleared of parked cars on different weekday mornings for street cleaning. The cleaner comes through once, flanked by an army of tow trucks, and then for the rest of the morning, even though the work is evidently done and it makes no sense to continue to keep it clear, the carnappers continue to drive around the damp streets hoping to entrap people who are employing logic over caution, or just not paying attention to the small print on the signs. Shop parking lots have varied and detailed restrictions and timings, all geared towards maximising removals. You have to be very very careful indeed where you put the car.

 

I wasn’t. They towed me. On an oversight. And obviously I’m an idiot for it. And even though the car was in the pound for less than an hour I was still charged storage and out of hours fee as well as basic towing. For a single incident, an admittedly stupid mistake, but one that impacted nobody’s ability to park, obstructed no traffic and served no logical purpose other than to generate money, they stung me for $340. That’s my entire budget for the rest of the time I’m here. And to add insult to injury the hairy old guy in the pound was a jerk. He looked like the guy who assaults you with a broken bottle in the parking lot of a bar in some cheap 1980’s flick. I kind of wanted Patrick Swayze to come and kick him in the nadgers. Ok, fine I was in the car pound, not Disneyland. They aren’t supposed to be fun. Nobody ever said “Daddy daddy can we go to the car pound?” or if they did they grew up to be Satan. But when someone cuts your legs off they should at least say thank you for standing still. I could fly to Paris for $340.

Today has been spent mostly alternating rage with panic. I had a couple of little oases, one where I met with a deeply passionate and connected woman who wanted to help me out here, and one where I went for a swim. But mostly I’ve been a little trembly, repeatedly checking my bank balance, edgy, sweary. It seems so excessive. I wonder how it can even be legal. It must be more than the value of the car. But the car isn’t mine so I couldn’t abandon it. Once bitten, twice shy, I was lucky on Oscar night, karma’s a bitch and other assorted platitudes.

 

There remains the matter of my shot budget. I’ve been thinking about things that I can offer I exchange for mid term loans from anyone. I can’t earn legally in the US and I’m here for another 18 days. I can take writing commissions, offer up childcare or dogcare when I get back to London, accommodate someone in my Chelsea bedroom for a bit while I kip on the sofa, dress up silly and perform Shakespeare speeches of your choice after dinner like I do at The Globe…. I could write a customised Hilaire Belloc style cautionary tale to anyone who might want one. “The lamentable tale of Mister Al, who underestimated human rapacity and was going to have to eat cockroaches until he was rescued by…” PM me . No, seriously, pm me. I’ll gladly write something to commission. Damn. Is it just two days ago I was proudly laughing at people crowdfunding for this sort of purpose? Yes. Yes it was. Humility, you bugger. You always wait for a bit of pride before waving your magical shitty stick. Alakasplat.

 

(Image is not mine. I was in no mind to take a photograph today so I ripped it off the net. It’s actually a memorial procession of tow trucks. Perhaps mourning their loss of KINDNESS. The monsters.)

 

Ps under advisement I’m putting my bank details here but obviously it’s nicer if I can message you all individually and work out what sort of lovely things I can do for you or how when if you can be paid back etc etc

It’s Barclays (of course) Account Number 40551627 Sort code 20-35-93. And my PayPal is alhimself@hotmail.com

Day 45. It’s interesting/revealing how much my parents come up in this blog. Dad was a big golfer. When we lived in The Isle of Man he was forever down at the Castletown Golf Links, in all weathers. It was a huge source of pleasure and one of the things that he’s still remembered for, in that he bequeathed a trophy for a handicap game that’s still played in the summer in Switzerland. I still hear from people who won it or competed for it.
I was always curious about the sport but it was almost completely forbidden when I was growing up. My mother knew what was good for her. On the rare occasions I went to the golf course with my father to play the rest of the day was ruined. I enjoyed whacking the thing, and I liked having a walk by the sea. But I didn’t care about precision, aim or technique. And dad used to get livid because he wanted me to be immediately brilliant. And when my dad was angry he was able to condense the atmosphere around him until it was roughly the consistency of melted cheese.

 

But now I have his golf clubs. My mother hated it, and I know I’m supposed to be working. But dad often used to tell me that most of his business was done on the golf course. He encouraged me to learn despite knowing I wanted to be an actor. Yeah, this is an investment dammit, I tell myself, coupled with it being the first uncompromisingly beautiful day we have had for three weeks. This weather is what I was led to expect from California. I go digging on Groupon and find a ridiculously beautiful seaside golf course an hour to the south for peanuts, and it doesn’t take much to persuade Lyndon that this is the best use of the day.
We jump in the car. Close to arrival I turn left down a driveway that clearly goes to a golf course, and begin to have misgivings. Down the hill past a huuuge American flag we go, to a huuuuuge colonnaded mansion with a coat of arms blazoned above the portico. “Trump National Golf Club.” Um… We park. The property is beautiful, with this spurious coat of arms built into the walls on the outside all over the place. Inside it’s full of photographs of the man throughout his life, and wide screen televisions playing looped footage of him chatting to golfers. There’s a framed photograph of his star on Hollywood Boulevard. It doesn’t take long for us to establish this is not the right place. The staff are all very lovely and very helpful. Nobody follows me around with a megaphone. This is a flawless shrine to Trump, in a beautiful place. I find myself wondering if the decor was chosen by the man himself, or if it was made up like this to honour him. I know that it would be hard to keep perspective and humanity surrounded by such targeted opulence, if it were about me.
The place we are booked into is a little further down the coast, but thankfully in an equally beautiful place. We get out there. There are not many of us playing. Lyndon and I incompetently hack our balls around the course. We are more interested in the fantastic natural beauty here than in being competitive. Which is just as well considering we’re both pretty crap. The best we get is one bogey each in nine holes. The rest doesn’t even bear reporting. The ghost of my father is likely smashing the place up as we speak, so if a golf course falls into the Pacific overnight, you’ll know why. And to be frank it looked ready to fall. The roads all have scars from slippage round there. That whole edge of coastline is likely going to drop if there’s a big earthquake. But for now it’s a lovely place to bang a ball around, talk about strategy going forward, and perhaps be a little irresponsible.

Dawn on day 44 found me dancing free in a sea of laughter. Last night was one of those nights where the party kept working. At the centre of it all was Miranda, British, about my age and the designer of it, orchestrating it live. I think possibly she was also married to the CEO of Absolut who was delightfully working the room whilst being off his box. We spent ages talking about this town, and how it is for her bringing up American kids. She used to live with Winona Ryder so I get the skinny on one of my childhood crushes. I have many very involved very earnest somewhat ridiculous conversations. Oddly i am the only fully bearded guy here. It reminds me of ten years ago, before all the jamjars vinyl and waistcoats. 

The music has to stop eventually, and a smiling Lyndon and I walk through the dawning streets buzzing inwardly as my phone buzzes with text messages from my new army of drunk friends. I suspect the rest of my time in this city will involve a lot more dancing since that was pretty much what I did all night, and how I made friends… It was a good clean dirty night. I eventually went to bed with a smile on my face.

Stark contrast to how I felt a few hours later dragging myself howling into hungover reality. My first thought is “Shit, my car.” That’s before even “Christ, my head,” which follows hard upon. My car had been left in the parking lot of 7-11, peppered with cheerful signs saying “cars left overnight will be towed at the owners expense.” Staggering into my clothes I get an uber pool. (No matter how much time pressure I’m under some habits are hard to break and pool is so cheap over here.) I am remembering how expensive it was the last time my car got towed. I’m hoping it’s not so bad in America. Typically the driver picks up two people after me and drops them all off before me. By the time we get to 7-11 I’m chewing my own arm off, but the car is there, safe and sound, untowed. Mark, my flatmate, later says he thought there was a 95% chance it had gone. Phew. I’m grateful to my guardian angel.

 

Considering I’ve been lucky with the car, and had such a good night, I suggest to Lyndon that we go to Café Gratitude. This is a vegan cafe that I’ve been told a lot about but have so far avoided. I am certain it would annoy me if I was in the wrong mood. This morning, with the pair of us staggering around like the walking dead, it’s the best chance I’ve got of responding well to the place. 

 

Café Gratitude is very LA. They want their customers to be grateful. When they take our order they ask a question of the day. It’s always something to make you think about how lucky you are. Today it’s “What are you looking forward to?” We are tired and suggestible enough to burble things to one another that we are looking forward to. While we are so occupied, the waiter soft sells us a flight of shots. These shots all have ridiculously enthusiastic names. We are going to be Recovering! Then we are going to get Invigorated! And finally Enlivened! When they arrive they don’t smell at all appealing. We take them like medicine. The first one is Burdock, Lemon, Ginger and Carpet. Then it’s something that tastes like camphor and eucalyptus with algae. And finally it’s an unexpected shot of vinegar. Last time I drank vinegar on a hangover the intention was very different. Thankfully I don’t need a bucket this time. And perhaps it’s the power of suggestion but I do start to feel better almost immediately. Our earnest harmless and yet secretly steely waiter then provides us with a mixture of good healthy food and saccharine sentiment. We both decide that neither of us would want to be his friend, but we appreciate his effort. I feel noticeably better as I leave the café. If a little lighter in the wallet.

 As we leave there are signs asking “What are you grateful for?” I’m grateful for so much. That I can be out here, that I have a good friend out here, that I have all the good fortune I never had to work for to live where I do. So many things. But this morning, primarily,  I’m grateful that the human liver can regenerate itself.

Day 43 and it’s Oscar night, which is the peak of the season here. I’ve got an invite to an Oscar Party in the Hollywood Hills in a custom party house owned by the CEO of Absolute Vodka. There’s a registration at the bottom of the hill and if you pass muster they send you up in a shuttle to a house with a marquee and screens all over the place. It’s black tie, but I have my three piece, which seems to do the trick. As I walk towards the registration I make a new friend. He is evidently of South American origin, probably Mexican. I mention this because it is a little at odds with what follows. He has a megaphone and a moustache, and he really really doesn’t like me. As I pass him he shouts in my ear through the megaphone. He could’ve been shouting anything. “I love elephants!”. As it happens it was something Trumpish, which becomes apparent. My instant reaction is to put my hand between my ear and the megaphone and push the damn thing down a bit. “Dude you don’t need the megaphone I’m right here. Are you okay?” This is enough to have him on me like a tick, howling nonsensical vitriol at me at close range as I attempt to walk down a crowded street. I realise I am surrounded by people chanting “Trump Trump Trump”. One of them is saying “Do you want our Christian boys to die in your wars.” There’s some serious mental mismanagement here. None of them are thinking straight. They don’t know who I am or what I stand for, but they take it as enough that one of them doesn’t like me and I have a beard and am dressed smartly for them to pour their vitriol on me. Lyndon says “come on let’s go” but I’m curious now. He has his cellphone in my face and is still hiding behind his megaphone. I ask him “Why are you so angry?” but this is not a dialogue. This is a lot of people shouting slogans. There is literally no sense in this. I leave the interaction feeling battered. I am followed out by a cameraman and a journalist. Who knows what their agenda is but they want to know more. The cameraman says “I got it all.” He appears to be shooting on an old 33 millimetre. The journalist asks my name. I only give my first name. I go to a bar where I play it back in my mind in order to assess what happened. The worst thing I did was say “I wish you all the best.” I don’t think it was overly passive aggressive. It wasn’t intended to be. I was just trying to dig my way out of the vitriol especially since it made no sense. 

But then these people are here to protest the liberal elite. And here I am, working as an actor, about to go up the hill in a shuttle and drink free vodka and eat free food while watching people in my industry accept glamorous awards in a setting that drips money. Tonight I am all the people he hates. 

We all want our work to be recognised. I’ve been working hard at this for years now and I have to make peace with the fact that usually I can barely afford to pay my electricity bill. But at least I have an electricity bill to pay. I bet he has been working harder, with nothing to show. I have no idea what the situation of people in the poorer parts of this nation is, but I suspect it can get pretty bleak. When you’re down you want to believe that someone in power cares about you. It’s a hell of a trick that this billionaire has pulled. In the process of servicing his own greed and ego, he has persuaded the most dispossessed people in this country that he speaks for them. I’m worried because I think he doesn’t. I think he speaks for himself alone. I would love to be persuaded otherwise. For as long as he is the naked emperor, and as long as we caricature him as a shouting toddler, so he will caricature the “liberal elite” as the enemy of the working man because they are HIS enemy. Trump is a word that is synonymous with “me”. When they shout Trump, they shout “me”. Whole unthinking rallies of people shouting “me, me, me!” Because they have mistook his passion for himself as passion connected to his false promises. Some people don’t have the luxury of time to listen to press conferences in their entirety. Some people have not had the fortune to be able to convert their hardship into a finely tuned ability to read between the lines when someone speaks in public or when someone puts a lie about NHS money on the side of a bus. Life is hard and this man says he will make it better for me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me.

 

But this evening I can see why it is so easy for artists and thinkers to be made the enemy. Here we all are in our sequins and our bow ties, drinking freebies and watching ourselves on big screens. Maybe Lala Land, which is lovely but a profound love song about the privileged elite in Hollywood, will win best picture. That story is not going to connect to someone who has been manually working hand to mouth for years. It’s going to alienate them as they dance and prat about in their beautiful clothes. I wonder many people here at this party have ever worked in soup kitchens in their spare time? Does having the spare time to work in a soup kitchen automatically invalidate our politics if we do? Is it a patronising thing to do? 

 

The hate I experienced from a man who knew nothing about me but how I looked – it has me worried. This immigrant nation has come so far so fast, but it feels like there is a chance it will turn on itself now. We cannot dismiss Trump voters as stupid. They’re desperate. It’s a riot. Tear this shit down and start again.

 

I have no solutions here. I wish I did. I want to be able to have a discussion with that guy, but the gap between my education and his desperation is too far for him to bridge while he is angry. And he has no interest in trying to unpick what I represent to him. I am the enemy. Pure and simple. And it feels like if we don’t like Trump we don’t like the people that voted for him. Because Trump and “me” are synonymous. Pity is too patrician. Hate is too aggressive. How, across the west, can we start to make sure that the arts and the liberals speak for the people that don’t have 50 pounds for a theatre ticket…? The angry dispossessed like my Mexican friend who might well have spent all his spare cash on that expensive phone and that top quality megaphone.

 

I honestly don’t know. I’m just going to tether my iPad to my smartphone and post this on my blog before going back to see who wins the next Oscar…