"Time Equals Vision"

Dave recounts his visit to Los Angeles and the Pen America Fellowship reading.

I have something in my life now that most people don’t.

That one thing is TIME, and I’ve got it by the ton.

Yesterday I was gathering wood in the late afternoon. The light was dimming rapidly as it always does after the golden hour. I had to collect an armful of dead manzanita branches to get my fire going; it burns a lot hotter than oak and when wood is cold, it’s harder to get a fire going. I was actually rushing a bit and not having felt any real pressure from a lack of time, I noticed it graphically. I was noticing how it felt to be rushed. To be honest I was a little sick and was running low on energy, but I still noticed time in a new way.

Time is a remarkable luxury. I never realized what it meant to have so much, and it makes me feel rich. Everything takes an inordinate amount of time in the city. Out here in the country though, I’ve realized that lack of time has always been an issue for me. And nothaving enough of anything is a feeling we (the 99%) all share.

I remember adding up my lost time in Los Angeles. The figure was immense; there were endless time-consuming obstacles. Traffic alone wasted a month and a half of every year.90 stressful minutes traveling nine miles, only to be a half hour late because there was no parking.

Moving out of the city to the country I got all that time lost in traffic and parking back—plus some. I had replaced or fixed everything and now had loads of extra time. I wondered what to do now that I finally felt safe from another house expense. Mostly, I just stared at nature’s wonders like a man on a morphine drip.

My best mate, a famous commercial director, visited me. We took in the local sites,walked though town and had dinner. When we got back, he looked up at the clear night sky. He said to me, “Your view is up, not out.” I chuckled. My friend, who had filmed on six continents and who had seen everything, was literally star struck by the Milky Way. He asked me why it was white. “That’s why they call it the Milky Way,” I said, still laughing. We stood quietly for a long time, starring straight up. My friend said to me in dream-like tones, “This place is amazing… Dude, you should write a blog. It could be your ticket to the art center.”

I reminded him I’m not a blog guy; I hate talking about myself and my life isn’t interesting enough. But he countered, “This is the Odyssey, you are Odysseus, you’vebeat mythic obstacles to get here. You ARE that guy.” His poetic analogy of my life was intimidatingly grandiose—I couldn’t see what he did. I’ve lost more battles than Odysseus and I’m not that clever. I do, however, have street smarts and I’ve probablyrecovered from being told “NO” more than Odysseus ever did. Hey, show biz is tough.

Maybe Odysseus could serve as inspiration?

I have freely shared my considerable voice-over knowledge with PEN America, a well-known not-for-profit organization helping writers of color with no connections...

"Working With Thor"

Dave’s first night in the Sierra Nevada mountains, he was greeted by rain - and a harrowing situation.

“I made it out of LA.”

That was my thought as I passed Bakersfield and it sounded so sweet, I said it aloud.

Adventures are adventures because you have no idea what will happen. You plan, you imagine, you visualize, but all that means squat to adventure. Adventure doesn’t follow rules or have morals or care what’s fair or mean, and that’s what makes it so damn exciting.

As an artist, failure is my best friend. Without it I’d be unsuccessful, lost. After living with failure for more than 60 years, you sense it’s coming - but you never know when. It is possible to anticipate, but failure always catches me like a baseball bat to the head. A catastrophe is a combination of unforeseen failures that fall like dominos. I’m not friends with catastrophic failure. I hate the guy, he’s a prick and makes me feel all icky inside. The only good to be taken from catastrophe is in making a great recovery.

The first truck I rented wasn’t big enough. A measly one hour delay. I know, it doesn’t sound like a falling domino. Patience.

Daylight and my cell phone signal started fading around Fresno and by the time I turned off the interstate onto a two-lane highway into the Sierra Nevadas it was dark, the navigation on my iPhone quit, and I started to realize just how alone I really was. On cue, the asshole voice in my head started with the I-told-you-so’s and the you-should-have’s. It was hard to stay positive and the feeling morphed a little into… survival.

The weather changed, just some rain sprinkles, but it continued to build as I reached the end of the road where my winding driveway started up a long hill to my new life. I could feel badness, waiting for me in the dark like a predator. I sat idling in the huge diesel truck with my animals next to me. The extreme darkness of the country made it seem like I was looking at the worldthrough a pinhole camera. I had doubts about being able to get the huge truck close enough to the house. I just couldn’t see, and then it started raining harder.

I wasn’t seeing any dominos fall though, and I didn’t want to be scared into inaction. The truck was strong, it was heavy, I’d have plenty of traction, it wasn’t as steep as it looked… but the trees hanging over the drive were a problem. And I’d have to move with a good pace up the hill because it was getting muddier. I talked myself into it.

I gunned the truck, dropped it in low gear, and gathered speed so I could hit it hard and barrel though it. It’s all about confidence and doing stuff - like, with confidence. Unfortunately, I missed “smart” by a mile and picked “stupid.” I should have turned the truck around, gone into town and slept in a hotel and had a big expensive breakfast in the morning.

Avoiding the trees, I caught the front tire in the soft muddy ditch, only barely getting out beforeover-correcting and sliding off the driveway onto the steep hill, finally catching the bumper of the truck on a utility pole. My heart bumped like a hummingbird’s and waves of adrenaline made my bones ache. In a state of shock, I climbed out of the truck into the pitch-black night and was greeted by my neighbor’s dogs. I followed them home and asked my new...

"Planning My Escape"

Hollywood is a terrible place to get old. Dave had to get out.

After 40 years of living in Los Angeles, I escaped.

I had to. It was life or death.

My decision to cut and run came from a vision of my death on streets where I’d walked and lived. Sounds overly dramatic, but I work in entertainment. I know drama.

You wouldn’t know me, but you’d recognize my voice on radio, TV, the Internet, narrations, documentaries and cartoons. I’m a professional voice over artist, aka “VO.” I do other things, too. I have talented hands; I can paint portraits and I write, produce and mentor.

In my last decade in LA I moved once, from the San Fernando Valley to the Arts Districtwhere rents were cheap and the spaces were perfect for my studio. The downsides:live/work lofts are commercial property with no rent control and landlords can charge what the market will bear.

Two years after my move downtown, people were paying twice my rent for a 1000-square-foot loft with concrete floors and a counter for a kitchen - a box with no interior walls or privacy. My old nemesis, gentrification, had officially arrived. I’d see Bentleys, McLarens and Land Rovers parked next to my cheap Fiat. Property value rose so fast that building owners made money on empty lofts.

To say it wasn’t artist friendly would be a vast understatement.

My epiphanic moment of clarity came while choking on toxic diesel exhaust. I was walking my little rat terrier at 7:00 am, and we had stepped out of the gate onto 6th Street. The produce warehouse across the street was noisy and moving at full tilt, my dogyanking my arm out of its socket to reach that first tree, when I noticed that the crawling masses of tens of thousands of homeless in tents from Skid Row were now within 40 feet of my front door - along with the smell of urine and excrement.

The man I’d seen yesterday, screaming in an expensive business suit, railing at the world’s injustice while standing on the soapbox pile of his life, was now sleeping peacefully, tucked up against a red brick exterior wall. Yesterday it was obvious he was evicted from wherever he’d lived with all his possessions: a cappuccino machine, a stack of stereo equipment and a lot of other nice clothes and stuff that looked like he’d lost an upper management position. Probably never saw it coming. That morning it was just himin a blanket. Most of his belongings were gone, his stereo, all the nice stuff, poof, gone. He had a bag of clothes for a pillow and his now filthy double-stuffed too-expensive down comforter was wrapped tightly around him. He probably didn’t know he’d lost everything, sleeping peacefully on the concrete. This was happening regularly since the depression of 2008. It is, has or will dramatically wound everyone but the very rich.

The reality of my age and his situation hit me like a bucket of cold water. I was one month, maybe two from being him. I’d barely pulled off rent a couple of times recently over parking tickets gone to collection, or union dues, or unexpected car troubles.

The immense financial depression had given people permission to do horrible things and act like heroin addicts, chasing profits with monkeys on their backs. I was witnessing the end of...