Jerusalem Syndrome - Marc Maron [13]
7
AFTER I graduated from college I decided I was gunning for the Buddha. I would be a Beatnik warrior in search of the truth, the real truth, the deep truth. So, I moved to Hollywood, where the truth remains well hidden. I should mention that I also wanted to be a star. Sometimes I forget to mention that because I think it undermines my credibility as a seer.
I got on the road and drove to California. I stopped off in Albuquerque to check in with my parents and friends and had a brief affair with a woman who’d recently divorced a CIA agent. I stopped by The Living Batch to tell Gus what I was doing. When I walked into the store I saw a poster on the bulletin board for a Beat conference at the Naropa Institute in Colorado. All the Beats that were still alive were going to be there: Ginsberg, Burroughs, Corso, Snyder.
“I gotta get up there for that,” I said.
“Why would you want to go up there and see those geriatrics?” Gus asked. “I know those guys. It would be a bore.” This was new information for me.
“You know them? Did you know Kerouac?”
“I met him once at a party in Berkeley.”
I was excited.
“Really?” I said. “What was he like?”
“He was standing in a corner, drunk,” Gus said, “with his arm around Neal Cassady, slurring ’Live like a tree, Neal.’ ”
It didn’t matter if it was true or a joke. I understood.
Then Gus said, “Go do what you’re going to do.”
It was time for me to have a go at my own life. I was tired of always assuming that everyone but myself possessed secret information; like some common code of understanding, some idea that tethered their soul and enabled them to get through life with some degree of grace, as opposed to the panic-ridden, angry, tumbling down the pipe that I had experienced.
I really believed that when I rolled into Hollywood a welcoming committee of producers and directors would be there to greet me. They’d flag down my car and say, “Are you Marc Maron? We’ve been waiting for you. Hey, everyone, gather around! Marc Maron is here. Your Grandma Goldy called ahead and said you wanted to be in the movies. Is that true, kid? Well, it’s your lucky day. We’ve begun production. There’s your trailer. The script’s inside. If you want to make any changes, feel free and take your time. Oh, and Marc, there’s a bowl of dietetic coffee candy in the cabinet above the sink. Who loves you, baby? We’ll see you on set!”
Strangely, that didn’t happen. Instead, I hooked up with a friend and spent two months on his couch in Culver City. We were working on a screenplay. I think that’s what it was. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of it on paper.
I also auditioned at The Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard and I got the job as a doorman. You had to be a comic to be a doorman and vice versa. Within a month I became head doorman.
If you don’t already know it, The Comedy Store is a dark temple of fear and pain that to this day I believe is built over one of the existing gates to Hell. Evil emanates up through the floors of the place and passes into the souls of all who work there. The good ones make it funny. I was thrilled to have that opportunity.
My first night at work I became enchanted. I felt like a part of me was home. Somewhere in my soul I knew the place. I could feel what had gone on there. The current that crackled in the air of The Comedy Store was the sentient residue of an arcane period of old Hollywood indulgence. The ghosts of dark fun occupied every inch of the place, and they welcomed me like a friend who had been lost.
The structure’s first incarnation was called the Clover Club. It was a drinking joint and illegal gambling parlor that was frequented by David O. Selznick and Harry Cohn. The vice squad shut it down in the late thirties. The most significant occupant of the building (besides the Devil who was always there) was Ciro’s. It opened in 1940 and it was the hottest club on the strip. Sinatra, Nat