Life Itself Page #2

He could, he could knock out

a full thought out movie review

in 30 minutes.

Fast and furious.

There were so many reporters

that formed

easy quick friendships

because they were smart,

they were good writers,

they were literate,

and they could tell

a good story in a saloon.

O'Rourke's was our stage,

and we displayed

our personas there nightly.

It was a shabby street corner tavern

on a dicey stretch of North Avenue,

a block after Chicago's Old Town

stopped being a tourist haven.

When a roomer

who lived upstairs died,

his body was discovered when maggots

started to drop through the ceiling.

For many years, I drank there

more or less every night

when I was in town.

So did a lot of people.

We all sat at the same place.

The newspaper guys here,

the druggies in the middle,

the surly staff

at the very end of the bar.

Roger has always been attracted

to weird types.

I mean, you should see

some of the women

that he's hauled in

to O'Rourke's over the years.

Back in the old days,

Roger had, probably

the worst taste in women

of any man I've ever known.

They were either gold diggers,

opportunists, or psychos.

Yeah, I met Roger one time

with a woman

that looked like

a young Linda Ronstadt,

and when she was gone

from the table briefly,

I said, "Who is that?"

And he said,

"She's a hired lady."

And I said, "A hooker?"

And he said, "Now you

take care of her when I leave."

And he left town.

And anyway...

Roger, he used to hang from

the lamppost at the end of the bar.

When he got going,

Roger was one of

the finest storytellers

that I have ever come across.

He would hold court,

and it's not like everyone

was invited to join in

and have a colloquy with him.

Since he bought drinks

for everybody

when he had the money,

who's not to listen?

His great friend

was John McHugh.

And I remember

a famous argument

over who was the more cosmopolitan

of the two.

And Ebert was saying,

"John, I travel the world.

I go to every country in Europe.

I go to Cannes.

I'm a cosmopolitan person."

John said, "Ebert, you don't

even speak a foreign language."

And Ebert said,

"I speak enough to be able

to order two Johnny Walker Blacks

anywhere in the world."

Any sober human being

looking at the two of them

would have decided neither was

actually a cosmopolitan figure.

I discovered there was

nothing like drinking

with a crowd

to make you a member.

I copied the idealism

and cynicism of the reporters.

I spoke like they did.

Laughed at the same things.

Felt that I belonged.

Studs wasn't a Chicagoan.

Nelson Algren wasn't born here.

Saul Bellow wasn't born here.

But there's a certain kind

of Chicago character

that Roger really came

to believe that he was.

Roger was not just

the chief character

and star of the movie

that was his life.

He was also the director,

and he brought in the cast,

and the scenario,

and he orchestrated it.

He loved it!

Those characters, what they did.

John the garbage man.

Hank the communist.

I remember the night that Jim Touley

punched J. Robert Nash,

knocked him down

to the bar room floor,

and Nash looked up and he said,

"Nice punch, Jimmy!"

When O'Rourke's closed he would

go down to the Ale House,

because that was a four o'clock bar.

The mood got

rougher and rougher

as people got

drunker and drunker.

Roger was good at dishing,

but he also could take it.

"I'm a fat guy, I'm gonna have to

learn how to take fat stuff."

Roger could hold his own

with all of them.

Everybody kind of says that

deep down he's a nice guy.

He is a nice guy,

but he's not that nice.

He's not that nice.

The last week

he was drinking,

I even realized that there was

a serious problem going on.

Watching him

when he pulled out that night

in front of O'Rourke's,

and almost, you know,

ran into the North Avenue bus.

I remember being in the drug store

that was on the corner there

one morning,

and Roger came in, and he

looked like absolute hell.

And I'm like, "Are you okay?

What's the matter?"

"I'm on a bender.

Can you come have a drink with me?"

He said to me one time,

and I don't think

he'll regard this as a betrayal,

that he would walk home

late at night,

after O'Rourke's had closed,

and he would wish

he was dead.

I found it almost impossible

once I started,

to stop after one or two.

I paid a price in hangovers.

Without hangovers,

it's possible

that I would still be drinking.

I would also be unemployed,

unmarried, and probably dead.

In August 1979,

I took my last drink.

It was about four o'clock

on a Saturday afternoon.

The hot sun streaming

through the windows.

I put a glass of scotch and soda

down on the living room table,

went to bed, and pulled

the blankets over my head.

I couldn't take it anymore.

He says, "I quit."

And then I realized

it's time for me to quit, too.

The next time I saw Roger Ebert,

he was in AA.

I was drinking very heavily.

When I decided to out myself

as a recovering alcoholic,

I hadn't taken a drink

for 31 years.

And since my first AA meeting

I attended,

I've never wanted to.

Since surgery in July of 2006,

I haven't been able to drink

at all, or eat or speak.

Unless I go insane and start

pouring booze into my g-tube,

I believe I'm reasonably safe.

That's it.

By the time I got home

from this shoot,

there was an email waiting for me.

Did we get it?

I hope so, too.

When I mentioned in my blog

that I could no longer

eat, drink, or speak,

a reader wrote,

"Do you miss it?"

Not so much, really.

I lived in a world of words

long before I was aware of it.

The new reality took shape slowly.

My blog became my voice,

my outlet.

It let loose

the flood of memories.

They came pouring forth

in a flood of relief.

One day in the spring of 1967,

I noticed

Faster, Pussycat! Kill Kill!

playing at the Biograph

on Lincoln Avenue.

The posters displayed

improbably buxom women,

and I was inside in a flash.

That was when it first registered

that there was a filmmaker

named Russ Meyer.

In 1969, the 20th Century Fox

studio invited Meyer

to the lot for an interview.

They owned the rights

to the title

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,

and offered him the title

unattached to any story.

Meyer offered me

the screenwriting job,

and I fell into

a delirious adventure.

The most impossible question

for me to answer is,

"How on earth

did Roger Ebert write

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls?"

Or be interested

in writing such a script?

Or be involved with Russ Meyer?

I have no answer.

What did he love

about Russ' films do you think?

B*obs.

The fact that there were

large breasted women involved

probably was a plus.

You know, we can talk a lot

about the art of cinema,

and what we find in it,

and the sort of the magic

and the dreams

and the glory of it,

but there are also other,

kind of, earthier appeals.

You wanna make love?

Then let's make love.

Here?

- No, in L.A.

- L.A?

- Where is that?

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