New West magazine, October 23, 1978 Text by Jon Carroll Photo by Steven Hoffman
I remember (with apologies to Joe Brainard)
I remember going off to college in 1970, hoping to learn to write fiction and journalism but then hearing about Tim Hunter’s film history courses, where you could get class credit for watching Westerns and Hitchcock pictures at nine in the morning.
I remember Tim coming over to see me on a Sunday morning and showing me that day’s San Francisco Examiner, with the headline “Mousepacks: Kids on a Crime Spree.” “This could be an exploitation picture,” he said, “and we could write it.”
I remember getting out of college and going to work at Warner Bros. Records, an entire building full of people I wished I was as cool as. The accounts receivable department. Everyone.
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I remember seeing snipe posters on Coldwater Canyon that said New West magazine was coming, then finding out it was an offshoot of New York, and thinking how wonderful it would be if I could get on there.
I remember the New West office, which Clay Felker furnished by buying the entire city room set from All the President’s Men. Nobody knew whose desk was Robert Redford’s.
I remember meeting the witty Senior Editor in that office and later marrying her, 45 short years ago. It was a dream job.
I remember Over the Edge finally getting made, and the studio being scared to release it. We tried to move them along by renting a rep house in L.A. for an evening show. When we announced a Q&A after the picture, the first person to speak up was a woman who said, “I’m from the Revolutionary Communist Youth Party, and I dug the fuck out of this movie!” I remember thinking, “Great, we’re going to revive the blacklist right here.”
I remember writing for lots of other magazines after New West folded. I told the people at Trips, The Magazine of Authentic Travel, that I’d sign on if they’d send me on bicycle trips. They sent me to the south Pacific on the condition that I talk the king of Tonga into inviting me along on one of his bike rides.
I remember going to see the first Gremlins movie and preparing to watch between my fingers if the monsters were scary. After I got hired to write Gremlins 2 I asked Joe Dante, “How is it done?” “Puppets,” Joe said.
I remember Joe directing me for my big anxiety scene in Matinee by saying, “We’re losing the light and the crew already doesn’t like you. Don’t fuck this up.” Effective.
I remember going around in my later movie years saying, “What I really want to do is indirect,” meaning novels. I remember finding out that the novel is to the nervous breakdown what the controlled burn is to the forest fire. (So far so good.)
I remember a long string of editors and directors being patient with my slow learning. I remember a friend of mine saying, “You make a living sitting down indoors with jazz records playing. What do you have to complain about?” I remember thinking, “Not much.”