Palisades Headlines

I have a circular and not so circular connection to Meghan Markle and it’s not through her mother, Doria, who I saw repeatedly at the nail salon in Raintree Plaza when Dad and I were forced to move to Culver City together, post fires. Before the fires swept through, I hadn’t lived with my father in 37 years and, to say that it was a seamless post-fire adjustment, would be an exaggeration. The dementia heightened by the displacement brought on by the flames was grueling for both of us. How can I help myself, I often mused? I used to take advantage of a couple of hours when I had Russell and John for eight hour shifts. They were Dad’s new nurses when they were with him and not their other client, Ben Stein, of a certain movie fame…His most memorable line by far? “Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?” (From the movie titled, well, I mean, come on, you know this one…) I would take a couple of hours out sometimes and walk over to the plaza for groceries, to get my hair colored, or to have my nails done. I used to travel by foot in The Palisades, so I thought I would challenge that muscle memory instead of leaning into how much I hated the rental or how uncomfortable I felt when my father was sundowning and invariably mistook me for my mother. The manner in which he would speak was intimate and directed to my mother’s memory. Those interactions made me so uncomfortable and so heartbroken for him simultaneously for how much he clearly loved and missed her. It was confusing and unsettling for me when the sun came up and he neither could recall what he said nor would he initiate a conversation of how lost we were without Mom, who cherished the Palisades life she was only allowed to enjoy on a full time basis for nineteen brief years. The rest of us are 41 years into our unique relationships with The Palisades. My family grew from romantic love. They are the kind of people who savor life through the impact of movies. My grandparents decided to marry when he was 7 and she was 5. My parents were an embarrassment to my teen self at how they looked at each other. Love is locked in the memories of their “reel” lives i.e. the ones they experienced on screen as my whole family loved movies. Their reality through film is not divided in acts, sequels, and ancillary markets that support superhero fare and Marvel movies. They all truly love cinema and that's how I was encouraged to become a screenwriter and how I knew a lot of famous people through my craft. I heard today Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are moving back to The UK and it reminded me of the class and sophistication of the late Queen Elizabeth when she explained them and their unforgettable Oprah interview by publicly stating that recollections may vary. “Recollections may vary” is a great phrase. But, that’s not my one degree of separation to Ms. Markle, either and obviously. Nor is it that she hosted the beautiful Courtney Adamo at a book store in Montecito. Courtney is the wife of one of my oldest and closest guy friends of my youth, Michael, when his last name was still Adams and not the Italian alternative. And I don’t know The Duchess of Sussex in a six degree of separation manner through her buddy, Kelly McKee Zajfen, who is also friends with my estranged cousin, Sara, in Malibu. So says my brother who considers Sara his sister much more than he does me. No, it’s a much closer connection and it’s not because Prince William’s sister in law was a movie star. She wasn’t, actually, she was lucky to land a television show and she did great there. A movie star is more like, oh I don’t know… Paul Walker? Paul Walker, who his friends referred to as Pablo when his foot wasn’t on the gas, was bonafide with the box office to match just like my former boss and writing partner, Ron Bass, who is a complete bad ass with three billion in box office receipts!!! The first time I saw Pablo, he was walking out of Marmalade in Malibu and held the door open for me. I was so struck that I forgot to walk through. I was trying to recall where else I knew him from as in the words of the sovereign, recollections may vary, and sadly he’s no longer here to fact check. I thought it was at Original Pictures or Films (I don’t know which) where I first met the producer, Brad Luff. What a lovely person he is, I was thinking as I was driving to Glendale the other day. Walker’s charity, ReachOut WorldWide, had sent an invitation for fire survivors and I thought I should make the trek. I thought about the past on the drive and my career as a writer. The last office I remember taking a meeting with Brad had a poster of three guys holding surfboards against the sunset. I wondered how he was and I was heartbroken in Googling to discover Brad perished prematurely from cancer less than a year ago. Gut punch, those guys were such a huge part of my professional life, I thought while driving. My new muscle (car) memory is the trek from the Palisades to Dad’s rehab (I can make that trek with my eyes closed and sometimes from exhaustion, I suspect I do). I considered the agony I feel every visit. I have to leave him behind. His medical practice was in Las Vegas, he lived four days of the week in The Palisades and my parents worked out a system my father designed. My mother was to always drop him off at arrivals on Monday morning, so he felt like he was always coming home to her before taking the elevator down in LAX to departures. Parting is such sweet sorrow… I had a lot of strategic thinking on the journey. I thought I might get a lot of very cool things to give my father’s caregivers while he is trapped in a rehab center where he is forced to room with strangers and to wear clothes on which I have to write his name. That’s why I accepted ReachOut Worldwide’s generous invitation and ROWW didn’t disappoint, much like Walker never could. I got a beautiful blanket that maybe will insure that my father will remember me when I am too tired to drive to him and maybe the spectacular donations I passed on will insure that the nurses show Dad the respect my brother and sister in law are not showing him. She hasn’t been to see my father and I suspect it’s because she knows she’s got the upper hand on my heart that the guilt of leaving him to their decisions is swallowing me slowly. My father keeps all of the identification tickets I get when signing in so he can count our time together when I am not there. But, back to my point. None of my digression highlights how I have a connection to The Duchess who is saying sayonara to Montecito in favor of London living. So how do I have any connection, which is completely plausible as she is a Southern California girl, albeit not from The Palisades? Well, it’s definitely not through Didi Hirsch where I would call my UCLA classmate, Kim Kowsky, for emotional support and help in 2012 when my life was at its lowest. Her mother did work there and that’s admirable of her to be of service to people in pain. Our connection, in the end, is through her husband because he wrote a book. Or at least, he said he did. Our connection is through SPARE, the controversial memoir that down to its cover I know can only be attributed to one man: my friend and former writing partner. Was 2012 when Walker died? I can’t begin to tell you how I couldn’t process that, 2014? I can’t tell you, dear reader, because as The Queen offered, recollections may vary and he clearly doesn’t have a right/write of response…He’s in the stars now and I am grateful for the legacy he left that I supported after his death as it supports me now in my post fires agony. Walker was a movie star, but my last screenwriting partner was arguably, in hindsight and middle age, the actual love of my life. I couldn’t see it when he was 11 and I was 8, catching a fly ball with a bare hand. In complete shock from the searing pain, I can still see him running over to me, telling me not to cry, to look him in the eye before he examined my hands as though he was as much a doctor as my father who brought the family to Las Vegas and then Pacific Palisades. I was afraid of and intimidated by him when he gave advice about not playing two sides against the middle in life when he was the assistant coach to my tennis coach when I was 13 to his 16. What the hell does that even mean and how do you have a BMW but you have to roll down the windows manually, I would jeer. Even then, he was so bright beyond his years and was a star in his own right/write. He was out of my orbit for years while we lived our lives separately until he offered me his passion project when I didn’t have a lifeline or a way to take care of myself anymore. He said he’d take care of me and also declared he was sending somebody to pick up the parked Jaguar I couldn’t afford to service. Authoritative as usual, he claimed he was sending a replacement. I responded, you are doing no such thing! I am your writing partner and how is that going to look to our friends if I am rolling around Las Vegas in a car you purchased? I think there is a word for women like that and that’s not me… We did write something really beautiful together, but it wasn’t right or write for a myriad of reasons that I won’t bore you with; the least of which was I didn’t know then I loved him as anything more than a brother until I realized that’s not what this was. This fun fact is particularly ironic in that he and my younger brother have the same birthday, only ten years apart, and he’s more family to me than the tragically estranged young Wharton-Ali will ever be. He hates me and that hurts, so I internalized and hurt everybody around me who actually loved me like this guy who used to nickname himself Hands…that too is not worth explaining. It was him who suggested the cover for Prince Harry’s book, which I know without confirmation from anybody because I have known him for 47 years and I know how he thinks. And also, it’s pretty obvious when you consider that it was the same ghost writer, same cover shot almost exactly as Andre Agassi’s Open. This guy takes up chapters in that tome. My former writing partner was responsible for that memoir as much as he was for the best last thing I wrote with a partner. Good news. My new producing partner, Angie, said one of the things she really wanted to do as a young person on the executive track was to meet Paul Walker. Even though he’s no longer here, she (as a volunteer) and all of the people displaced from The Palisades and Eaton fires can go to ReachOut Worldwide for help and to aid those in need. It’s hard to ask for help; I struggle and I often regret not helping my dad more. Or still writing with that force of nature in the high desert. It just was too complicated, but it didn’t mean then and it doesn’t mean today I don’t love and miss him acutely. Movies remind us who we are and in Walker’s case, how we shift gears without drifting. It’s all about impact in life. That’s what movies do when you watch them and aspire for what you see. Imagine the effects when you’re writing the script yourself to express life’s most important currency with a person who loves you like what you saw in and dreamed about from the movies…makes for some unforgettable moments… David Strickland 1969-1999 Damon Geller 1970 - 2018 Paul Walker 1973-2013 Brad Luff 1965 - 2025 The State of Grace 1971-2014 If you need assistance with kitchen, home items, clothing, etc, reach out to ROWW.org

Margaux Glaser is a powerhouse. Let’s just start with that. A cherished Pacific Palisades realtor, I loved Margaux from the first day we met, post fires. We were both volunteering to organize Pacific Palisades Women’s Club, which, unfortunately, turned 100 the same year as the dreadful fires. As a result, there was no space for celebrations for that milestone post decimation. The good news is the celebratory spirit was alive and well through membership as the building was still standing and completely intact. One fine day, Margaux and I rolled up our sleeves to carry some heavy, oddly shaped exercise equipment from the main hall into the storage space beneath the building to make space for the future. We became fast friends, mostly because of a theory I hold that everybody from or in The Palisades is one degree of separation from the other. The fires fast tracked real friendships and Margaux and I had mutual friends in common, but were never fortunate enough to hang out in happier times. We set the intention to correct that. When Margaux discovered I was working across the street on Monument in a space with which I wasn’t familiar, she invited my partners to her office to better understand their artistry and my role in rebuilding The Palisades ethically. She asked for images of their beautiful custom builds and said it was her objective to create posters with a QR code that led to me so that her clients would contact me directly, thereby ensuring my profit participation so there was no confusion. What an inspired idea I would never have even considered!! Margaux is both a girl’s girl and a successful businesswoman who goes above and beyond for her friends and business associates. And that’s where I learned of her endless generosity best expressed in a tote. Yes, I said a tote. The most beautiful tote bag I have ever been gifted, actually, and that’s not me being hyperbolic. That’s a testament to how heightened my senses are post fires when I experience true kindness. Post fires, we are all so overwhelmed by and laden with emotional baggage. Where to put it? Personally, I took pride through all of the pre fire upheaval in my adult life that I maintained a weathered set of Louis Vuitton luggage and if I had the ability to get back up the hill that would have been the first thing I grabbed, tearing the zippers open to stuff my computers, journals, scripts and notes within in the crisis. I wasn’t so fortunate, but that fantasy sometimes plays out in the quiet corners of my mind. A painted tote that depicts Pacific Palisades when we all would enjoy the gifts of everything from Sunday’s Farmer’s Market to the anticipatory feelings of Equinox’s opening to meeting up with friends for lunch at Cafe Vida, Margaux not only offered the totes for free, but was more than happy for me to advertise this gift on NextDoor. The response was overwhelming with Margaux sharing she received over one hundred phone calls to the post that, according to NexDoor, garnered 2000 views over a weekend. So unable to cope with the demand of delivery, Margaux was forced to ask those who were requesting the tote to come to the office as she also had a business to run. Incidentally, when I couldn’t get out of my head and out of my way creatively on a treatment for a television series for Cher’s consideration, Margaux told me to come up to her office and she ushered me into my own glass walled space to get my thoughts together and held my hand so I didn’t give into my insecurities that I couldn’t deliver. Margaux Glaser delivers EVERY SINGLE TIME SHE SHOWS UP. Thank you for giving the people of The Palisades a place to carry both their grief and their greens as August marks the return of The Farmer’s Market. I am quite confident I will see many of Margaux’s totes out for that. Progress, Palisades people, progress.