Now, back to THE PITTSBURGH COMEBACK STORY. When we started the movie "My Tale of Two Cities", Pittsburgh itself had become the first major American city of the new millennium to declare itself "financially distressed" aka bankrupt and L.A. where we had come from was thriving. Now of course, the whole state of California is 40 billion in debt, and article after article is being written about how Pittsburgh has successfully reinvented itself for a new age. Of course, Pittsburgh is still a work-in-progress, and no one has yet to stick a "fork" in L.A. and call it done as it-- and the rest of California-- still have a great way of attracting the "dreamers" Teresa Heinz Kerry says in "My Tale of Two Cities" Pittsburgh needs to thrive. But it does seem, as Franco Harris has said as we have been out talking about the movie, that there is a new momentum, a new energy in Pittsburgh-- and he knows something about the power of momentum and the importance of a "moment."
CAN YOU GO HOME AGAIN? Then of course, there is the personal aspect of "My Tale of Two Cities"-- the idea of "Can you Go Home Again?" which is trickier than it may seem. For the film in some way is an exodus story where my wife Natalie and I stand in for many Pittsburgh expatriates who left the "homeland" and longed to come home. Only of course, Natalie is from Kansas City, and really loves L.A. and, while she has loved living in Pittsburgh when we first returned-- our life for once seemed balance-- with me having time to come home for dinner and spend time with our daughter-- she has some serious issues with Pittsburgh that I don't think are uncommon (her issues with me would take an entire other blog.) And while Natalie seemed to support the making of the movie in what some would say would be a crazy effort to try to help Pittsburgh, she had grown increasingly frustrated with some aspects of the city and this journey, and so for the past two years, I have been commuting back and forth between Pittsburgh and Studio City, where she and my daughter Campbell were living. Now, we are packing up the house in L.A, and once again coming back to Pittsburgh for what Natalie has called "Pittsburgh 2.0." And frankly, I have no idea what to expect.
Pittsburgh 1.0 A brief bit of background for those who care on Pittsburgh 1.0. When we first move back to Pittsburgh in the Fall of 2001, for what I thought would be a one year Hollywood sabbatical in , we had no idea it would lead to a guest appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show (as part of a program about people who had changed their lives as our story was in Po Bronson's "What Should I Do With My Life?") , much less turn into this movie, "My Tale of Two Cities", much less this movement to help create a thriving entertainment industry in Pittsburgh which is the mission of the non-profit, Steeltown Entertainment Project (www.steeltown.org)
The truth is we were living above the Sunset Strip in a house which I loved, I was the showrunner (the head writer/boss in TV parlance) of the fifth or sixth spin-off of 'Saved By The Bell' ( a cross between "Saved By The Bell" and "Baywatch" which may have in the end just have been too unholy), and I was hardly getting home in time to see my then infant/toddler daughter Campbell, and despite having a staff of a car guy, a hot tub guy, a gardener, a maid, a nanny (who looked like Britney Spears), it seemed like we were not happy. I had somehow gone off course from my dreams-- having first come out to Hollywood by the freak accident of having written a short story in college about a (Pittsburgh) girl who I had met while working as a bellhop at the St. Elmo Hotel in Chautauqua, New York, which had led to a freak scholarship to Hollywood from Duke where I was pre-med, pre-law, and pr
e-just about everything else. That short story,St. Elmo's Fire became a movie-- as some of you may know-- and then well, after that there were many development deals and over seven years working at NBC on shows from the Saved By The Bell, but basically by the year 2000, I was feeling a bit like Holden Caufield's older brother who had written one good short story and then sold out and drove around the Hollywood Hills in his Jaguar (okay, I had a BMW convertible.)
e-just about everything else. That short story,St. Elmo's Fire became a movie-- as some of you may know-- and then well, after that there were many development deals and over seven years working at NBC on shows from the Saved By The Bell, but basically by the year 2000, I was feeling a bit like Holden Caufield's older brother who had written one good short story and then sold out and drove around the Hollywood Hills in his Jaguar (okay, I had a BMW convertible.) Reverse Pioneers. As I mention in My Tale of Two Cities, my then not quite yet two year old daughter Campbell had taken to dancing naked on coffee tables, which as my wife had pointed out that if we remained living about the Sunset Strip, might become a profession. So when I got this out of the blue job offer to teach screenwriting for a year at the University of Pittsburgh, I jumped at the chance. Well, not exactly jumped. I was actually shocked that Natalie wanted to sell out house-- which we both loved-- and do this. But she pointed out that Campbell was young enough that we could do this, and that I did not seem happy-- and she-- well, she is always hard to figure-- and so, somehow, we put our furniture in storage, and so, like what I like to call "Reverse Pioneers", we strapped a u-haul to our Land Rover and drove backwards across the prairie to that town where the Three Rivers meet.
And that was when the funniest, most unexpected thing happened. We discovered we loved living in Pittsburgh. We at first rented a house in Squirrel Hill, just around the corner from where I had first lived when my mother married my step-father Richard Wechsler-- a rather short lived affair, but one in which my brother Tom and I had become like The Brady Bunch with Richard's kids for the two years where the marriage lasted. Anyway, if all this is sounding like I didn't have the most ideal childhood in Pittsburgh-- well, that is true-- I had never really thought I longed to go back there. I would come back and order Mineo's Pizza and visit my old high school Shady Side Academy, but I had no plan on returning.
But here we were-- just around the corner from the playground where I used to get my face white-washed as a kid-- this was before the scholarship to Shady Side-- where, as I like to joke-- I was beaten up by richer kids. But now here I was taking my daughter every day to the playground-- at this point, I could handle the bullies-- or at least afford lawyers to sue them if they tried anything. And quite frankly, we loved it.
There was this storefront right next to the house we had rented which had these puppets from "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" in the window-- the company must have been doing some work on the website or something-- and it turns out we were living literally in "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" just between the house where Fred had raised his own family and where he had taped his TV show for over thirty years. And of course, Campbell just loved talking to the puppets every day as we walked around the block kicking leaves. After over two decades in L.A., I had forgotten they even made Fall leaves. And I would take Campbell to fly a kite at Flagstaff hill, to Kennywood-- the great amusement park of Pittsburgh-- to the Carnegie History Museum where they still had those great stuffed birds-- real stuffed birds-- like a stuffed Penguin and even a stuff Dodo bird-- stuff that Californians would have freaked out about. Basically, I was getting to give Campbell the childhood I never had.
And then of course, came the time a couple weeks into our journey-- my first department meeting in the English department at the University of Pittsburgh-- when the chairman, Dave Bartholomae's secretary came in and informed us two planes had hit the World Trade Center. It made no sense. No one had a TV and some odd jokes were made as no one suspected anything that major. But by the time we started out of the meeting, you could feel something was going on as they were evacuating the building-- which just happened to the tallest building in Pittsburgh, the Cathedral of Learning-- the tallest education building in the US-- which Pittsburghers had made that way to show surrounding area factory workers how important education was-. But we were used to being in L.A. and being a "target" and when Natalie heard that there was a plane done in the Pittsburgh area-- I got a call that she was coming to pick me up...
We were already re-thinking our lives before 911, but when something like that happens, well...I ended up taking Campbell up to New York for the Macy's day parade that year, and we got a sense-- perhaps delusionally-- that perhaps life should have more purpose.
Greetings from Mister Rogers Neighborhood. I ended up writing a Christmas/Hanukkah letter that year which we mailed back to all our L.A. friends with a change of address which kind of began "You moved to Pittsburgh?" and in which I wrote about what it was like to be living back in what was the real life "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" where everyone said "hi" to you, and were no one had a development deal or spent their days writing in coffeeshops waiting for their agent to call, and where people actually seemed to care about who you were more than what you did... and well, anyway, I got an overwhelming response-- better than any script I had written. In fact, my agent's wife Carolyn-- who had worked in TV-- had said that she was really moved by it and it might make a good book or movie. I should have known I was on to something.... because after I had written the first draft early one morning, Natalie had read it and turned to Campbell and matter of factly said "this is why we love your Daddy." Frankly, it was one of the nicest moments I have ever had with Natalie. Maybe things were different.
And than of course, as this is becoming more a novel than I intended, to fast forward a bit, we were enjoying it so much in Pittsburgh that Natalie bought a house while I wasn't looking. Well, I was busy teaching. And then there was the moment in December of 2002 when I am on Walnut Street, having just taken Campbell to the place where I used to get pizza as a kid and she has lost the rubber mouse I had bought her at the Variety Shop-- where I used to get toys as a kid-- and she is crying and the snow is gently falling-- and we are looking for the mouse on the ground where she may have dropped it. And my cell phone rings-- and I know for moment-- my L.A. instincts-- tell me that I should pick up. But instead, I let the phone ring. And we find the mouse. And I put Campbell in her car seat. And she stops crying. And I check the cell phone. And it is a woman named Dana who says she is a producer from The Oprah Winfrey Show and she has read about our move back to Pittsburgh and she would like to talk with me as they are doing a story on people who change their lives. And in that moment, my life is changed.
You of course can see the irony. There are people every day all day who sit around L.A. fantasizing about that call. But here I have moved to Pittsburgh.... Yeah, even I cannot process it.
Being on Oprah. The process of ending up on Oprah is its own chapter. Do they have chapters in blogs? But basically, we are ice skating one Saturday night with various mascots of Pittsburgh-- the Frog from Froggy 98, the Eat N Park Smiley Cookie, the Pirates Parrot-- when I get a call from a producer from Oprah named Rachel that she would like to come see me tomorrow at 8 a.m. I say we usually like to sleep in a bit. Could we make it a bit later... She politely but firmly tells me that she has to fly out that day by 5 p.m. and she will be there at 8 a.m.
So 8 a.m. a knock on the door and there is Rachel-- just a few years older than my students-- accompanied by a camera guy and sound guy she has picked up locally. She scouts our house quickly, letting the camera crew set up as she asks me what a typical day for us is like while looking over our pictures. She asks if she can borrow the pictures, promising to return them. And she then starts ripping them out of the picture frames-- well, not actually ripping-- but she wants them all. She quickly decides we will film us playing--- I have been teaching Campbell magic tricks-- some things with changing color scarves and a coloring book whch loses its pictures and Rachel likes that. She wants to film us sledding together-- something we never did in L.A. And the shot of me on the porch of our house-- looking pensive-- like a writer. It is harder than it seems-- is that really how I spend my day? There is a bit of panic over the sitdown interview, filmed in front of our fireplace as my balding head apparently is blinding the camera. She runs to a CVS and gets some form of make-up to spare the American people that.
And as she talks to me about my journey back, I feel a swelling in my throat-- and without Oprah even being there-- I feel, well, tears well up, as I say "I'm happy. I can't believe happiness came and found me... in Pittsburgh."
Rachel wants to film me teaching a class. I point out, it is Sunday. Rachel wants to film us teaching a class. It is Oprah and so, I send out an email and we are soon in a classroom at the Catherdal of Learning filled with eager students. Well, we can't quite find a full classroom of students so apparently some of my students have recruited a homeless guy or two. As I pontificate to the fake class, it feels like I really am a professor. That for the first time in my life I have something to teach. Rachel says they have it. She and the camera crew disperse. It all can be a vague dream.
But then we get a call that we are to be flown to Chicago for Thursday's show. Dana. April. Rachel. They are all like Good Witches of the Mid-West, taking us for a brief time out of our normal lives and suddenly we are in Chicago. In a limosine-- Natalie, Campbell and me. The limo driver informs us that this is the same limo they use for the Jerry Springer Show. I ask if the guests are a bit different. He says the Springer guests are more rowdy-- at least on the way there. Quieter on the way back. I guess a bit hungover from realizing what they have done.
I am nervous-- a bit petrified about being on the show. In fourth grade, I had to be an angel in the school play-- and my mother commented on why my hands were cupped like I was waiting for a glass of water-- and that was enough to forever through off any budding thespian career--d despite the fact that she herself was an actress.
Oprah: "In Pittsburgh, even?" Anyway, as we enter the building pretty early on Thursday, there she is... Oprah herself in sweats and some mink fur looking thing-- looking quite focussed-- like you would want Oprah to look. They take Natalie and I into a room where, like the Wizard of Oz-- we are to be "beautified." I remember them spending a lot of time straightening Natalie's hair for the show. And me, well, I had left the Sippy Cup lid loose and managed to spill all over my khakis. Suddenly I have to remove my pants and instead of working on my hair, they are blow drying my pants.
Po Bronson sits for the first segment on the couch with Oprah. The audience screams and Oprah screams back "What Should I Do With My Life?" It is a question we have all asked ourselves..." Oh, she is good. I 'm excited to hear. And then I remember I am one of the guests. The first guy, Warren, is an attorney who gave up his practice to become a baker opening a store Cake Love. Oprah loves him and loves the cake. "Cake Love" she shouts and suddenly everyone in the audience is getting cake. The next guest is an orthopedic surgeon turned shoe designer, Taryn Rose. She makes fashion shoes which are good for your feet. She ends up giving out mink slippers to the entire audience. The crowd goes ballastic. And next up, Oprah announces, will be a screenwriter who gave up Hollywood to move back to Pittsburgh. Silence. At least I feel silence.
Well, be right back. So far, Oprah and I really haven't made eye contact. All the guests besides Po are sitting in the front seats. And I am wondering what will happen when we come back. Oprah looks at me. My heart thumps. She mouths "are you ready?" Then: "Carl Kurlander was on the right path when he set out to become a writer, but he was in the wrong place, writing in the wrong voice... Watch this. Carl's story..."
And then, sitting next to my straight-haired wife, in 3 minutes, or less, I see a taped piece of Campbell and I doing magic, the three of us sledding down a hill laughing, and myself in front of the fire crying about finding happiness...." The taped piece ends, and I am numb and Oprah is shaking her head and says, I swear, "In Pittsburgh, even?"
She guides me through this like, well, like only Oprah can. She talks about the key being to live an authentic life. "So you didn't feel authentic?" "In Hollywood? I don't know how that happened." I joke. And Oprah laughs. I confess to having had dreams of writing short stories about "my generation", but in the end, selling out and spending my time worrying about what can of car I was driving and eating at expensive fancy restaurants.... "You wouldn't know what that is like, Oprah?" I joke. A beat-- I worry I just made a fat joke to Oprah. She laughs. The audience laughs. She turns to Natalie-- "And Natalie, you are Carl's wife?" How has he changed? Natalie says how I used to do things for the approval of others, but now I do things more for myself. Who is this wonderfully supportive woman with straight hair? As my brother Tom will later say, it is a brilliant acting performance. Oprah nods in approval and says "terrific." validating our lives and them moves on to the cop who left a family tool fortune behind to serve community.
I am so fried after the experience that I get into the hot tub at the Omni hotel with my cell phone still in my pocket. Perhaps it is a good metaphor. We go to the American Girl store where we buy Campbell a doll which costs a good percentage of my teacher's salary. So much for living the simpler more authentic life. But, I have to say, overall The Oprah experience is pretty much one of the few in life which lives up to its billing. She was great, her producers were great. That is why she is Oprah.
Be careful of saying you are happy on Oprah. Well, I guess this blog has already gotten of course. But to end this first entry, with the hope of finding an end point I can come back to... Be careful of saying you are happy on Oprah. Because that same month we are on the show, my accountant then calls me to ask why the taxes on our new house in Pittsburgh is outrageously higher than our old house in LA which was worth many times over that. How can a city function like this, he wonders? And he is right... because by the end of the year, Pittsburgh will make headlines for being "financially distressed."
And to add to the misery, the winter seems like one of the coldest on record. And I notice no one in Pittsburgh seems quite as happy as they were when we first got there-- and I am told by my friend Lynn-- the girl I wrote "St. Elmo's Fire" about-- did I mention we live five blocks from her?-- Lynn informs me that the entire city of Pittsburgh is depressed because the Steelers are losing. And then something happens which takes the real wind out of the sails not just of Pittsburgh, but around the world. Fred Rogers, America's most favorite neighbor, passes away from cancer.
It is hard to even fathom that. Some things seem like they would be there forever. And Mister Rogers... well, he is one of them. But much of what follows is perhaps inspired by the desire of so many to see Mister Rogers' legacy continue... For as I will soon learn, Fred Rogers, as he believed in millions of children who only knew him from the television, also believed in Pittsburgh. As the slogan said when I was growing up, "Pittsburgh is someplace special." And now, the real-life "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" was about to re-invent itself.
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