The End of Life on the Water, Getting Off 'The Boat'

There comes a time, when you live on a yacht in Marina del Rey, that you realize life is a very fragile thing.

I woke up one morning to the sounds of ropes creaking.

That deep and low-tone stretching of huge twined fibers that holds and links a large boat to the safety of the docks. When the water that a vessel floats upon rises and falls, the ropes are pulled upon and make a very secure noise. It is this creaking that sneaks into a person’s dreams. It is indescribable. This tugging and nestling aria defines a solemn oath of the sea somehow. All people who live on The Water know this. If you do not hear this all night through the darkness, then you are adrift. Out there in the blackness at the mercy of Calypso and her rage.

This morning the ties to land and the docks and security were firm. Then I heard someone shouting.

I wandered out of my cabin and down the hall past the bathroom and animal heads. Those dead eyes look upon you at all hours. Who was the first person to think it was cool to kill a beast and cut off it’s head and hang it on a wall. “Trophies are for savages”, I thought.

And, the fur of these once noble animals smelled bad.

Crossing the threshold into the kitchen I saw a bottle of vodka I had left out the night before. I made a drink and focused on the noise of men and women shouting outside. A door slammed and I spun to see the naked backside of my date running across the hall from my cabin into the bathroom. Another slam and then water running.

I sank my drink and looked up to the stairs that led to the main hatch. This is how we got out of this tub. Polished wooden stairs that rise to the deck and thus to sunlight and air and the magnificent view of the towering Marina Club Condos and all those sleek and expensive lives that I would never own myself unless I got really lucky in show-biz. My head didn’t hurt anymore. The booze hangover was suspended briefly, but the bad noise outside was beginning to sound serious. I moved up the wooden staircase and threw the hatch open.

Sunlight is bad when you have no sunglasses.

In my boxer shorts, with a new drink in a red plastic cup, and with my mirror shade narco-cop adornments, I climbed out of The Yacht. Oh, the sweet smell of The Marina. The wind and wine of nature. Scratching my belly and taking a deep slug of my intoxicant, I swiveled my unshaven puss to surmise what was wrong in the world. Several of my neighbors were on the dock and in a panic. One of our fellow traveler’s boats was about to sink.

Some people slip their boats in these luxurious accommodations full time with no intention of ever using them. They buy a very expensive speed boat for $500,000 and pay $1500 a month for a nice place to park it and are told by their accountants that it is a business write-off and then put it in the water and cover it in a nice canvass tarp and the never ever start it up. Believe it or not there is a hell of a lot of money in this neighborhood and a $300 battery for a $500,000 cigarette boat is just a drop in the pan to keep the thing running. Despite the vast resources, rich people on the docks are extremely lazy and unless they hire help to keep their tax write-offs working, the boats and speedboats and yachts fall into disrepair.

And this is what happened on this bright morning. A 20-foot Wellcraft with a huge engine had been placed on a floating dry dock – a device that raises a boat out of the water on pontoons so the boat does not sit in the water. This is to keep it dry and safe and away from the unrelenting forces of nature when the owner is out of town or just not paying attention. After all, this is a huge investment, like a kid’s college education, and it needs to be secure, even though it is not attended to.

One of the pontoons that were holding this expensive speedboat up had sprung a leak. And the entire device was listing. The entire contraption, along with the thousands of pounds of boat, was seconds from crashing over to starboard and taking out a classic Chris Craft. This old, nay vintage, Chris Craft was going to die! And everyone was out in their underwear trying to figure out who owned either of these vessels.

As I stood on the deck, scratching my bottom and drinking a highly ignitable concoction, the sounds of panic and impending doom mixed with the barking of seals and the creaking of ropes and the wind and the smell of the sea. Then the police boats showed up. Then more bad noise as threats and accusations were hurled against the peaceful morning.

I heard a small sound behind me and I saw my date peering up from the hatch. She was not robed, as is the custom in the Marina. A reach of my hand pulled her out of the belly of the boat and she stood behind me watching the chaos of the dawn – neighbors and authorities trying to save the gems of a decadent world. The old man who lived full time on a very small one-mast launch, a boat designed for retirees, came out and nodded to us. He was brown and leathery from a life in the sunshine and was commonly referred to as “The Raisin”. This man didn’t give a second look to the naked girl or the freak in his undies or the booze or the screaming throngs of panicked onlookers. He was used to this, sinking boats on the docks of luxury, the portents of doom in a world of expiring splendor.

“Well, we have to help the neighbors, whoever they are”.

So the Brown Raisin and myself climbed onto the docks to lend a hand to two invisible fellow travelers. My date never put on any clothes, she just watched from the end slip. As the ropes creaked and the seals barked and the gulls yauped in the air, there was no sense of change coming.

But in two weeks all our lives would change forever.

When tragedy comes in life, in never comes by itself. It comes with all its friends.

This is a paraphrase from Shakespeare. Troubles always come in Battalions, never Single-fold. Here is where is gets mean and ugly. Here is where I get off the Yacht.

The summer was full of fun and hiatus from the TV show and good weather and strange new friends and freaks with no sense of time or mortality. Freaks with more money than brains. Old school retirees who were watching their Garden Of Eden disappear under the crushing weight of children with lethal chemical habits, no respect for themselves or the “sanity” of reason. This was the “New America”, and it took no prisoners.

After we rescued those two boats from being destroyed on our dock, one from falling into the other, the owners were contacted and the filth really started to make itself apparent. The owner of the speedboat that was on a floating dry-dock was ticketed by the police and the Harbor Master. Then the owner of the adjacent boat that was close to being destroyed started yelling lawsuit. Mind you, neither of these people had ever been seen on the dock. But they were tenants and they were yelling at top voice to anyone who would listen.

The others on the docks were witnesses and were instantly remanded that none of us were supposed to be “living” full time in this area. These docks were only for weekend types. Any persons staying more than two days on their boast were in grievous violation on “The Rules”. These slips were originally designed for the upper crust that owned condos at The Marina Club.

Thus saying, we were all being watched by “The Powers That Be” and although we did not know it, we were already being handed out hats. 

I realized this one day when I forgot my key to the gates and asked an innocent looking man to let me in. He opened the gate and watched me run down the docks and get some belongings and run back up the gangplank and to my car. Turns out this guy was The Harbor Master. The next day there was a letter of eviction for my landlord. The honchos had proof that rooms were being rented.

This might not seem like a big deal, but the sight of mega yachts were increasing. And they needed space. The diner on the corner was suddenly closed. The media reported that new condos were financed and the whole area was under “New Development”.

That was it. Billionaires were upon us, jumping up and down with all eight legs. The shortsightedness of the locals, with their arguing and petty frivolous sarcasm, was not what was the real issue. Vast money had taken a good look and was throwing bowling ball sized wads of money against powerful people's skulls.

Then the weather changed.

Sunshine and blue skies turned to grey rain. Cold water and wind made everything uncomfortable. Then the bugs arrived. Suddenly my room had an influx of black beetles. I questioned my landlord and he, in a de-facto manner, informed me that this biblical plague happens every year at this time. No more sleep over dates with hot models. Girls do not like bugs, and any girl that does is not my type.

Then the smell of sewage.

On this yacht, the floorboards underfoot also covered the pipes from the shower. These would fill up with human hair and back up and then fester. So the rains came, following the eviction notices, then the beetles and then the sewage. My cool and hip existence was now ghetto. On top of that I was back to work on the fifth season of House at 20th Century Fox. Twenty-hour days in the trenches, then the reality of the docks.

My roommate would use all the hot water at night and refill the tanks, so at 5 a.m. when I got up to use the shower and toilet there was no way to flush the commode or use a hot wash. The electrical system was not designed for three adults and guests, so the breakers tripped every time a light was turned on.

Violence was in the air.

The last straw came when I wandered in to my cabin and found it soaking wet. I had taken a trip to visit my family in Texas and when I returned, during the rainy season someone had left the hatch over my bed open. My landlord admitted that he was doing work and forgot about it ... for two weeks.

All that I owned was covered in black mold. The only things that escaped were my two vintage guitars that I locked in the closet. My Gibson and my Fender were the only things I had slung over my back as I climbed out of that leaky tub at 2 a.m. in a rainstorm. Two days later I came and threw out all my clothes, along with books and scripts and trinkets. Everything went into the dumpster.

I found this floating home on Westside rentals and now, living out of my office with two sets of socks, undies and cammo shorts, I logged onto my computer and found a house in Venice.

My days in Marina del Rey on a glamorous twin mast sloop were over. I have never gone back. No more drinks with The Cool And Pretty People at The Ritz-Carlton. No more fist fights with old millionaires. No more “Kept Women” showing up at all hours with booze and drugs and promises of houses on cliffs on the French Riviera.

But I now had quiet and sleep and sanity.

This is not a story of loss or regret. As you all know, Venice is way weirder that MDR. I just stepped onto dry land for the first time in a year.

The mega yachts came in and the developers took what was good in the world I have shown you and turned it into something way more, but also less.

Not long ago I slept over on my friend Chloe’s boat in the more crowded, poorer area of The Marina. She handed me a drink and asked me to look just over there. My landlord was forced to move his old rusty tub to a new slip. There it was, the Pirate Ship. For a second I had a vision of swimming across the channel with a knife in my teeth and running up the side of that sloop and, naked, with my hair on fire, slaughtering all aboard.

But I was a landlubber now. No going back. Lo and Behold. I am just a writer with a lust. Yo Ho!

Part One: Anchored on a Yacht with Characters in Marina del Rey

Part Two: The Double-Edged Sword of Life on a Yacht

Part Three: Drunken Waitresses, Bad Weather and a Grudge Match Gone Wrong