Monthly Archive for April, 2008

I (don’t) meet James Ellroy

Published
by
Pseudo
on April 14, 2008
in Books
. 0 Comments

A week after my encounter with Joseph Wambaugh, last Saturday to be precise, I was walking to the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood to catch a couple of flicks at the film noir festival they hold every year.

As I waited to cross the street, a tall, bald, lanky man with spectacles shambled toward me. Sure enough, it was the famed writer James Ellroy.

What’s the connection to Wambaugh? Ellroy states in his foreword to The Onion Field that Wambaugh’s books were a tremendous influence on him, and inspired him to finally straighten out his life and become a writer himself. In addition, Ellroy coaxed Wambaugh out of retirement a few years ago, which led Wambaugh to produce two new books after lying fallow for almost a decade.

I wasn’t really that surprised to see him, as he sometimes introduces the movies at the festival, but there he was… right next to me… waiting for the light to change so we could cross the street.

I got the same eerie feeling I did when I met Wambaugh, only more so because there wasn’t a desk between us and a line of fans standing behind me. Standing next to me was a man whose work I admire, a man who has written sixteen novels, some of them masterpieces. Hokey as it sounds, I was in the presence of greatness.

But I chickened out. I didn’t want to bother him in a public setting. So the light changed, we crossed the street, and as I got in line to buy my ticket, he walked right through the door into the theatre.

Oh well…

I meet Joseph Wambaugh

Published
by
Pseudo
on April 10, 2008
in Books
. 0 Comments

Two weeks ago, yours truly attended a signing by one of his favorite authors - Joseph Wambaugh.

Wambaugh was born in 1937. He joined the Marines at eighteen, then joined the L.A.P.D. and rose to the rank of detective sergeant, eventually serving fourteen years in the Hollywood division.

His first two novels, The Blue Knight and The New Centurions, portrayed cops in a way rarely (if ever) depicted before. They were sympathetic, ordinary people on the edge, slowly being disillusioned, jaded, and sometimes destroyed by the ugly side of human nature they saw on the streets.

His episodic writing style, interwoven with larger story arcs, mixing humor and pathos, was an inspiration for one of my favorite TV shows of all time - Hill Street Blues.

Then he wrote one of the best true crime novels of all time - The Onion Field. In fact, I would credit him with truly defining the genre (as opposed to Truman Capote). It’s a brutal, heartbreaking masterpiece.

After many more novels, both fiction and non-fiction, Wambaugh disappeared from the scene about ten years ago.

At the behest of James Ellroy, who credits Wambaugh as an influence on his own work, Wambaugh recently returned to L.A.P.D. crime fiction and wrote Hollywood Station, which has now spawned a sequel of sorts - Hollywood Crows.

At the signing, Mr. Wambaugh spoke for half an hour, told a few amusing anecdotes about his time on the force, then signed autographs.

I gave him a copy of The Onion Field to sign, and told him my name. He looked me over and said, “You must be Armenian.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I appreciate the fact that you had an Armenian villain in your last novel. It’s about time someone let us be the bad guys.”

He smiled, then said, “Well, you know the situation in Hollywood, of course,” referring to the Armenian gangs and criminals that exist there.

“Yeah, unfortunately you weren’t making it up.” Then he gave me my book, I thanked him and left.

After my buddy Paul got his autograph, he made an amusing observation: “You do realize that Joseph Wambaugh used his detective skills on you. He deduced that you’re Armenian.”

All in all, an excellent evening.