Silver Screen Fiend

1. Film Addiction: A Devouring Obsession

Film is a disease, when it infects your bloodstream, it takes over as the number one hormone . . . it plays Iago to your psyche.

A unique vice. The author describes his film obsession not as a typical addiction like drinking or drugs, which led to relatively harmless activities for him, but as a consuming disease that took over his life. Unlike other vices, his film addiction lacked interesting stories initially but became the central, all-encompassing narrative.

More film is the antidote. Quoting Frank Capra, the author embraces the idea that the only cure for film is more film. This fuels his relentless pursuit of watching movies, believing that total immersion is the path to understanding and eventually creating film.

An unbearable slouch. Despite exploring various vices, the author felt he lacked interesting stories connected to them. His film addiction, however, promised to be either the most interesting or most boring addiction memoir, driven by a desperate attempt to make it funny despite its potentially harrowing nature.

2. Night Cafés: Rooms of Transformation

But the concept of the Night Café—the room you enter, and then leave having been forever changed—is an abiding, repeated event in my life.

Defining transformative spaces. The author borrows the concept of the "Night Café" from Van Gogh's painting, representing places or experiences that fundamentally alter one's perception and path. These are not necessarily pleasant spaces but are crucial turning points.

Six life-altering rooms. The author identifies six such "Night Cafés" in his life, each tied to his creative journey:

• Tustin Library (age 5): Seeing Nosferatu and wanting to be on the other side of the screen.
• Garvin's Comedy Club (age 19): Discovering stand-up as a vocation.
• Holy City Zoo (age 23): Realizing comedy could be an art form.
• The New Beverly Cinema (age 26): Committing to film as training for directing.
• The Largo (age 27): Experiencing the fusion of art and commerce in comedy.
• A hospital delivery room (age 40): Becoming a father.

Forever changed. Each entry into a Night Café marked a point of no return, fundamentally reshaping his creative ambitions, his understanding of his chosen fields, and his relationship with the world, even if the transformation wasn't always immediately apparent or positive.

3. Comedy's Parallel Journey: Vocation to Art to Commerce

I went in wanting to be a comedian. I left wanting to be an artist.

Garvin's: The Vocation. His first Night Café in comedy, Garvin's, taught him the basic mechanics: show up, get better, get work. It was about the end result – getting laughs, getting booked, making money. This phase was about becoming competent and bookable, even if it meant being disposable.

Holy City Zoo: The Art. San Francisco's Holy City Zoo represented a shift to art for art's sake. It was a place for innovation, risk-taking, and honing craft in front of discerning peers. This environment forced him to shed his safe, road-tested material and expose his raw psyche, prioritizing artistic growth over immediate success.

The Largo: Art and Commerce Fuse. The Largo became the miraculous convergence point where artistic risk and commercial opportunity met. It was a place where a single set could change a career, attracting both dedicated fans and industry professionals, creating a unique, intoxicating, and ultimately dangerous environment.

4. The New Beverly: Temple of Celluloid

The movie screen—that’s our volcanic vent.

Home base for the fiend. The New Beverly Cinema became the central location for the author's film addiction. It was a classic repertory theater offering double features of old films, providing a consistent source of cinematic immersion.

Feeding the addiction. The theater, with its single screen and clattering projector, served as a "volcanic vent" for the "deep-sea fishes" – the movie freaks and sprocket fiends who fed off the glow of the screen. It was a place to steal time and escape the outside world.

A $5 film school. The New Beverly offered an affordable and immersive education in film history. Watching movies on a screen, surrounded by other dedicated viewers, was seen as essential "training" for his aspiration to become a great filmmaker, superior to watching films at home.

5. Ritual and Superstition: Checking Off the Addiction

Movies checked off in books. That was to become my ritual.

Magical assistance. After his first visit to the New Beverly, the author began noting the date and location of each film screening in his five movie reference books. This practice evolved into a superstitious ritual, believing that checking off titles was magically assisting his career as a comedian and filmmaker.

A jealous, sentient spellbook. This ritual became an obsessive compulsion. He would go to extreme lengths, risking relationships and personal safety, to see films listed in his books and check them off, feeling that missing a film or a moment would invalidate the ritual and hinder his progress.

Five Movie Books:

• The Film Noir Encyclopedia
• Danny Peary’s Cult Movies (all 3 volumes)
• Michael Weldon’s Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film

Devouring and checking. The act of watching and documenting became intertwined, a physical manifestation of his attempt to absorb cinematic knowledge and somehow translate it into creative success, even if the films themselves were forgettable.

6. The Creative "Hang": Community and Competition

I will not trust a comedian who doesn’t hang out with other comedians.

The source of the jokes. The author emphasizes the importance of the "Hang" – the time spent with fellow creatives before and after performing or working. This informal interaction is where ideas are formed, refined, and tested, providing a vital source of energy and competition.

Different "Hangs". He experienced different versions of the "Hang" in various creative environments:

• Garvin's: A vocational hang focused on getting work.
• Holy City Zoo: An artistic hang focused on pushing creative boundaries.
• Largo: A high-stakes hang fueled by ambition and the promise of fame.
• Movie sets: A more relaxed hang focused on passing time and shared experience.

Saved and doomed. Picking up the frequency of the creative "Hang" felt like being saved, finding a tribe that understood the unique pressures and rewards of their craft. However, it also felt like being doomed, as the competition and shared ambition could lead to jealousy, resentment, and self-sabotage.

7. Art vs. Commerce: The Constant Struggle

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once.

The core conflict. The author grapples with the tension between pursuing artistic purity and achieving commercial success. His journey takes him from the vocational focus of early stand-up to the artistic exploration of the Holy City Zoo, and then to the Largo, where art and commerce briefly and dangerously fused.

MADtv as compromise. His staff writing job at MADtv represented a commercial opportunity, providing financial stability but often requiring him to compromise his artistic sensibilities. He struggled to inject innovation into the show's format, feeling constrained by network demands.

Largo's double edge. While the Largo offered the potential for both artistic expression and career advancement, it also created a hothouse environment where the pursuit of success could lead to unhealthy competition and a disconnect from the realities of performing outside that specific venue.

8. First Steps in Filmmaking: The Actor's Drudgery

I was happy. For better or worse, I’d made my first step to the other side of the screen.

A bit part. The author's first foray into filmmaking was not as a director, but as a background actor with one line in the movie Down Periscope. This experience provided a firsthand look at the slow, repetitive, and often mundane process of shooting a film.

Learning by observing. Despite the small role, he used the time on set as an opportunity to observe the mechanics of filmmaking – the multiple takes, different angles, and the collaborative effort required. He saw it as a way to learn the craft from the inside, even if he was just a "gray blur" in the background.

The Clint Howard moment. A key realization came while watching Apollo 13, specifically Clint Howard's brief, impactful line reading. This highlighted the power of small, perfectly executed moments in film, inspiring him to try and make his own single line memorable, even if it meant risking pulling focus.

9. The Cost of Obsession: Isolation and Loss

Such was my addiction, at that point. Cut off from the world. A ghost, but breathing and jacketed with flesh.

Sacrificing life for film. The author's intense film-watching habit led to isolation and neglect of other aspects of his life. He prioritized seeing movies over social events, sleep, healthy eating, and even relationships, becoming increasingly cut off from the real world he claimed he wanted to capture on film.

Ignoring human connection. During a Hammer film marathon, he reflects on meeting a one-armed schoolteacher named Dana. Despite Dana likely having a rich life story, the author was too consumed by the films to take a deeper interest in the actual human being sitting next to him, highlighting the isolating nature of his addiction.

Relationships suffer. His obsession directly contributed to the end of a six-year relationship. He chose to stay at a horror marathon rather than walk his girlfriend to her car late at night, demonstrating how his dedication to the ritualistic viewing trumped personal connection.

10. The Largo: Hothouse of Ambition

And when it did, we started to eat each other alive.

A career-changing venue. The Largo became a legendary venue where alternative comedy thrived and industry attention was high. It offered unprecedented opportunities for comedians to advance their careers, leading to TV shows, movie roles, and increased visibility.

Intense competition. The high stakes and potential rewards created a fiercely competitive environment among the comedians. Subtle forms of rivalry, jostling for spots, and resentment towards others' success became common, turning the creative community into a "seventh-grade-cafeteria-pecking-order."

Hothouse flowers. While the Largo nurtured unique talent, it also risked creating "hothouse flowers" – comedians who thrived in that specific, supportive environment but struggled in harsher, more mainstream venues. The author himself found his road gigs suffering as his Largo sets flourished.

11. Breaking the Chain: The End of the Addiction

Sherman Torgan and George Lucas pulled me off of the sprockets.

The Phantom Menace disappointment. The author's intense anticipation and subsequent profound disappointment with Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace served as a major catalyst in breaking his film addiction. The film's failure to live up to his expectations, despite his deep investment, highlighted the futility of his obsessive pursuit.

Sherman Torgan's question. On the four-year anniversary of his first visit to the New Beverly, Sherman Torgan's simple question, "Figured you’d be handing me a script to read by now," served as a sharp "kick," reminding the author that his film obsession hadn't translated into actual filmmaking output.

Realization and shift. The combination of disappointment in Phantom Menace and Sherman's question led to a realization: his detailed knowledge and passionate discussions about film were not contributing to the art form itself. He needed to shift from passive consumption to active creation, breaking his movie-a-night habit to focus on living and making.

12. Life as the Ultimate Film

Faces are scenes. People are films.

Beyond the screen. The author's journey leads him to understand that the most compelling stories and characters are found not just on the screen, but in everyday life. His addiction had isolated him from this rich source of inspiration.

Finding moments in the mundane. He learns to appreciate the "moments of substance and impact in the everyday," like a conversation in a Subway or observing people in a chess club. These real-life interactions and observations become more meaningful than the manufactured drama of many films.

The final Night Café. Becoming a father is presented as the ultimate, transformative Night Café. This experience grounds him in the real world, shifting his focus from the flickering screen to the immediate, profound reality of raising a human being, marking the true end of his all-consuming film addiction.

Last updated: June 1, 2025