Here’s a better question: If Kenneth Gladney — a black American who was beaten when he went to protest ObamaCare — had been there instead to support President Obama and had been beaten up and called a nigger by Anti-Obama town hall protesters… [click image below to play video]

…Well, does anyone doubt he would have been as famous as Rodney King? Why is Kenneth Gladney ignored? And why did a black patriot who showed up in opposition to ObamaCare with an AR-15 have his face and hands edited out of the video that MSNBC used to create the belief that wild white mobs, enraged at the very idea of a black man in the White House, were waiting outside to lynch the “President of Color?” 

The example of these two black patriots flies dead in the face of The Narrative. Well, what is “the Narrative?” 

Andrew Breitbart has been championing this idea for years – he covers it in Hollywood, Interrupted and every time I see that soldier of ours he’s out there again fearlessly hammering home the double standard the Left has used, time and again, to control the language and the official cultural storyline that he and I refer to as The Narrative. 

All I have done is look into the historical roots of Political Correctness, and tried to tie the work of The Frankfurt School into the present-day landscape. 

This is something you should know about. It really is important. 

And if you come out of this as shocked as I was when I first got a glimpse of The Institute for Social Research, then you really should follow up with this remarkable look at the history of the Frankfurt School and their effect on American life today: 

THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS 

Knowledge and information is our friend, not theirs! Ammo up!

“I don’t care what the tabloids and the Wall Street Journal say,” said a weeping Illinois. “I still love you, Cali!”

The 640-mile long funeral parade route was lined with flowers, candles, teddy bears, and IOUs from millions of mourners and debtors who made the somber journey to watch the passing of the state that had once ruled the box office and industrial charts. Among them were current chart-toppers who cited California as a key influence.

“If it wasn’t for California, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” said Arizona of Westside 3, the popular Sunbelt trio who recently benefited from the late state’s generous gift of fleeing taxpayers and businesses. As a tribute to their mentor, Arizona vowed the group would start spending money “like crack-addled hip hop stars.”

“California’s financial and musical legacy will never die,” said band mates Nevada and Oregon.

At the official funeral service at the LA Coliseum, a grief stricken Washington, who teamed with California on several hit software and wine projects, had to be physically restrained from climbing into the deceased’s gold plated casket.

Similar emotional outpourings were the rule of the day. Stories – apocryphal or not – of the late state’s bizarre self-destructive behavior and fondness for molesting children did little to dampen the flood of tributes from fans who preferred to remember California as America’s Sweetheart.

From a humble beginning as a water-poor remote Spanish mission outpost, California proved to be a precocious and talented child performer. It struck gold with ‘Sutter’s Mill’ in 1849, earning accolades and attracting millions of crusty bearded prospectors. Black gold soon followed with ‘Arizona.’ Unlike many child acts, California made a smooth transition to adolescence, scoring a major hit with ‘Agriculture’ in 1891.

Even a frightening bout with tremors did not stop the flow of hits. The 1915 megasmash ‘Hollywood’ broke all records, as did the wartime favorite ‘Aerospace.’ More recently, California topped the charts with ‘Tourism,’ ‘High Tech,’ and ‘Coastal Pretension.’

For a time it seemed as if the superstar could do no wrong, but behind the glittering facade of Disneyland Manor troubling signs of mental instability began to emerge. The state developed a well-publicized drug problem during filming of 1967’s ‘Summer of Love,’ and briefly dabbled in strange religious cults. Under the influence of spiritual guru Jerry Brown, it began wholesale experimentation in exotic spending programs, eventual resulting in a traumatic 1979 stay at the Prop 13 Rehab Center.

During the 80’s and 90’s California enjoyed a brief career renaissance with hits like ‘Olympics,’ ‘Real Estate’ and ‘Dot Com Boom,’ but personal problems plagued the reclusive star once again. During the recording of the ‘OJ’ and ‘Rodney King’ albums, friends and visitors expressed concern over its recurring tremors and penchant for self-mutilation.

“California used to be so happy and beautiful,” said a horrified Ohio. “I hardly recognize it any more.”

During that period, camp insiders say the increasingly psychotic state began driving away its long time professional management team and support crew. In its place, it assembled an entourage of con men and embezzlers, some of who stoked California’s increasingly bizarre environmental paranoia. It was seldom seen in public without a breathing mask to ward off imagined pollutants.

Worse, the hits began drying up; the huge 2001 flop ‘Dot Com Bust’ put a huge crimp into California’s once unlimited cash flow. Despite the setback, insiders say the superstar was unwilling to change its lavish lifestyle, and retreated once again into spending abuse. Personal expenses skyrocketed, propelled in part by California’s eight million adopted foster children. During the 90’s sensationalistic accounts of child abuse began surfacing. Eyewitnesses reported California cruising local neighborhoods in school buses, luring unsuspecting kid for sessions of ‘public education.’ By some estimates hundreds of thousands were left traumatized and severely brain damaged.

The charges were vigorously denied by California camp spokestate Vermont.

“California loves children,” said Vermont. “California loves children, because deep inside California is a also a child — full of innocent wonder, and the belief that any budget wish can come true as long as you just wish hard enough.”

True or not, the charges alienated many longtime fans, leaving California in an ever-worsening financial position. In 2003 the state rejected suggestions that it was facing bankruptcy, saying that “I can’t be out of money, I still have checks left.” Amid the maelstrom, though, it fired tour manager Grey Davis who many blamed for California’s financial woes. In his place, California hired Arnold Schwarzenegger to help engineer a career-saving comeback tour.

Under the management of the flamboyant Austrian body builder / therapist, California began a rapid descent that ultimately ended in death. Some faulted Schwarzenegger’s unconventional therapeutic methods and prescription spending pills, including state pension steroids that some say were powerful enough to kill a Scandinavian industrial power. Schwarzenegger denied culpability, saying that his spending pills “help build de upper financial torso and lats, and deese other sings and so on.”

Despite the last minute financial maneuvers analysts say the state died penniless, owing creditors as much as $100 billion. Amid the swirling recriminations between California camp factions, fans chose to mark it’s passing quietly. Longtime California fan club president Iowa said that despite being the constant butt of the Golden State’s insults and jokes, it will remember the late superstar fondly.

“Let’s not remember California as a bloated, rotting freakshow corpse hanging above a filthy public pension toilet,” it said. “Let’s remember the good times. Like my six-day bender at the ‘91 Rose Bowl.”

“California’s pain is finally over, and I like to think that the whole state is going to a better place,” Iowa added. “Just look at all those U-Hauls headed to Oklahoma.”

“Attack, always attack.”

My friend, the heroic Israeli tank commander, told me that in the first few days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, both fronts, The Sinai and The Golan, were so weakly defended that had the Egyptian or Syrian high command been strategically bolder, tactically smarter, and their soldiers braver, well, the Arab armies could have achieved massive breakthroughs, and Israel would have found herself facing genocide.

The torture of Reginald Denny

But small, actually tiny pockets, of brave, determined and very well trained Israeli troops, in some cases, just two or three tanks on the Golan, held their ground and attacked enemy forces sometimes a hundred times their strength.

Screenwriter Escapes DGA Building—Note the Irony

“We had no orders except to hold our ground and whenever possible to attack—always attack.”

All this whips through my mind as I aim our car—I’m already thinking of the Lexus as a tank, a Centurion—towards the exit of the parking garage. A knot of rioters are milling about at the exit. It’s hard to see clearly but, oh boy, it looks like a few of them are brandishing baseball bats.

I’m gonna make a wild guess and assume that they’re not Little League dads.

I haven’t turned on the car’s headlights. We’re still lurking in the shadows, not yet detected by the barbarians.

Good thing the car is fashionably black.

Karen says: “Maybe there’s another exit.”

“Nope.”

“How do you know?”

“DGA building. I’ve been here like a zillion times.”

“What are we going to do?”

We.

The Talmud teaches that when a husband or wife uses the collective we it means there is love in the relationship.

Is there a finer way to enter battle than with the woman I have been in love with since third grade?

Ariel, 11, says: “I have to pee.”

Offspring #2, seven-years old, doubles over with an uncontrollable fit of the giggles. She finds this absolutely hysterical.

“You’re going to have to hold it in for a while, Ariel, do you think you can do that?” Karen says.

“I guess.”

“Good boy.”

Karen and I exchange glances. Karen gives me a pale smile of encouragement.

Robert: “I just have to say it.”

Karen: “What?”

Robert: “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

Karen inclines her head, questioning.

Robert: “Bette Davis, All About Eve, 1950, written and directed by the great Joseph L. Mankiewicz.”

Karen sighs, tolerantly but with affection:

Karen: “Robert, Robert.”

In the back seat, the nervous giggles from Offspring #2 increase tenfold.

My Israeli buddy, the tank commander was fond of quoting Sun Tzu’s Art of War, and one of his favorite maxim’s was:

Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.

Okey-dokey.

I inch the car forward, gain speed, 4 mph, 7 mph…

Now: I switch on the headlights using—surprise, Hi-Beams!—drenching the criminals in white light. I lean on the horn and —

WHOOOOOOOOO!

— and the rioters are captured in powerful light—G-d bless those Japanese engineers. The shrieking horn is amplified by the concrete garage walls. As I bear down on them at what seems like Formula One speed the knuckleheads are blinded, frozen, and now they fall back like bowling pins and —

Steve McQueen in Bullitt; taught me everything I know.

— and we blow right past them, make a sharp left turn—we’re ordered by a street sign to turn right, but that would deliver us to the front of the DGA building and directly into the eye of the mob, and so, tires screeching—hey, just like Steve McQueen in Bullitt—we race away from the theater.

Heaving a great sigh, I realize that I have not taken a breath in, gee willikers, a long time.

I zoom down the block, pull over, and gulp oxygen.

“You okay?” Karen asks.

I nod.

But my heart is slamming in my chest like a Ginger Baker solo.

Hey, Los Angeles is Just Like Fatah Land—Only More Fashionable

Karen snaps on her little flashlight, studies the Thomas Guide. Using her index finger, she traces a route home.

“I think we should stick to the main streets, it’ll probably be safer.” Karen says.

“You navigate. I’ll pilot.”

“Let’s get moving.” Karen cautions.

“Check.”

Karen’s like: Huh?

I have seen way too many movies. Seriously.

Anyhoo:

As we cruise through the chaotic streets we spot fires burning all over the city. A canopy of red and orange spreads through the velvety darkness. It’s kind of beautiful, like a romantic J.M. W. Turner canvas.

Small businesses are deliberately torched.

Orange streaks of fire inscribe themselves against the velvety sky. It takes me a moment to recognize the distinctive signature of Molotov cocktails.

Los Angeles has turned into Fatah Land.

“Where’s the Fire Department?” Karen asks.

Looters help themselves to everything from television sets and stereos to diapers and liquor.

Every so often we hear the distinctive flat crack of gun fire.

Nowhere do we see any police.

Trying to avoid a massive traffic jam, I turn down a side-street, Karen leans forward, peers through the darkness, spots something and cries:

“No!”

Thirty yards separate us from a group of thugs who are chilling in the street. They watch us with flinty eyes. All wicked and street savvy, they shuffle in our direction.

They’re all: yo, yo, yo.

And I’m all: oy, oy, oy.

Call me crazy, but I have a sneaking suspicion they’re not looking to discuss the cinema of Oscar Micheaux.

“Let’s get out of here,” Karen says.

Who am I to disagree with the love of my life?

I shift into reverse. Back up a few feet, shift into drive, angling for a sharp U turn, but the thugs are coming up awfully fast in my rear-view mirror.

I’m pretty sure one of the locals is toting a Tec 9. Or maybe it’s just a chunk of lumber.

All I’ve got is a Swiss Army Knife.

Repeat after me, kids: Out-numbered, out-gunned.

Do not mess with Gloria Grahame.

“Robert…” says Karen through clenched teeth.

No time for a neat, Driver’s Ed. three-point turn.

I blast forward, hurtle right up on the sidewalk, and then, ca-runch! yet another bone rattling dive down the high curb, back into the street and:

Away.

We.

Go.

“Some move,” says Karen.

She touches my shoulder.

It’s Karen’s way of saying, “My hero.”

Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

Entry in Robert’s Official Screenwriting Notebook: write this extremely scary, axle-cracking maneuver into your next script—no matter what the subject matter.

“I really, really, really have to pee,” Ariel reminds us.

I hand him an empty Styrofoam coffee cup.

Twenty Minutes to Get Anywhere in Los Angeles—Except During, Ahem, Civil Unrest

It takes us over an hour to get home. Normally, this drive would take maybe twenty minutes.

But we have to circle round and double-back countless times in order to avoid choked arteries, major intersections where madness reigns—traffic lights are ignored—and then there are unknown side streets that cause Karen to observe:

“We’ll never get out of there alive.”

Listening to the radio we hear about the Rodney King verdict. So that’s the grievance du jour.

The Fire Department, we learn, is not being deployed because their men have come under intense gun fire.

We hear—and I have trouble believing this report—that the Los Angeles Police Department has been,”Pulled back for their own safety.”

Huh?

I thought that was part of the job description.

Dopey me.

Casa Avrech: I carry Offspring # 2 to her bed where she recites the Sh’ma and then promptly falls asleep. We tell Ariel how proud of him we are. He shrugs. No big deal. Five minutes later he’s fast asleep.

Karen, crisp and efficient, pins a bed sheet over the large picture window in the living room. We cannot be too careful. I search the house for a weapon, settle on an old ice ax from my mountain climbing days. It’s an elegant tool with wicked potential in hand to hand combat, but obviously useless against firearms or a hail of Molotov cocktails.

Abruptly, I feel a burning pain—a white hot spike—shooting through both my arms. Did I get hit by a stray bullet?

I examine my hands and gosh, my fingers are curled into claws; it takes me a moment to realize that gripping the steering wheel so hard and for so long is causing severe muscle cramps.

On the TV, Karen and I watch as Reginald Denny gets his brains bashed in; we gaze in horror and disbelief as the barbarians dance over his broken body. Tears in our eyes, we see, G-d bless them, pious citizens step in and halt this atrocity.

There’s video of Fidel Lopez, a Guatemalan immigrant. He, like Denny, is pulled from his truck and robbed. But theft is almost beside the point. The rioters slash torturers smash open his head then slice off an ear. The mob graffiti his chest, torso and genitals.

Take my word for it, graffiti is not an art form.

Between fifty and fifty-six citizens are murdered in the riots; two-thousand are seriously injured.

At last, the LAPD are deployed and approximately 10,000 arrests are made.

Estimates of between 800 million and a billion dollars of property damage have been reported. Approximately 3,600 fires were deliberately set, destroying 1,100 buildings.

Korean shopkeepers were specifically targeted by black rioters. But the Koreans owned guns and heroically defended their property and lives through force of arms.

It was a lesson that should have reverberated nationally, but some commentators labeled the Koreans, vigilantes. Just another case of the mainstream media getting it wrong.

Liberal totalitarians demand increased gun control, if not the outright banning of gun sales to citizens.

Second Amendment, what’s that?

And then, of course, the race hustlers, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Maxine Waters, the usual suspects—vulgar demagogues—parade across TV screens informing the citizens of Los Angeles that the riots were really “an uprising.”

Oh, really?

As in: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?

My Hollywood Gun

Gazing from our bedroom window, we watch orange flames lick at the darkness, pillars of black smoke climbing into the sky. We can actually smell the acrid odor of burning rubber.

“Look how close they are,” says Karen.

“Just past La Cienega. Maybe eight blocks away.”

Karen gives me a long penetrating gaze:

“What do we do if they come here?”

“After this is all over,” I vow, “I’m going to buy a pistol.”

Karen says: “How about a shotgun?”

Springfield .45. My Hollywood Gun.

If the Los Angeles riots taught us anything it’s that you’re a fool if you count on the authorities to protect you in times of civil chaos — in fact, at any time. In the end, only I can protect my family.

I’m never, ever going to allow myself to be outgunned by the bad guys. All the gun laws that are on the books—and there are thousands of them—just make it that much easier for the barbarians to amass weapons, and for law-abiding people like you and me to be at their mercy.

If you outlaw weapons, as so many squishy liberals yearn to do, well then, only the state and the outlaws will be armed. Which leaves ordinary citizens at the mercy of an all powerful government and a variety of merciless criminal sub cultures.

When Hitler and Stalin snatched power, one of their first moves was to outlaw private gun ownership. They understood that armed citizens are a mortal threat to totalitarian rule.

Imagine history if several million Jews owned firearms between 1938 and 1945.

Is the mind capable of such a leap of faith, or is it too painful?

One week after the riots I legally purchased a pistol: A 1911 Springfield .45. It’s the pistol I trained with in Israel. Yes, it’s heavy, and yes, the recoil kicks like a Rockette; but this is the weapon I know best, and I cordially invite any mugger, rioter, criminal, and gun-hating “progressive” to get on the wrong side of my Hollywood gun.

FADE TO BLACK

For this is

The End

To read Hollywood is Burning, Part I, please click here.

To read Hollywood is Burning, Part II, please click here.

Note: I’m frequently asked how I’m able to remember incidents in such detail, including dialogue, from so many years ago? It’s simple. I do not rely on my memory. I have been keeping a detailed diary for over 20 years. This post, as so many others, is based on my diaries. If there are gaps in my entries, I check with Karen. She was also keeping a diary, plus Karen has a phenomenal memory.

Copyright © Robert J. Avrech

I’m pretty sure the mob outside is dead serious about breaking in and getting down to some serious violence.

Not to mention liberating some pretty major karats. At the reception, I noticed huge diamonds whose glitter could induce seizures; watches: at least a dozen Cartier Tanks; I could not count the Rolex Oysters, and no doubt there’s enough loose cash to make your average L.A. rioter reasonably satisfied. This is, after all, an affluent Hollywood crowd.

Armed & Dangerous With a Swiss Army Knife—Just Kidding

I have to protect my family.

In my pocket, as always, a little Swiss Army Knife.

“I’ve never yet seen an eyeball who felt that the Swiss Army Knife was not a dangerous weapon.”

This charming and somewhat gruesome comment, advice really, was given to me by my Israeli buddy, a grizzled tank commander who, one drunken evening, cheerily listed for yours truly all the common, everyday objects that have lethal potential. My friend was a big fan of the ordinary Swiss Army Knife and its zillions of nifty attachments.

So: it is pitch black, rioters are gathering outside the DGA building, and to make matters even worse, women and children in the lobby are yelling, sobbing—every moist and yucky sound imaginable—in panic.

I feel like announcing:

“People, shrieking does not help. Really it doesn’t.”

But, why bother? It’s a mob mentality and there is no reasoning with such people. Unless maybe you’re Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Which I am not.

Anyhoo.

I’m busy formulating a plan, trying to figure out a way to escape this building before the rioters break in, before they figure out a way of crashing through one of the numerous doors.

Interpolation:

Karen does not scream or yell.

Unnaturally calm is the love of my life. Even as stones—where do the rioters get rocks?—thwack sharply against the front doors, Karen does not even flinch.

It’s almost eerie. Basically, everyone else is losing their collective minds, but Karen’s expression just builds into this magnificent wall of serene composure. Her posture goes taut, as if a steel rod is welded into her spine and molding her into an incredibly cute Marine.

Ten-chun!

I have this really weird urge to lift her sleeve and seek out the Semper Fi tattoo. And then there’s her lovely face. All the open and generous softness has receded and been replaced by a look of, well, the only way to describe her expression is —

Napoleon at Austerlitz

— have you ever seen those military paintings of 17th Century generals? You know those huge canvases where you get to see a full battle, say Austerlitz, or Waterloo, thousands of men are fighting, dying, blood and guts strewn about, rearing horses with eyes wide as saucers, but the general, the reason for the painting in the first place, well, he’s usually sitting on his white horse, on a hill, watching the battle, and his expression conveys, determination, resolve, bravery, a self-assurance that says to the viewer: Look, believe me, I know exactly what I’m doing.

Anyway, that’s what Karen looks like tonight.

End Interpolation:

“Karen,” I whisper, “I think we should get to the car and get out of here.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

I’ve been in love with Karen since third grade and have come to the realization that she’s one part Antigone and all Patton.

“Everybody, everybody! Attention, please! We cut the lights. We don’t want them to be able to see inside. Do you understand? We shut down the power. Not them.”

There is a collective buzz as a rent-a-cop repeats this vital announcement.

“What are we supposed to do now?” People shout.

“We’ve called the police,” comes the weak reply.

More nervous buzzing.

“Please, ladies and gentlemen, just wait for the police to arrive.”

I’m thinking: famous last words.

Offspring #2 is still in my arms, still glued to my hip, and though seven-years old, she has regressed and jammed her thumb in her mouth; she trembles mightily, as if freezing. I can actually hear her teeth chattering.

Karen and I edge our way to the staircase; we are not going to wait for the police. We are not going to sit here like victims.

We are going to make our way down to the parking garage, jump into the car, and drive home. We are going to take our fate in our own hands.

The cavalry, I’m pretty sure, and with all apologies to John Ford, is not coming to the rescue.

The Police Are Coming—But Not Really

“Where are you going?”

A rent-a-cop is posted at the staircase.

“To our car,” I tell him.

“That’s not a good idea, sir.”

“We think it is.”

“We’ve called the police.”

“Where are they?”

He says nothing.

“How long before they come?”

“Any minute.”

I gesture to the rioters doing their hostile little dances outside the DGA building:

“What happens when they start throwing Molotov cocktails?”

Rent-a-cop takes a deep breath.

“The police are coming,” he insists.

“Excuse me, we’re going to our car. You can’t stop us.”

The rent-a-cop has about 200 lbs.—all muscle—on yours truly and I’m terrified that he’s going to challenge me.

Thank G-d, he steps aside, murmurs something about not being responsible for our safety.

No kidding.

Poor guy. He’s trying to do his job, but he no longer knows what his job is.

Robert’s Rules for Driving Through a Riot

1. Do not stop for anyone or anything.

2. Not even to help someone. My first responsibility is to my family.

3. If rioters try to blockade the car, drive straight through.

4. If the car stalls, don’t leave the car.

5. Unless the car is on fire.

These rules flash through my mind in a split second.

The Fashionable and Magic Backpack

The stairwell is pitch black. Not good. In fact, it’s bad, very bad.

Suddenly, a golden beam of light slices through the velvety darkness.

“Look,” says Ariel, “Mommy has a flashlight.”

The children are delighted.

Me too.

Karen carries an extremely cool and very feminine leather backpack. It’s something of a joke in the family that the backpack is magic. Whatever you need, whenever you need it, it’s gonna be in the backpack.

Except for a pistol.

Sigh.

Cautiously, looking for signs of the rioters hiding in the garage, we make our way to the car. I’ve definitely seen too many movies. I almost declare: The coast is clear.

I snap Offspring #2 into her car seat. Ariel, 11, also sits in the back with his younger sister. He is pale with fear and confusion. I touch his arm and murmur: “Everything is going to be fine.”

Ariel gives a weak smile and nods his head.

Our children trust us to protect them.

The burden of parenthood has never felt more grave.

Starting up the engine, I realize that I am drenched in sweat, my shirt clings to my body.

Karen reaches into the glove compartment, pulls out the Thomas Guide to Los Angeles.

“We may have to find a different route home,” she says.

“Right.”

Using commencement-of-production bonus money from my last film, we bought a Lexus outfitted with a massive eight cylinder engine. It was a good move. The Lexus is a gas guzzler, but who cares. It’s our Centurion.

And as we cruise up the ramp, my breath catches in my throat for there are a dozen rioters milling about the exit.

Oh man, am I going to be able to put pedal to metal and plow through a bunch of real live human bodies?

My Israeli friend, the tank officer, had something like sixteen kills in a Sinai tank battle during the 1973, Yom Kippur War. When I complimented him on this huge kill ratio he waved it off and said:

“It’s no big deal killing an Egyptian tank. They have this habit of hunkering down and using their tanks as artillery platforms. All wrong. Picking them off was a bit too easy. Remember, always fight an offensive battle. Most people are cowards so if you keep coming at them, chances are they will retreat.”

Okey-dokey.

Louise Brooks, ready for a riot.

Next Week: Part III, Gauntlet. In which we manage to escape from the parking garage, only to discover that the route home is, um, a minefield.

To read Part I of Hollywood is Burning, please click here.

Note: I’m frequently asked how I’m able to remember incidents in such detail, including dialogue, from so many years ago? It’s simple. I do not rely on my memory. I have been keeping a detailed diary for over 20 years. This post, as so many others, is based on my diaries. If there are gaps in my entries, I check with Karen. She was also keeping a diary, plus Karen has a phenomenal memory.

Copyright © Robert J. Avrech

Karen and I lock every door in the house, shut tight the windows, we move through the house switching off all the lights.

 
L.A. Burns. Not a SFX scene from a movie.

Gazing from our bedroom window, we watch orange flames lick at the darkness, pillars of black smoke climbing into the sky. We can actually smell the acrid odor of burning rubber.

“Look how close they are,” says Karen.

“Just past La Cienega. Maybe eight blocks away.”

Karen gives me a long penetrating gaze:

“What do we do if they come here?”

My mind is racing away. The truth is, we are defenseless. Unless I get crazy inventive like Dustin Hoffman in Straw Dogs.

“After this is all over,” I vow, “I’m going to buy a pistol.”

Karen says: “How about a shotgun?”

Dissolve:

Two Hours Earlier:

The rioters are surging towards the front doors of the theater. They are shouting, but the glass doors are so thick we cannot hear what they’re screaming. But one look is all we need, faces are twisted into expressions of raw hatred. The mob looks intent on some serious violence. Though, I do glimpse a few kids laughing, milling about aimlessly and in apparent good cheer. Hey, maybe this is just a community street festival.

We’re at a screening for a new movie. It’s a Hollywood premiere and charity event for, get this, inner city youth.

I’m friends with the executive producer.

“Bring Karen and the kids,” the producer chirps on the phone,“it’s a kid-friendly movie, there’s gonna be a reception, and really Robert, it’s gonna be fab-u-lous.”

And so: because this producer is my friend and I want to support her movie, and because I’m a Hollywood screenwriter and personal relationships grease the wheels of the business, and because the producer is a player and admires my work, I schlep Karen, Ariel, eleven, and Offspring #2, seven-years-old, to the screening slash charity benefit in the DGA building on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

What could possibly go wrong at a swanky premiere?

Inner City Youth Are Outside—But Not For Long

It is a Wednesday evening, April 29, 1992. The Rodney King tape has been running like an eternal loop on every network 24/7.

The film, a real stinker, at long last, cuts to its final fade to black. Everyone is now mingling in the reception area. Guests congratulate the producer, director and stars, assuring them that the film is: ”Great, just great,” and “the best work you’ve ever done,” all the expected and acceptable lies we tell each other.

Suddenly a chill sweeps through the room.

Something is happening.

It’s happening outside.

I step towards the large plate glass doors of the theater. The security men, two burly rent-a-cops, deeply alarmed, start locking the row of doors.

Snap, click.

Snap, click.

Snap, CRACK!

Mesmerized, I stare as something hard bounces off the thick glass. There is a tiny white wound.

“Step back from the doors,” the security men call out in surprisingly firm voices.

I stay put. I want to see what’s happening.

“Please, step away from the doors,” they plead as more guests press forward trying to glimpse the fearful gathering outside.

I see it happening. A classic shot unwinding in slow motion: the mob swarms towards the DGA building, towards us: a thick wave of fury marching with a terrible velocity towards this cocoon of—there’s no way around this—Hollywood liberals.

Sheesh, talk about a target-rich environment.

It’s almost funny.

Here we are, inside, raising charity for inner city youth, and —

— and the inner city youth are outside trying to get in.

Not, mind you, to express their ever-lasting appreciation for our spectacular generosity. Nope, hard as it is to believe, but it looks as if the objects of our charity would like to lynch us.

Or maybe burn us to death.

Almost funny. But not quite.

Hey, This is Just Like the Movies, Only Not Really

Abruptly, we are plunged into darkness.

And as if on cue, a woman screams, just like in the movies.

Offspring #2 leaps into my arms.

Trembling like a frightened rabbit, she stutters:

“D-d-d-addy, what’s happening?”

Karen grips my arm:

“Robert?”

Ariel squeezes my hand, and asks:

“What happened to the lights?”

I’m thinking: Um, Do I really look like I have the answers?

A rent-a-cop calls out: “We turned off the lights so they can’t see inside. It’s a safety precaution.”

I sense panic spreading like a virus through the crowd.

During the 1973 Yom Kippur War I had a long and detailed conversation with an Israeli officer, an incredibly brave and highly decorated tank commander, who explained why Israel always beat the Arabs in war:

“We maneuver, we remain flexible, creative and liquid. The Arabs have a fatal tendency to fall back into a defensive posture. You cannot win a battle or a war when your position is static. We shoot and scoot. We keep moving, we probe the enemy’s flanks and then move in for the kill.”

Excellent advice.

We are trapped in the lobby and outside a mob of rioters are moving in, surrounding the building.

Time to go Israeli.

Next Week: Part II: The Get-a-Way. In which Los Angeles devolves into anarchy, and the police are revealed to be helpless, hopeless and useless.

Note: I’m frequently asked how I’m able to remember incidents in such detail, including dialogue, from so many years ago? It’s simple. I do not rely on my memory. I have been keeping a detailed diary for over 25-years. This post, as so many others, is based on my diaries. If there are gaps in my entries, I check with Karen. She was also keeping a diary, plus Karen has a phenomenal memory.

Copyright © Robert J. Avrech