How a Move Between New York and California Made Me Miss the Academy Awards

Call it an embarrassing moment, sheer stupidity, or even a case of bi-coastal spaciness. Well, you decide what to call it after you read my story, which all started when I decided to switch coasts in late 1979. Since I have been back in New York, since 1983, you can say my move from New York to Los Angeles didn't really work out. I'm glad I got it out of my system, and four years of never needing a winter coat, was a great experience. But I could never quite make the cultural shift. After three years of West Coast living, my elation at the opening of a shop called "New York Pizza" in Westwood, signaled to me that maybe I was still homesick for the Big Apple. Add to that my disgust when my Los Angeles friends were repulsed by picking up pizza wedges with their hands ["no fork and knife? that's groaty!"], and I was sure I was a fish out of water. By the way, they all called me the next morning to tell me they were sick from the pizza, and to make me promise never to take them there ever again. But long before I took a weekend ski trip to Big Bear with 14 Angelenos [male and female], who made me drive one of the cars back because they freaked out from the prospect of driving in the snow, and long before I figured out that my best friends were other transplanted New Yorkers, I was excited about my move to sunny California. I was luckier than most people who dream of moving from the East Coast to the West Coast. I didn't leave New York with nothing but a resume and head shots. I worked for Aeromexico Airlines at JFK Airport, and I transferred with my company, and with two other co-workers whom I knew pretty well. I had cousins who put me up until I found my own place. So I had a job and a place to stay. I had been in the Los Angeles area that past summer with my sister on a week-long vacation and stayed with the same relatives who were lodging me this time. So, aside from having to deal with pineapple on pizza, which was eaten with a knife and fork, substandard bagels, and a city where the police stopped me on aimless strolls to ask me if I was okay, I thought I was fairly acclimated to California life. I never thought that the one thing that would get me in more trouble than my East Coast dialect, was something I was familiar with since childhood. Every American child learns by second or third grade about the four time zones of the contiguous 48 states. We know that long after New Yorkers are well seated at their jobs, people in California are just waking up. I knew that, as I ate my lunch in the school cafeteria, my cousins in Los Angeles were just leaving for school. So who can explain my obvious brain-fart on April 14, 1980, the date of the 52nd Academy Awards? I had seen "Kramer vs. Kramer", "Apocalypse Now", "Norma Rae", and "All That Jazz". I had made my predictions and knew which candidates I was rooting for. And it would be my first Oscar presentation I would watch in Los Angeles - not that it made any difference because I was still watching it on television just as I did in New York. And I would celebrate afterwards with my movie-fanatic mom who was back in New York and who was anxious to hear my report of the mood around the city where the movies were made. Back then, the Academy Awards took place on Monday; they have since been switched to Sunday. I came out of work at Los Angeles Airport at 4:00 pm, and drove to my apartment in Hermosa Beach. But first I took a detour to pass through Hollywood via the neighborhood of 20th Century Fox Studios. The city was like a ghost town. Nobody was on the streets. t was as if the whole town was getting dressed and preparing to go to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. I knew that couldn't be true, so I wondered where everyone was, several hours before the show would start. I decided to take advantage of the emptiness to buy the snacks I would watch during the show. Then I took a ride down by the beach. The emptiness there didn't surprise me, because only a transplanted New Yorker thought April was warm enough to stroll the beach. I finally reached my apartment at about 8:00pm, expecting to be early for the big awards. I saw Johnny Carson on the TV screen, and decided to cook some dinner while the minor awards were announced. Suddenly about 15 minutes later, the phone rang. "Mom!", I yelled into the phone, "Don't say anything! The show just started here!". I heard nothing, and then loud laughing."How long have you been watching?", my mom asked"I just turned it on", I replied.More loud laughing on the line, then "Have you lost your mind?""No, Mom, I have not lost my mind! why?""Because you tuned in at the end. They will be announcing Best Director and Best Film soon""No mom, d-u-u-h? We are 3 hours behind you. The show is just starting here. Therefore, shut your mouth and don't ruin it for me!"Even louder laughing, then "D-u-u-u-h? The Academy Awards are live?? It starts the same time everywhere. Therefore, if it starts at 8 here, it starts at 5 there"By the time I wrapped my head around the fact that I missed the whole thing and that my mom was right [she was rarely wrong], it all started to make sense -- the reports of some of my friends in office jobs that they were getting out of work early, especially Sherrie Newman who was going to the Oscars through her company, and wasn't going to work that day at all. And the deserted streets at 6pm, deserted because everyone was home watching the Oscars! "Oh, my God!", I yelled.So my mom got a good laugh, I banged my head against the wall 50 times, just like my mom told me to do, when I complained I was bored. She would say "You're bored? Go bang your head against the wall 50 times", which I never thought was funny. But she sure had a good laugh on me, which was rare. And I never forgot that the Academy Awards started in California three hours earlier, something that felt as wrong as celebrating New Year's Eve in the hot-tub or at the beach. Four years later, I would be back in my element, hoping for a white Christmas and going to bed late after the Academy Awards.