Living On Air (16 page)

We had lived in that house for 18 years and didn’t make a penny when we sold it. A contractor bought it from us for the cost of the remaining mortgage. Eighteen years of property appreciation slid right down the hill with the dirt. We wanted to stay as close as possible to our friends, and ended up in Beverly Hills. I never imagined that one day I would make my home in the famous 90210 zip code. More than ten years of working in voice-over helped us qualify for that mortgage. Once again, we tightened our financial belts to swing the deal and in exchange we wound up in my dream home, a house that had a pool and a tennis court. At least once a month, the Loop Group came over for a full day of food, tennis, and swimming, a throwback to those days my mom and dad had their house full of family and friends on Sunday afternoons. No bocce or baseball this time. We played tennis and ping-pong, and went swimming. My buddy Russ called our place “the Cipriano Tennis and Aquatic Center.” After the misery of the landslide, the neighborhood we ended up in was an unintended treat, especially for me.

We loved living in Beverly Hills. What’s not to like? Since I am a little bit of a Hollywood history geek, it was a thrill for me to see the homes where famous television and movie stars once raised their kids and lived their lives. There is one street in particular, probably more than any other street in the world, where many legendary celebrities lived all at the same time. That street is Roxbury Drive. When we moved to Beverly Hills, we ended up right around the corner from that stretch of road, one block away. I walked our dog on that street nearly every day, past
the homes where so many talented and creative people once lived. Lucille Ball, Jimmy Stewart, one of my favorites Jack Benny, along with Peter Falk, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Jeanne Crain, Agnes Moorehead, the list goes on and on. Diane Keaton had just sold her home on Roxbury Drive to Madonna when we moved in around the corner onto Chevy Chase Drive. My buddy Sandy Grushow bought a house on Roxbury and raised his children there as well. Our house backed up to a beautiful estate owned by the late, great Rosemary Clooney. Hang on, we’re almost to the point of the story.

Two of the most extraordinary voice-over talents I have ever had the pleasure to know are brothers Miguel and Rafael Ferrer. Their parents were Rosemary Clooney and José Ferrer. If you don’t know who those two people are, you are missing out on Hollywood history. Do yourself a favor and Google them both, right now. [
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] Miguel’s sound is one of my all-time favorite voices, clear, pure, and deep. Rafael’s voice is just as beautiful, but different. His sound is rough, rugged, and gets down there in the dirt and gravel. We had been friends for a few years, when Ann and I moved to Beverly Hills, across the alley from their family home. I used to see them in the neighborhood and at work.

Their beloved mom, Rosemary, died in June 2002 and a couple of months later her family held a beautiful tribute concert in her honor at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Ann and I were pleased to be invited, to support our friends Miguel and Raffy. The tribute included performances by kd Lang, Rosemary’s daughter-in-law Debbie Boone, Merv Griffin, her nephew George Clooney, and so many others, including, yes, Tony Bennett. Ahhh, now you see where we’re going!

At one point during the night, I went to use the bathroom. At first I thought it was empty, but as I turned the corner for the urinal, there was Mister Bennett, stepping up as well.

“Beautiful memorial,” I said. Zip.

“It is,” he said. Zip. With a twinkle in his eye that said to me, yes, you’re taking a piss with Tony Bennett.

We both finished our business, washed up, then went back into the ballroom. End of story. Until one year later, at Royal Albert Hall. As we walked Tony Bennett to McEnroe’s locker room I couldn’t resist.

“Mister Bennett. It’s nice to see you, but actually, we’ve met before,” I said.

“Oh?”

“Yes,” I said. “You and I once shared a pee at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.”

Without missing a beat he said, “Really? Was it in the swimming pool?”

The stunned look on my face, and the smirk on Tony Bennett’s face nearly dropped John to the floor, laughing. I was being a wise-ass and I’m not sure how I expected him to react, but his timing and sense of humor were flawless. When we delivered Mister Bennett to McEnroe, Tony hoisted a thumb in my direction and told Mac, “I took a pee with this one!”

The joke was lost on McEnroe but John and I were left in tears, laughing our way out the door.

The following year we were back in London for the same event. All of the players were staying at a very nice hotel called The Carlton Towers, and John had gotten me a discounted rate as a family friend. The second night we were there, we had gone to dinner and then to the night matches and at the end of a long day John was tired. At 11 o’clock he went to bed and I went up
to the rooftop bar for a nightcap. Several of the players were there and they invited me to join in their conversation.

At about midnight, I headed down to my room on the fourth floor and slipped my card key into the lock. I had walked into my room, set my wallet on the bench by the door, when I sensed movement in the room. Someone was sleeping in my bed, and it wasn’t Goldilocks. I inched closer and saw there was most definitely a man in my bed. Under my covers. Well, actually he was half under my covers. He had one leg in and one leg out and he wasn’t wearing any pants. By the way, when I told this story to the folks in London, I learned that “not wearing any pants” meant he wasn’t wearing any underwear. My English friends corrected me. What I should have said is, “He wasn’t wearing any trousers.” Trousers, pants whatever, there was a guy in my bed at midnight and he stirred as I walked into the room. I did a double-take look at my key, as if I could tell if I was in the wrong room by checking a generic plastic card. That’s when he started to wake up.

“Whosh there?” he said, lifting his wet, drooling face off of my pillow.

“Who’s there??” I said. “Who the hell are you?”

“Huh, whatzamattah?” My new roommate tried to get up but he was way beyond three sheets to the wind, he was on his fourth or fifth sheet, and they were MY sheets, by the way.

Crap, I thought. What the hell do I do now?

“How did you get into my room and WHY are you in my room?” I asked, a little louder than I intended.

“Wait, hold on fella, yer in MY room!”

“I’m not in your room, look at the computer on the desk over there, that’s MY computer.”

He stumbled out of my bed and headed to the desk and slurred, “You wait! I’ll getta the bottom of thish.”

He picked up my phone on my desk and pressed “0.” The front desk answered and my roommate said, “Skoosh me, but ham I calling you from my room?”

He looked back at me through bleary eyes and said as he covered the mouthpiece of the phone, “She sez I’m in my room.”

“Gimme the phone,” I said. It was beginning to feel like a “Three Stooges” movie.

“Hello, this is Mr. Cipriano in room 424. I just walked into my room and found this strange man in my bed.”

“There is a man in your bed, sir??” the front desk person answered.

“Yes, can you send someone up here to help me sort this out?”

“Yes, right away Mr. Cipriano.” I think this is when the hotel’s “oh shit” alarm went off.

At this point my new roommate was beginning to come ’round to the fact that something wasn’t right. He had been pretty sure up to now that he was in his room and I was an uninvited guest, but now as his head cleared and he saw that everything in the room did not belong to him, he began to search his well-pickled memory to determine just how he ended up in someone else’s room.

That’s when I noticed that the connecting doors between our two rooms were opened. Mystery solved. Those pass-through doors must not have been locked and in his inebriated state, he probably stumbled into my room on his way to the loo. I also
found there was “evidence” he had used my loo, uh bathroom, as well and I didn’t even want to look at my toothbrush. I just tossed it into the trashcan. While I checked out the rest of the stuff, he stumbled through the door into to his own room, slid under his covers, probably hoping this was just a bad dream.

At that moment there was a knock on my door. I opened it to find two very big security guys outside. I recapped the story to them, told them the situation with the connecting doors, and while one went into the hallway to knock on my neighbor’s door, the other stayed with me. Now what? I said, “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to get in this bed after that strange dude slept there, with his face on my pillow and the rest of him under my covers. Can we please call housekeeping to send up new bed sheets and pillowcases?”

He called down only to find out that housekeeping was long gone. It ended up that my two big security guys went downstairs, got linens, and came up and made my bed themselves. I was extremely impressed and told them so. They even got the corners right.

Before going to sleep, I took a bungee cord that I had used on my luggage, wrapped it around the handle of the common door, then pulled it tight, securing it to my closet door. I thought there was no way I was going to risk letting that guy stumble back into my bed while I was in it, sleeping.

As I turned off the light that night, I wondered if I should make a fuss about this with the manager of the hotel. But since I was staying there as a friend of John’s, I decided to just leave it alone. I didn’t want to make waves.

The next morning, I was just about to head downstairs for
breakfast and buy a new toothbrush, when the phone rang. It was the hotel manager, apologizing profusely for last night’s embarrassing developments. Apparently the two big security guys had filed a report. I wonder how many times they laughed during the writing of such a ridiculous story. The manager asked to see me in person. Five minutes later, a very proper woman appeared at my door and introduced herself as the manager. She apologized again and asked me how she could make up for my unfortunate experience. I really didn’t think it was that bad after all, no harm, no foul, and I said it wasn’t necessary.

“Of course it is,” she said. “Please allow me to upgrade your room.”

Okay, twist my arm a little more. Yes, you may upgrade my room.

She asked me to follow her so she could show me a room that might be more to my liking. We walked into the elevator and she pressed the button for the penthouse floor. I think I may have giggled out loud, but maybe not. I’d like to think I was a little more composed than that.

As we got off the lift I noticed the floor was all just a little bit nicer. The carpet was thicker, the doors to each room were larger, it was even quieter. The paintings on the wall were of dukes and duchesses and damsels and whatever other word starts with “D.” It was all very British.

At the end of the hall, we paused at a double-door entrance, she pulled out a gold key, not a plastic card, and unlocked the door. She pushed open the doors, revealing a beautiful marble foyer that welcomed you into an expansive living room, which she called “the lounge.” To the right was a master bedroom that
was huge, and a closet that was bigger than my room downstairs. The bathroom was absolutely epic.

“Do you think this will make up for your unfortunate experience?” she asked.

“Uh, yep,” I think I said. Perhaps I was more eloquent, but I doubt it.

She handed me the key and said the butler would bring up my belongings within the hour.

“Butler?”

“Yes, every suite on this floor is butled.”

“Butled? Ohhh kayyy.”

She shook my hand and breezed out the double doors. I walked into the lounge with the gold key in my hand and the word “butled” buzzing round my head. I stepped up to the window to take in the most amazing view of the city, including the London Eye, that huge Ferris wheel on the banks of the River Thames.

My first thought was, “John is gonna crap when he sees this.” And I ran to the phone.

“You’re absolutely bloody kidding me?” he said as I welcomed him into my suite through the double doors.

“Bloody HELL,” he said, then turned to his left and blurted out, “A bloody LOUNGE?” Huh, how about that. I guess they really do call their living room a lounge over here. “They gave you all this because a bloke was in your bed in his bloody underwear?” John says “bloody” a lot.

“Yeah. Oh and I have a butler.”

John’s voice went up another octave, “A BLOODY BUTLER??”

“Yeah, all of us here on this floor are butled.”

When we got to the Albert Hall that day, John told everyone the story of “Dave and the bloke in his bed in his underwear.” We were sitting in the basement of the Royal Albert Hall with the sponsors of the event and some of the players, including McEnroe’s manager. They loved listening to John recount my day. Everyone laughed and they were quite impressed with my good fortune.

Mac’s manager said, “Shit, I think that’s bigger than McEnroe’s suite.” Later that day, between matches, he ran over to my room to have a look at it himself. “Shit, this IS bigger than Mac’s suite.” Then I called the butler to have him bring us some tea. I hate tea, but I didn’t know what else to ask him for.

I had that penthouse suite for the rest of my stay, which was another five days. John spent every free moment in my lounge watching the telly and munching on crisps and things.

He looked up at me and said, “You’ve hit the bloody jackpot, you have.”

And I had to agree. It sure did seem like I had hit the bloody jackpot. Not just in London, but back home too, with my family and friends. And it all came from a couple of random decisions and misfortunes. Moving to that house on the Loop, discovering new friends for life, enduring a landslide, picking up a tennis racket, finding a stranger in my bed, oh and taking a piss.

That’s when I realized I had found some balance in my life. I didn’t even know it had been missing. Up until now, almost every decision I made, from the time I was 14 years old, was all about work. It took me nearly 30 years to learn about what most people already know, how to take more time out for the simple pleasures in my life, just like my dad so many years ago. Most of it doesn’t have anything to do with my job. It’s all about my other life, the personal stuff, my friends, and family. My life as Dave Cipriano.