I recall one particular personal Griffith Observatory true story of mine that stands out above the rest which occurred back in 1984 when the copper domes were being cleaned for the observatory's 50th anniversary celebration the next year. An elaborate scaffolding was erected for the cleaning of the tarnished copper domes which patine to a grungy green over time, and in fact that is the trademark color of the observatory domes for so many years. It is almost foreign to see it glisten with the fresh copper color, and which quickly turn dark brown. But alas, that scaffolding erected surrounding each of the three domes was like a giant jungle-gym invite for the mischievous inner child in playful souls like my friend Jacob and I. It is what Jacob and I fondly refer to now, as the Scaffold Adventure atop the domes of the Griffith Observatory.
The Griffith Observatory is more a public science museum than an observatory. It is perched on the southern slopes of Mt. Hollywood overlooking the Los Angeles basin. It is a beautiful place. But the close proximity of it's location to the wondrous city lights which would glisten at dusk would render any sort of research observation useless. The glow of the city lights themselves would wash out the darkness of night, making only the brightest stars visible. Whole constellations would vanish from the heavens. Great nebular clouds and star clusters would cease to exist to the people in the city bellow. The magical band of the Milky Way robbed of its power to grace the sky of its fluid light stretching from horizon to horizon. When dusk turns to dark—when darkness takes over Los Angeles, heaven is shunned and the people cease to look up in awe. One must then rely upon the inner resources in ourselves on the ground for guidance and inspiration.
Thus under these hidden precepts did I express to Jacob my whimsical idea to climb the elaborate scaffolding erected around the main central dome of the Griffith Observatory. The purpose of the scaffolds was to clean the oxidized copper domes to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the observatory, to make it look all shiny and new. But I had a different purpose in mind.
"Look at that intricate work of art," I would say to Jacob. "It's just magnificent." I was referring to the scaffolding around the observatory. This I often said whenever we drove by on the road at the bottom of Mt. Hollywood looking up at the observatory. On our second passing of the day driving in the opposite direction, I would comment, "One of these days, I'm going to climb to the top of that heavenly heap." The third time around, I again proclaimed my desperate desire. I said, "I'm climbing that wonder web of metal monstrosity." And on the fourth, with Jacob driven to madness, I looked up to the big white of the building set amongst the green sea of shrubbery of Mt. Hollywood and I declared my dream gone awry, "I'll be damned if I don't climb to the top of that pile of junk."
"Okay! Okay already. Jesus—you're driving me crazy!"
"What do you want to do tonight?" I asked Jacob.
"I don't know. What do you want to do?" he asked back.
"How about going to the record store instead? You want to go to the record store?"
"We always end up at the dumb record store, and you always end up buying a hundred dollars worth of stupid music."
"What stupid music? My music's not stupid."
"I know it's not stupid. That's not the point."
"Your music is stupid!"
"Okay, calm down. Your music is not stupid."
"But yours is."
"Okay. My music is stupid. Happy?" But he didn't say anything else. "Let's go take a hike or something. It just might do us both some good. I thought you love hiking. You love to climb Jacob."
"Okay. Let's do it."
This time, we took a different route and started below and trekked up the southern slope of Mt. Hollywood. But we didn't stop at the foot of the observatory. We just kept on climbing carried by the momentum of my obsession and of Jacob's love for climbing—a fierce combination to which no structure, mountain, or whim was safe from.
There was a security guard guarding the ten foot wooden wall surrounding the scaffolding area. We waited, watching the unusually clear smogless skies over the city lights which started to come out as dusk brightened the western horizon. We waited, watching the pregnant clouds in the distance give birth to thunderless lightning. We waited, feeling the cool breeze of the wind recoil for the power punch of the oncoming storm. We waited for the guard to leave or to somehow miraculously get distracted—but how? We waited, and right next to us, in furry patience, a raccoon waited along with us. We took another peek at the guard. He was munching on a bag of chips. Suddenly, to our amazement, the raccoon snatched the guard's bag of chips, and scampered into the bushes as the guard ran off after it cursing in Spanish I believe. This was our chance.
Jacob hopped the wall with such ease, being the expert climber that he was.
"Goddamn Monkey, that's what you are—Monkey Boy Jacob."
"Stop your yappin' and climb the wall already," he said. I on the other hand, was just that—I needed another hand. I needed a third hand—Jacob's hand to help me up. "What's the matter Joe, your big toe too heavy?"
He pulled me up and over the wall just as a car drove up the driveway, and I could have sworn the headlights were aimed right at me. We sat still behind the wall, feeling certain we were caught. We sat still in camouflaged silence fearful. We heard car doors open and close and other doors in the building open and close, then silence. Our anonymity was safe.
Looking up at the endless criss-crossing of metal girders and wooden planks made me dizzy. Jacob took hold of the scaffolding and tried to shake it to check it's stability, but it was rock solid. Instead his whole body shook. I urged him on and he gladly went first. It was ironic how I instigated the whole thing always nagging about climbing the scaffolds some day, and how in the heat of the actual moment, Jacob took over. I felt envious all of a sudden not being the one to reach the top first.
The climb itself was easy. There were enough girders and planks and criss-cross bracing at close proximity to one another unwarranting the out-stretching of our hands and feet. Then Jacob stopped just short of the top plank circling the dome. "You go ahead Big Toe," he said feigning exhaustion, but I was the one genuinely out of breath to say anything, so I just kept on climbing. I now know that he let me go up ahead because he knew I valued such seemingly trivial things. I often talked about what it would have been like to be the first man on the moon or in space, to be the first atop Mt. Everest, or to be the first to sail the seven seas, or to be the first to discover the rings of Saturn. All these firsts, I would recite to him in dreamy prose and awe. That is why Jacob let me go ahead of him. I would thank him later. What are good friends for, especially friends willing to sacrifice notoriety, even if it is just intimate notoriety amongst friends.
Once at the top, we collapsed from true exhaustion. I was beginning to wonder if we should have brought along oxygen tanks. We had brought Jacob's camera, but forgot the tripod. To take pictures of city lights at night warrants a tripod to keep the camera steady for long exposures. I did the best I could to keep the camera as stable as possible propped against the scaffolding itself and took a picture of the city lights with the intricate web of the metal scaffolds in the foreground. That was another picture I would frame and proudly exhibit in my own intimate museum.
We then walked around the wooden planks, around the dome, still awe inspired by the lightning, now silently rumbling with thunder but still near the horizon. We heard an orchestra down at the outdoor Greek Theater further down the hill. Its music was carried along—hitched a ride with the wind so to speak—up along the contours of the mountain, through the metal mesh of scaffolding, up to our ears. And as we stood our stance, two good friends, Big Toe Joe and Monkey Boy Jacob, high up above the whole city, with the wind flapping our loose clothing, I imagined the vision of ourselves outside of my own perspective. We were two men, a vision reminiscent of an ancient scene of two biblical-like figures about to perform a miracle—or who had just performed one.
I still have that blurry snapshot of the city lights with the scaffolding. It is perpetually framed in those cheap acrylic box frames, with dust and grime and a big crack across the front.
Jacob and I have had other out-of-the-ordinary adventures, one of which was illegally hopping the fence of the Hollywood Reservoir and finding a wooden raft near the banks - our version of a Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn shenanigans. Not many people know that there is a huge lake nestled in the Hollywood Hills - not even some locals. That maybe for the next post...
