#6: So…. Where were we? Oh yeah, the weed business

So…. Where were we? Oh yeah, the weed business, as Richard Pryor said, “got good to me” and I forgot that I started smuggling pot to raise enough money to make my documentary about the good ole’ boys who ‘outlawed” along the borders of this great country of ours. It all started because I needed money to finish the movie.

Last time we met here, I predicted that I would write about my time at “Club Fed” or as a guest of Uncle Sam at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary or FCI, Atlanta, Maximum Security. However, I realize that to jump to that part of the story without recounting my attempt to immortalize myself in the late 1970’s would be a disservice to the funny bones of my readers. If you liked what you’ve read so far, you’ll get a kick out of this.

I wrote last time about meeting Robert Sabbag after reading his first novel, Snowblind, while living in New York and running the smuggling organization I had started several years before. Bob and I became friends and he asked me, after my cover story of being a record producer wore a little thin, what I did for a living. I replied unabashedly that I was a marijuana smuggler and related to him the story of how I had crashed a large cargo plane in the Colombian badlands and escaped on foot and horseback to Venezuela. We decided to collaborate on a screenplay, SmokeScreen, and, several months of hard work later, Bob delivered a bound manuscript to me in New York.

In those days I had a few close friends in the entertainment business. One of the closest, literally, since he lived one floor above me at 254 E.68th, was Nathan Weiss, who the year before had been named the most powerful lawyer in the record business by Rolling Stone. Nat had been the legal representative for Brian Epstein and the Beatles, Apple Records, April-Blackwood Music, James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Bonnie Raitt, and Miles Davis, just to name a few. I still count Nat Weiss as one of my few, true friends. That is, someone who loves you through hard times as well as flush times. He has been a bastion of sound advice and a shoulder to cry on. When you go to Federal prison, your circle of friends narrows considerably. Nat never shut me out of his life and, to this day, we remain in contact.

I had been chatting to Nat about the movie project that Bob and I were embarked on and he mentioned that he had some friends at Columbia Pictures that might be interested in a screenplay centered around the true story of a weed smuggler. Columbia had just had a huge box office hit with “Midnight Express”, the true story of an American youth caught trying to smuggle hashish out of Turkey and the nightmare he experienced incarcerated in a Turkish prison. Made sense, right? Right!!!

I took the final draft of Bob’s screenplay to Nat and he, in turn, took it to his contacts at Columbia. A week or so later, Nat summoned me to his office and told me that, Columbia was very interested provided that the story was billed as “true” and named everyone by their real name, and adhered to the facts surrounding the organized criminal activities, the crash and the escape. It occurred to me that, out of courtesy, I should discuss this development with the other people involved whose names would have to come up.

One such discussion summed it up nicely. To get the full effect desired, use one hand to push your nose hard to one side and say, a la Rocky Balboa, “You wanna make a movie about us and use our real names? Sure, you can make it but only after you’re dead. Now when do you wanna start?” I have since come to appreciate the candor of that response, particularly after a couple of years in Hollywood, where you are more likely to hear what you want to hear first and only discover the bad news much later. Mr. G, I salute you. If only you ran the studio. If you ever beat the triple murder rap you went down for, give me a call. Your son in Brooklyn has my number.

(I don’t know if Mr. G can receive email (he’s locked up underground for life in Greenwood, Colorado at last reckoning, but I hope he gets this somehow).

As you can see, I’ve met rejection on some grounds that the average would-be producer has never trod. Anyway, as a man of my word, I had to pay Bob for the screenplay regardless and, it wasn’t until everyone, including me, had gone to prison that we decided to resurrect the project as a book. And it wasn’t until I met Donnie Bell in Santa Monica and he said, “I’ve always believed that SmokeScreen would make a great movie!” and then proceeded to make it happen that I felt I was working with a “straight shooter” like Mr. G, pardon the pun. Donnie’s first production, Little Treasure, starring Forest Whitaker is featured in the Variety article that you can read by going to the following link: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118016441.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

Next time, Club Fed, I promise. See you then.