People I Meet on Planes

(And What This Has to Do With Making Movies)

I have, indisputably, the best airplane karma in the world. Adventures include drinking with Chuck Yeager¹, shocking 50 Cent², hanging with the guys who midnight-moved the Baltimore Colts³ and even raising capital for my films, all by just sitting on a plane. That passenger who actually chats away with the person next to her? That’s me! I promise I am delightful.

I also met my ex-husband on a flight, from Mexico City to NYC. Two years after that, we had a wedding. And two years after that, well, I don’t recommend a pandemic as a swell way to kick off a first year of a first marriage. Anyway, I got a movie out of it. OG* (*Right Side of History, Wrong Side of the Law). That’s right. I, fan of crosswalks, avowed teacher’s pet from the birthplace of Richard Nixon, am making a documentary (or, nonfiction feature, if you prefer) set in the shadow world of weed outlaws.

1. Aperitif: Production Notes

We locked all interviews in December, so I’m eyeballs-deep in reviewing. Maybe because the film starts in the 1970s, the flashbacks are hitting hard (no, no, I am not micro-dosing; Dry January means “Campari,” people!). Specifically, this moment with 2nd Gen OG Blu Graham, talking about growing up on a commune:

It wasn’t a regular childhood. We lived in a teepee in the summers. Hippies sliding down grassy hills on cardboard boxes, naked. Not a…good idea. (he laughs) This is the ’70s. Kids had the three-wheel Big Wheels with the whole brake on the side. But if you were, like, the G of kids, you had the Green Machine. And Pops brought me that Green Machine and we did like 2 or 3 runs down this hill. And then it was time to go spend two weeks with Pops. And I come home and it's—it's gone. They had a “communal meeting” and because it was plastic, they decided to take it to the dump.

Assistant editor Jackson’s reaction: “What’s a Green Machine?” Oh, Gen Z…gather ’round… this is the Green Machine:

Assistant editor Jackson’s reaction: “We didn’t have anything that could go all Tokyo Drift when I was growing up.”

As Blu says, “Ask any boy who grew up in the 70s. If they didn't have one, they want one for sure.” Well that and the girls on my block all wanted one, too—when my neighbor Lisa Ross⁴ got one for Christmas, it was glorious. No plastic-hating hippies in Yorba Linda, either. (Actually, I’m not sure there were any hippies in Yorba Linda.)

2. Second Glass: Don’t Mess with Mothers

If the Green Machine commercial was made now (#bringbackthegreenmachine)⁵, there’d be at least one little girl riding around in it. All kids like cool Tokyo Drift toys. And that got me thinking about Blu’s mother, 1st Gen OG Estrella. The Green Machine Incident was a final straw for her. A single mom, she surreptitiously saved money to leave the commune via weed: growing, trimming, selling. And then the commune leader stole her money:

I had to find a way to get what belonged to me back. And it wasn't going to be through begging. I told him, “I'm going to make a poster. It's going to have your face on it. It's going to say ‘Single Women: Beware! This man rips off single women with children’.” I told him I would put it in every co-op and town hall between Washington State and California. He took me at my word. I learned a lot from all of that. In the 70s, when women couldn't have a bank account, when women couldn't own property, that's when I said, “Motherfuckers will come, but motherfuckers will go, and you ain't messing with us anymore.”

Estrella and Blu, 1970s. “You got to think quickly if you're a woman to save yourself from what's not right.”

3. Third Glass: So What Happened to the Ex-Husband?

Mine, that is, not Estrella’s. Initially, he was against me making this film, saying, “You didn’t walk the walk. You don’t even smoke.” I reminded him that I wasn’t gang-raped in a genocide either and I made that movie. Anyway, of course he’s in the film! In fact, he was the OG of the OGs, because he was the very first interview. It all went great, and at the end, I teased, “Do you still think I’m not the person to make this film?” He said, “Kinda. I mean, you were really mad that time I got stabbed.” I replied “If you mean that time you got stabbed by the questionable Irish guy in Hell’s Kitchen, yes, yes, I was really mad about that.” And from the corner of the set, the assistant cameraman—who I’d never worked with before—asked, “Um…you two were married?”⁶

I’ll be on a plane later this week. Fellow passengers, you have been forewarned.

More soon later.

How It Started/How It's Going.

1. SFO to SLC. He drank whiskey and was remarkably good looking—even better than Sam Shepherd.

2. This is a much longer story, but let’s just say I ate all his french fries. That is not a euphemism.

3. They were a fraternity and got paid a keg of beer.

4. Shout out to Lisa for sharing; then again, I let her ride my Honda Kick ‘n Go.

5. Well, well. Lookee here—they already did!

6. He’s still my assistant cameraman.