A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 11

This is the 14th year in a row I’ve run this series in April. Why a story idea each day for the month? Several reasons which I’ll work my through during this series of posts.

Initially, I provided a daily explanation about why you should make it a habit to be generating story ideas. This week, I’ll give you some tips on how to come up with stories.

Tip: Halliwell’s Film Guide.

This is based on the anecdote I heard about Woody Guthrie. Having written 4,000 songs in his life, he was asked how he came up with so many melodies. His answer: “Well, I take a melody I like, and I change it a lil’ here, and change it a lil’ there, and I make it my own.”

Same thing with Halliwell’s. You can read a post I wrote about it all the way back in November 2008, how you can read through the 24,000 movie listings — each with a logline — then gender and genre-bend your life to creative bliss.

Today’s story: How a Laurel Canyon store honors rock legends.

As cars loudly race up Laurel Canyon Boulevard on their way from Hollywood to the Valley, the Canyon Country Store sits quietly in the middle of the street. Walking into the quaint, unassuming grocery store is like stepping into a time capsule, one filled with a legendary musical past.

The store is like a shrine to the neighborhood’s famous residents. Photos taken in the shop of Laurel Canyon rock stars who made it big in the 1960s, including David Crosby, Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell, dot the walls and hang above the cash register. A sign with the Doors’ iconic line “Come on baby light my fire” marks firewood bundles for sale.

The preservationist behind this “Laurel Canyon scene” is Tommy Bina, who has owned the store for roughly four decades. Dressed in a retro white turtleneck and black leather pants, he jokes, “I’m trying to bring back the spirit of Laurel Canyon.”

In the 1960s, musicians like those honored in the store flocked to the Hollywood Hills neighborhood, creating what became known as the folksy “Laurel Canyon sound.” Laurel Canyon was Los Angeles’ counterpart to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury at the time. “Back then,” Bina, who likes to think of himself as ageless, says, “it was all about the music. And the music was so great, I just don’t want people to forget about the magical era in the canyon.” He admires the antiestablishment lifestyle embraced by the canyon’s rock stars too. He’s decorated the front patio with colorful 1960s flower-power paintings by artist and production designer Spike Stewart and a flag that says “The United State of Laurel Canyon.”

I figure pretty much anyone who lives in L.A. is familiar with the Canyon Country Store. I frequently stopped off there to grab a deli sandwich when traveling to and from meetings in the Valley. It seems to me that Tommy Bina deserves a documentary on his life and this place. There’s already been a documentary on Laurel Canyon from that era.

Why not one on Bina? Quite a colorful character. One idea which struck me was this: What if some years ago, our Protagonist (Eddie) had transformed his guest house into a “museum and gift shop” dedicated to the memory of a one-hit wonder rock star from the 70s? This was a musician (let’s call him Reggie) who fronted a rock band which had an equivalent hit song like “Wild Thing.”

Eddie, who is now in his 60s, had a profound association to that song, a blasting rock tune about a guy professing his undying love for a woman. Why the association? It played on the car radio the one and only time he had made love to his dream girl Angie in the back seat of his father’s 1968 Volkswagen Beetle. The next day, Angie left, her family transferred across the country. Heartbroken, Eddie never saw her again.

Subsequently, his life turned out … okay. A stray girlfriend here and there, but never married. His ardor for Angie never flagging.

Over the years, he did well on the real estate front in a Virginia college town, enough that he owned several houses, many of them rented by fraternity members. A decade ago, when he read of Reggie’s untimely death (suspected drug overdose), Eddie, who had been collecting memorabilia about the rock band for years, began his museum.

And there he sits, day after day, waiting for the stray visitor so he can give them the “tour.” All the while as he talks about the band, the hit song, and Reggie (lead vocalist), what he’s really doing is going back in time to that one night with Angie.

Let’s say the band was from New Orleans. Let’s say the one-hit wonder song had a kind of Cajun voodoo feel about it.

What if on the anniversary of Reggie’s death … he shows up?

Ghost? Figment of Eddie’s imagination? Zombie? Who knows. But Reggie has returned for one reason and one reason only: To lead Eddie on a cross-country trip to find Angie.

It’s a road trip movie where the characters Eddie meets and the events that happen along the way are all in the spirit of a gonzo rock-and-roll adventure.

There you go, my 11th story idea of the month. And it’s yours. Free! What would YOU do with it?

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10

Each day in April, I invite you to join me in comments to do some brainstorming. Take each day’s story idea and see what it can become when we play around with it. These are valuable skills for a writer to develop.

See you in RESPONSES to hear YOUR take on this story idea. And come back tomorrow for another Story Idea Each Day For A Month.