E-mail a friendSteve Lopez
airdate April 16, 2008
Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez is the author of three novels and a recently-released book of non-fiction: The Soloist, based on a series of columns he wrote about Skid Row and homelessness in L.A. The story of his friendship with a gifted violinist with an untreated mental illness is also set to be a major motion picture. Lopez, whose work has won numerous national journalism awards, previously spent four years at Time Inc., writing for Time, Sports Illustrated, Life and Entertainment Weekly.
Steve Lopez
Tavis: Steve Lopez is a widely read columnist for the "Los Angeles Times" who previously worked at "Time" magazine. His much-anticipated book "The Soloist" is in stores tomorrow. The story is the basis for an upcoming movie starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. The book's full title is "The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music." Steve Lopez, nice to have you on the program.
Steve Lopez: Thank you for having me.
Tavis: This is quite a story. I don't even know how to describe this story. I know readers are going to love this thing when this hits stores tomorrow. I'll let you set it up because it's so wonderfully told in the text, but it's about you befriending a homeless man who you met on the streets of Los Angeles one day. I'll let you take it from there.
Lopez: Well, it was just out of desperation, out looking for another column and wandering through downtown Los Angeles, and I happened to see a guy playing a violin. And there were a couple things about the picture that were striking. Number one, the violin is sort of beat up and it's got only two strings, and number two, he appears to have all of his belongings in a shopping cart, so he's homeless.
But the music isn't bad, especially for an instrument that's missing two strings. So I waited until there was a break and went over and asked him his name and what the story was, and he jumped back. He was wary of me, clearly uncomfortable, and I realized it was going to take a while to get to know him. And it took several visits.
I did ask why this spot, why are you playing right here near Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles? And he pointed across to the statue of Beethoven and he said, "I'm playing next to Mr. Beethoven for inspiration." So this is what got it started.
Tavis: So it sounds like you talked to a homeless guy who's saying he's playing next to Beethoven. Maybe the story's a little crazy, maybe the guy's a little crazy, but it goes deeper. So we find out the guy's name is Nathaniel.
Lopez: Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, and as I got to know him better on subsequent visits, he warmed up to me a little bit. He wasn't quite so frightened. And I began pulling the story out of him in bits and pieces, and one day he had scratched some names on the sidewalk. And I said, "Well, who are those folks? Tom and Betty and Sally and whatever?" And he said, "Those were my classmates at Juilliard.
And I said, "Juilliard School for the Performing Arts? Did you go there?" And this is a man in his fifties who looked like he'd been on the streets for quite a while, and he said, "Oh, yeah. That was a while back, back in the sixties and early seventies, and all I'm doing now is trying to get back on track, got to get back in shape."
Tavis: So here's a guy who you have met on the sidewalk looking for a story. He opens up over a period of time. You get to know him and you find out his name is Nathaniel, and Nathaniel went to Juilliard. Where do you go - what happens when he says this to you? As a writer, where do you go with this?
Lopez: Well, I couldn't believe it. I said, "Okay, this really might work out as a column." I hadn't written the column yet because I didn't have enough information. So I was very excited about it and ran back to the office and called Juilliard and said, "Have you ever heard of a guy named Nathaniel Anthony Ayers? He was there from Cleveland in the late sixties." And they checked and said, "Nope, sorry, he wasn't here. We have no record of it."
And so my heart fell and I thought this guy really has some issues if he's that delusional. Thinks he went there and he didn't. And I wasn't even sure I was going to write it. The next day, Juilliard called back. They said they'd made a mistake and yes indeed, he had been a student there. So I started calling professors, people that he had, and began putting back together the story of his life.
Tavis: And the story of his life, as told in the book, though, essentially is what? He's out of Cleveland.
Lopez: He's out of Cleveland and he got interested back when public schools had enough funding to do some important things like have really extensive music programs. Nathaniel got to benefit from that, they had band and he got drawn into junior high band, and he seemed to have a knack for it.
His mother had given him - his mother, Flo, ran a beauty salon on St. Claire in Cleveland, and Nathaniel and his sisters lived nearby. And he would go there and she would have music playing in the shop and he just had a feel for music. And she had him taking piano lessons. Then he gets into the junior high band and the teacher says, "I can't help you, but I know a guy in the Cleveland Symphony who can help you.
And he was sent over to Harry Barnoff, an upright bass player for over 40 years in the orchestra, and he took Nathaniel on as a student.
Tavis: How does he end up at Juilliard?
Lopez: Okay, so he does well enough that Mr. Barnoff says, "I think you can get a scholarship. You can go to Ohio University." And Nathaniel says, "Well, but Mr. Barnoff, you went to Juilliard. I'd like to go there." (Laughter) And Mr. Barnoff said, "Well, I don't know how to break this to you, but that is really a tough thing to get into, and if you want to do that you are going to have to work at this. You're going to have to give up some other things in your life and really decide that you want to do this. And why don't you start at Ohio University?"
So he goes off to Ohio University and cannot get it out of his head that that's where Mr. Barnoff went, and that's what he wants to do. So he auditioned while a student at Ohio University and nailed it. He nailed it, so he moves to New York and was doing really well his first couple of years, and then the problems started in.
He was having trouble focusing, hearing voices, that sort of thing. And at the beginning of his third year - and he, by the way, had a classmate while he was there -
Tavis: Oh, don't tell that yet, we're going to come back to that.
Lopez: All right, I'll save it. I'll save it.
Tavis: No, save that. They're like, "Why are you doing that, Tavis?" You'll appreciate it in just a second. I wanna get to how he - anyway, he's in Juilliard. Go ahead, finish up. He's in Juilliard, yeah.
Lopez: He was beginning to have these problems and it led to a breakdown, and he was diagnosed as a schizophrenic and had to end up leaving school. Went home to Cleveland where his dear mother took care of him as best she could. He was in and out of treatment, there was some shock therapy back then, there were -
Tavis: What is it, schizophrenia?
Lopez: Schizophrenia. And he was handcuffed, he was in jail, he was kind of aggressive, and he was a very troubled young man who had the music still and would play out on the streets. And what happened is that because it's too difficult to lug a big, giant upright bass around on the streets, especially in a shopping cart, he began buying smaller instruments.
So he bought a violin. He bought a cello. He bought a flute. And he was trying to train himself on these instruments as he was in and out of his mother's house and wandering the streets of Cleveland.
Tavis: How does he end up on Skid Row in Los Angeles?
Lopez: Well, his mother died in the year 2000, and he knew that his father, who he had not seen much of in his life, had moved to Los Angeles. And he thought, "I'm going to go see my dad." And when he got out here his father had already left, moved to a retirement community in Las Vegas. So he looked up another relative and stayed with her for just a brief time, but his condition is untreated and he has his challenges every day, and he preferred being out on the street.
So he wanders down to Skid Row where you can get a sandwich and you can take a bath or a shower, and that's where he went, and that's where he had been for a year or two when I met him.
Tavis: So now we're back to where we started. You end up walking the streets one day, trying to find a story about life in L.A. that you write so brilliantly about all the time in our hometown paper, the "L.A. Times," and now the story's come full circle. So after you get a chance to befriend Nathaniel, he starts to open up, you start to dig into his past.
Now you violated the cardinal sin: never get involved with the subject of one of your stories. I've been told that a thousand times in my career. But you got involved with this guy, you befriended this guy. You and Nathaniel become friends, and on one occasion, back to this classmate that he had years ago at Juilliard, on one occasion you take him to the beautiful, the gorgeous Disney Hall to hear the L.A. Philharmonic. It was actually rehearsal, as I recall. You took him to rehearsal. I'll let you pick the story up.
Lopez: Well, the first time we went there it was a rehearsal. This was after I'd spent a night with him out on Skid Row to see what he was up against. And this was when I really fell for him -
Tavis: I should jump in, by the way. You're writing about this in your columns now.
Lopez: Yeah.
Tavis: For the person (unintelligible) the book yet. You befriend him, but you actually started writing about this as we read in the "L.A. Times."
Lopez: I had been writing about it and I actually built a trap for myself that I had not anticipated. When I wrote about him, readers had such a rooting interest that they began sending instruments. So I was surrounded at my desk by violins and cellos, somebody sent a piano. He's got all of these instruments, and when I took them out to him on the street I realized, what have I done here? He is going to be a target; I've just put a big target on his back.
These are some dangerous streets and this man has these new instruments, so I've got to find a way to get him in. So my goal in the early going was to find a way to talk him in off the streets. He resisted, he was comfortable out there, that was home to him. And I made a connection with the L.A. Philharmonic, they invited us to a rehearsal, and it was Beethoven's Third.
And so here was the man who had been inspired by the Beethoven statue and knew all of the Beethoven catalogue inside-out, and they said, "It's the Third," and he said, "Oh, the Eroica." (Laughter) So we go up to Disney Hall and it's the two of us in this empty hall for a rehearsal, and he's there in the middle of the audience and when they finished the third symphony he moves up and clenched fist, "Bravo."
And one of the cellists jumps off the stage and had read about him in the column and introduces himself, and volunteers, offers to give him lessons. And so we decided let's do the lessons in this apartment that the community mental health agency is now holding for him because he's showing some signs of progress. Maybe we can talk him in off the street. What if we do the lessons in the apartment so he gets used to it and comfortable there?
Tavis: Brilliant idea.
Lopez: Yeah, so -
Tavis: And it worked.
Lopez: It eventually worked.
Tavis: Yes, it did.
Lopez: It eventually worked, and then we built a little music studio for him at LAMP. There were some wonderful people who I was inspired by who do this thankless work every day on Skid Row; the staff at LAMP is amazing. So here's the deal. One day I go to see Nathaniel and he has - he's wearing a shirt and on it he has written "Yo-Yo Ma" and the date of a concert at Disney Hall.
And I said, "What's that?" And he said, "Yo-Yo Ma is coming to town." And I said, "Well, that's great." And he said, "Yeah, can you get tickets?" And I said, "Well, sure, we can just call our friends at the L.A. Phil. You're a VIP there; of course we can go." (Laughter) And he says, "Well, I want to see him, that's my old classmate." And I did not know that he had been at Juilliard with Yo-Yo Ma.
Tavis: With Yo-Yo Ma.
Lopez: And they had been briefly in the same orchestra. So he was very excited and he got dressed up and he was very concerned about how he looked and patting his hair down in the mirror. And we go up there and he sees the performance and he's just awestruck.
And one of the things that I so love about Nathaniel is that there is no regret. There is no self-pity. He doesn't look back and think, you know, what might have been. He's just with the music and the music is balance for him and it's his passion. And I've been so inspired that this man has this passion and I thought, I wish I had a passion in my life like this guy's got. What is the definition of success and happiness?
Maybe it's finding something you love to do, and he sort of reintroduced me to what I love to do. With the newspaper industry in decline and I'm thinking of what do I do next, Nathaniel taught me that that's what I do, that's what I love to do, and I'm going down with the ship. If it goes down, I'm going to be there.
So we're here at Disney Hall and we see the performance, and later we go backstage. And here's this meeting, and before Yo-Yo Ma comes in, Nathaniel's nervous. He's on his toes, he's looking in the mirror, he's not sure what he's going to say.
Yo-Yo Ma walks into the room and is so gracious, it was unbelievable. And looks over at him and had read the columns and knew the story. Goes over, shakes his hand, puts his arms around him and said, "We're brothers. We are brothers in music. I really appreciate anybody who loves music as much as you do, and we are brothers." And Nathaniel just didn't even know what to say.
And Yo-Yo Ma then hands him his cello and says, "I've got to go out and meet some other people. Why don't you give it a try?"
Tavis: And because we're in Hollywood, it's now a movie. And the movie stars Jamie Foxx, who plays Nathaniel.
Lopez: Right.
Tavis: And Robert Downey Jr. who plays Mr. Lopez. And I suspect that the book, when it hits stores tomorrow, is going to climb right fast to the top of the bestseller list, and I suspect the movie won't do bad either. The name of the book is "The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music," written by the one and only columnist from the "Los Angeles Times," Steve Lopez.
Steve, it's a wonderful story, but a story that would never have been brought to life were it not for your passion to find these stories and to tell them every day, and I want to thank you for doing it. Thank you for the text, we look forward to the movie, and please give Nathaniel our best.
Lopez: Thank you very much, we appreciate it.
Tavis: Nice to have you on.
Lopez: Thanks.
Tavis: Thank you, Steve.
Back to April 16, 2008