A life transformed
LA Times columnist Steve Lopez hears the call in ‘The Soloist’
By Carl Kozlowski 11/20/2008
Steve Lopez believes in hitting the pavement to find the real and gritty tales of Southern California. For the past eight years, he’s helped shine a light on the sad yet often hopeful lives of countless residents — often inspiring the readers of his LA Times column to write or call him in search of ways to help the less fortunate whose plights have come into focus through his stories.
But no single subject in Lopez’s time on the beat has moved people as much as Nathanael Ayers, a homeless and schizophrenic African-American native of Cleveland, whom Lopez ran across one day in downtown’s Pershing Square, playing a beat-up, two-string violin beside his overstuffed shopping cart.
Lopez was struck by the pure passion and actual skill in Ayers’ performance, and slowly worked up an approach to the violinist.
“I went up and asked a couple questions. He was jumpy and wary of me, and it took a while to calm him down, but I asked why he played there and he pointed to a statue, said ‘There’s Beethoven,’ and said he played there for inspiration,” Lopez recalls. “Sure enough, it was Beethoven, and so I kept coming back to visit him. Each time he was a little more comfortable with me. He was scratching names into the sidewalk one time and said they’d been his classmates at [legendary music university] Juilliard and I checked him out and found his story was real.”
Lopez began to share Ayers’ incredible story with readers, creating an outpouring of interest that has changed both their lives forever. The columnist helped the street musician regain his dignity and reorganize in a creative and functional fashion, getting him off the streets and helping fill his life with musical opportunities again. Meanwhile, Lopez retold the story in book form with the national bestseller “The Soloist” and has since sold book rights to DreamWorks, which cast Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as Ayers, and plans an April release.
“Nathanael’s interested if the cast and crew ask him to come over and perform for them, and this movie will mean something to him as a validation of a forgotten career and a forgotten man,” says Lopez as he prepares to board a bus filled with journalists heading toward a fire-devastated trailer park in Sylmar.
He’ll be discussing and signing the new paperback edition of “The Soloist” Saturday afternoon at Vroman’s Bookstore.
“I thought it was a natural column, but I didn’t anticipate the response it got. People sent violins in the mail, people wanted to replace his broken strings and send him sheet music,” explains Lopez. “I took him instruments, but then realized I had a problem: if I gave him instruments and he got mugged or killed for them, that’s a problem. So I tried to help him off the streets.”
Lopez credits his encounter with Ayers for rejuvenating his passion for his own job. He also says the time spent with Ayers has given him a greater understanding of other Skid Row and hard-luck stories, as well as teaching him about the staggering battles homeless people face against addiction and mental illness while searching for a roof over their heads each night.
Due to Lopez’s unwavering attention, Ayers has turned his life around dramatically. While he will never be fully functional (schizophrenia cannot be cured), Ayers has spent the past three years living in a supervised residence run by a full-service mental-health agency that provides him with food, medicines and even a music room that was built in his honor. “I learned about patience and hope and regained interest in what I do for a living through this,” says Lopez.
Despite his debilitating condition, Ayers has moved on from the string bass he performed on at Juilliard — which was too large to transport by shopping cart — to teach himself the violin, flute and cello. “Nathanael has friends in the LA Philharmonic now who have developed an interest in him and real relationships with him. They’re buddies, and it’s an amazing thing to see him in that fraternity of musicians again, going to concerts at Walt Disney Hall,” says Lopez. “You can see this guy on the street and think ‘what a horrible life,’ but he has a passion that people in mansions don’t have.”
While Ayers is so transfixed by music that he barely notices the hubbub surrounding him and his artistic abilities, Lopez notes that his transformation has several hallmarks of a truly classic column.
“This is a great story that has the ‘there but for the grace of God’ aspect to it, as well as a second-chance element. It gave me the opportunity to shine a light on a problem that had been ignored: people chronically mentally ill just three blocks from City Hall. A column should shake a fist and engage people in a compelling drama. It’s a way to engage people in fighting a problem.” n
Steve Lopez will discuss and sign “The Soloist” at 4 p.m. Saturday at Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. Call (626) 449-5320 or visit vromansbookstore.com.
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