The Dark Knight of Burbank, Part I: Fear of the Outsider.

I’m pretty sure I’m in the minority on this one, but Burbank, California, is the most fascinating place I’ve lived in. What I truly loved about it was the way that it sits in the middle of about half of all the major moviemaking studios in L.A.; it’s seemingly the cradle of a one-industry town’s most glamorous, moving-and-shaking, happening scene.

But you couldn’t find a less happening, less glamorous, less exciting or more maligned place than Burbank.

I learned to endure the rolled eyes, the barely-concealed smirks and quiet disdain of my showbiz friends when we would try to make plans or meet up somewhere on the weekends. No one - NO ONE - wanted to travel out to the valley because they were too hip, too cool and stylish in their West Hollywoods and their Santa Monicas and Brentwoods and West LAs.

And mostly that was okay with me. Living in Burbank was cheaper, cleaner, safer and I quite enjoyed my 10-minute commute to Warner Bros., where most others were stuck on the 405 for an hour or more. I’d roll out of bed at 7:45, zip out to Priscilla’s for coffee and still make it into my office by 8:30 or so. The practicality, the logistics and utility of living in Burbank appealed to me, in addition to the fact that it always felt nicer, more homey and detached from much of the scum and villainy of Hollywood (where I had lived before Burbank, when I first moved out west).

I was an uncool person stuck in the middle of the capital of cool. I was in an industry where young, gorgeous and ravenous dynamos lived and died storming the beaches of the development networking circuit, where to know the most upward, connected people translated to success, money, power and celebrity moviemaker hob-knobbing. For a number of years I worked pretty hard to become one of them. I made the calls; I went to the screenings and the parties; I networked with the best; and I fought for those golden opportunities to spend my precious free time reading that hot script that everyone else was reading, expressly for the pleasure of being told the next morning that I was not allowed to have it.

But as much of an insider as I became, that personality never fit me well. I felt like an outsider, but stuck in the middle of the inside. Kind of like Burbank. And I came to realize that I would never actually become that guy I thought I wanted to be.

Still, Burbank held a lot of charm and whimsy, and these many years later I still like to tell friends and family the story of the nutjob neighbor who lived in the floor above my one-bedroom Burbank apartment.

Nutjobs are not uncommon in L.A., and pretty much all of the stories you’ve heard are true. My introduction to the phenomenon came on a warmish summer evening when I was watching some movie or TV show late at night, only to be startled out of my lazy reverie by a flurry of panicked rattling on my apartment door.

I checked the peephole - of course - and cautiously opened the door. The man standing on my little porch step was probably in his late 30s, of slight build, with thinning hair and glasses. Of course I recognized him as the man who lived right above me in the eight-apartment building. And of course I didn’t know his name because you just don’t do that in L.A. The fact is, unless you’re networking with the neighbors, you don’t have much reason to meet them. And if you live in Burbank, you’re not networking with the neighbors.

He shifted from foot to foot, gesticulating with his hands and breathing heavily as he spoke. He did not introduce himself, or say “hi” or “sorry to bug you” or any other such niceties.

This was because he was terrified. Absolutely out of his mind with fear. And he launched into his tale with reckless abandon:

“Yeah I just came from work and there’s this guy there named Mike and we kind of got into this fight at work and it was pretty ugly but nothing really happened and then when everyone was leaving he pulled me aside again and told me he was going to find me and follow me home tonight and I really think he might do it and I’m concerned that he’ll come here tonight - ”

And I said, “Well. Uh - ”

” - and if he does I’m just not sure what I’ll do so what I’m asking you if you could just do this for me and I’d really appreciate it is if you HEAR anything upstairs tonight and there’s SOME KIND OF NOISE or something and it sounds like maybe THERE’S FIGHTING or something just listen please please just CALL THE POLICE because this is serious and I really think he might come here and I didn’t do anything to him but I just don’t know what’s going to happen - ”

And then he started to nervously move away, to climb the steps to his apartment and I was so very, very tempted to say “Oh, and you are…?” simply because I kind of enjoy being a bastard sometimes, but I didn’t say that because he really was quite scared.

Instead I said something like, “No problem. I would have done that anyway. Take care.”

He was already gone, though, up the stairs on the landing above me. I retreated to my own room, where through our open windows I could hear him on the phone calling every person he knew. The calls all went something like this:

“Hi this is Bruce and today at work Mike got really pissed off at me and I think he might be coming here tonight to do something and I just wanted to see if you could come over for a while tonight just until we’re sure he’s not coming because I just don’t know what he might do and I wanted to call you and…let you know. Okay, bye.”

This went on for about 45 minutes. He couldn’t raise a single person on the phone. I was amused and horrified at the same time. And I was horrified at how much it amused me.

Eventually, a friend of his did come over that night, and the two of them talked and laughed late into the morning hours. Mike of the Righteous Anger never showed, and no violence was done to the strange little man who lived in the apartment above mine in Burbank.

About a half-year later, in January of 1994, I came to learn exactly how strange he was.

Next time: the terrifying truth! Revealed in the aftermath of natural disaster! And what of The Batman?