Inside Studio 54

by Mark Fleischman

  Edmond and Deborah Szekely chose the location for Rancho La Puerta not only for its proximity to Mount Kuchumaa but because the weather in northern Baja was conducive to their ideas of well-being. While there on a scientific commission sponsored by the French government to study various regions and their relation to human health, Edmond Szekely discovered that the climate in the San Diego County area, just over the border, is one of the healthiest in the world—a perfect balance of desert temperatures, low-humidity, and the cool breeze of the ocean at 1,600 feet in elevation. Couple that with the fact that Tecate, Mexico, as Szekely discovered, has the same northern latitude as Galilee where Jesus of Nazareth was reared, and you have an environment that can “open the door,” so to speak. Rancho La Puerta means “The Ranch of the Door,” named so for the arch, created by two oak trees, welcoming you to The Ranch and new beginnings, physically and spiritually. I yearned for a new beginning. I wanted to make it right this time.

  The Ranch was so much more beautiful than I had imagined. Winding brick pathways threaded through groves of oak, birch, and eucalyptus trees. Clusters of beautiful flowering bushes and cacti surrounded the quaint Mexican-Colonial-inspired stone-and-clay-tiled casitas, gyms, and yoga studios. There was a quarter-mile running track with a vineyard at its center. A slab of slate was set into rocks that had a new enlightened saying chalked onto it each day, such as “Your actions today are tomorrow’s memories.” They also had a sprawling organic garden with every kind of fruit and vegetable imaginable, used in the preparation of the delicious meals served in a lovely indoor/outdoor dining area, and free-roaming, happy chickens provided fresh eggs every morning. All this was nestled in a green valley beside an arroyo at the base of the towering Mount Kuchumaa. It was serene but at the same time encouraged one to go further, deeper, seek out more, learn, get healthy, and be strong. Besides the organic food and physical exercise programs, The Ranch featured guest lecturers each week, who provided stimulating information about the path to enlightenment.

  The Kumeyaay’s ancestors originally settled this land thousands of years ago after migrating from Asia across the Bering land bridge and down the coast of North America. They ended up in the mountains of Baja, California after reaching what is now San Diego and heading east, following what is known today as the Tijuana River. They settled in the valley at the base of Mount Kuchumaa, the highest mountain in Southern California. This “Exalted High Place” embodies the spirit, energy, and rhythm that pervades throughout Rancho La Puerta.

  Once I’d settled in, I resolved to get in shape. I began each day with an early-morning, three-and-a-half-mile hike on the lower plateaus of the mountain, which was carpeted with yellow California buttercups and accented by blue sage, giving a feeling of the Land of Oz. I hiked up the steep trail in a trance-like state as the sun rose, and I felt stirrings deep within. After breakfast, I followed the suggested fitness program with strength training, stretching, yoga, lunch, then aerobic dance, tai chi, and swimming. Alone at the end of each day I would make my way back to the mountain to experience the magnificence of the sun setting in the west. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the beginning of my spiritual awakening. After five days of significant physical activity and organic fruits and vegetables, I could feel my inner spirit coming alive.

  I was starting to feel healthy, strong, confident, and happy.

  I was so intrigued by it all that I arranged to meet with the owner, whom I discovered to be a remarkable woman. Deborah Szekely had developed the rustic facility into a full-scale fitness center after her husband died. She was a vibrant woman, the mother of the modern spa-movement, and she was credited with being the first to recognize the benefits of aerobic dancing. Though The Ranch was full, she somehow found a vacant casita and I was able to stay another week. On Saturday, the day most guests leave and new guests arrive, I joined a small group of fitness instructors led by Phyllis Pilgrim, The Ranch’s fitness director, an Englishwoman. This was not a part of the program, but we embarked on a day-long, nearly fifteen-mile round trip hike to the top of Mount Kuchumaa. As we climbed, Phyllis told me of the harrowing years she spent in a Japanese World War II POW camp as a young girl after living in Indonesia, where her father had been a diplomat. Climbing nearly three thousand feet through brush on unused trails was a grueling challenge since I was not in great shape. But the beauty of the mountain and the thrill of reaching the top at such a fast pace gave me an unusual feeling of pride and accomplishment. This was a welcome emotion to experience after the emptiness of the last several years.

  I was running out of gas, but finally we broke for the lunch we’d packed and rested at the summit. I gazed upon the Pacific Ocean to the west, the sprawling farms of the Imperial Valley and the Sonoran Desert to the east, the green hills and valleys of California to the north, and the city of Tecate below to the south. I was overwhelmed. I had an epiphany. I’d hiked mountains similar in size before, but this was a hike of a different nature. To say it took my breath away is an understatement. I was grateful to be here and by the grace of God to be alive. I had experienced a similar sensation years earlier, a “close to God” moment, at the ancient Sun and Moon pyramids in Teotihuacan outside of Mexico City after swallowing some acid. This time I was on a natural high and at that moment I prayed, “Please God let this feeling never leave me.”

  The hike down the mountain was hard on my knees and by the time I got back to The Ranch, I was so tired I passed out before dinner. On Sunday morning, however, I awoke at 6:00 a.m., still exhilarated by Saturday’s experience, and I went on an early-morning five-mile mountain hike, which now seemed like a snap.

  After breakfast, I visited the small library hoping to learn more about the mountain. In a book called Cuchama and Sacred Mountains by W. Y. Evans-Wentz featuring Mount Kuchumaa, Mount Sinai, and other mystical mountains, I read about the long history of shamans who chose young boys from nearby Native American tribes to come to Mount Kuchumaa. There, these young boys would go through a mystical rite of passage and be initiated into the ways of their tribe. The spiritual setting of Mount Kuchumaa gave the young boys the solitude they needed to receive guidance and wisdom.

  I was so drawn to the mountain that I went back every day. As the second week progressed, I went on five-mile hikes by myself on the lower ridges of the mountain early each morning. I began noticing all the different perspectives, particularly when the sun rose over the eastern valley, illuminating the hundreds of granite boulders nestled into the chaparral that made up the lower two-thirds of the peak. When I returned each evening, I found myself captivated by the profound white glow of the mountain against the full moon. It was a surreal landscape.

  I would often sit next to a boulder that, after thousands of years of being weathered by the rain and sun, now resembled a huge skull. As I gazed intently upon the vast beauty before me, I felt a calm and clarity that brought me back to those nights in the early 1970s, when I wandered through the dark woods near my farmhouse in Vermont. Barefoot, alone, and with no fear whatsoever, as if I were an Indian warrior, the master of all I surveyed. This was different, but the magic of those experiences nearly two decades before induced by hallucinogens was not lost on me.

  At Rancho La Puerta, I discovered how much better life was when you approached each day by eating right and exercising. It was beginning to sink in, that I had to think before I put something in my mouth. “If you take care of your body, your body will take care of you” became my new motto. After nearly destroying myself, this concept was crucial for me to comprehend and fully adopt as I tried to embrace sobriety. With my newfound energy and the awakened spirituality that I took from the magical mountain, I was beginning to feel high on life—an old expression, but a new concept for me. When I look back to the nights wandering around the Vermont woods in the black of night with only the moon to guide me, I can relate to how it laid the groundwork for the spiritual turnaround I was now experiencing nearly two decades later.
I was on a path to enlightenment back then but I chose to take a detour at one of those crossroads life presents you with. But now, high in the mountains of Baja California, I came to embrace once again the “way of the warrior,” as Carlos Castaneda put it in the Don Juan Trilogy. I wanted to take control of myself, my life, and my career.

  As I sat atop the plateau, I took a long, hard look at some aspects of my life, past and present—particularly the choices I had made. I was looking inward, not with self-pity, but rather with an excitement to learn, a desire for understanding, awareness, perspective, and truth. A considerable amount of my depression came from guilt. There was so much time wasted, money squandered, opportunities lost. Time gone, but not lost if I could put the lessons learned from those bad choices into action. Then they would not be mistakes at all; they would be learning blocks, not stumbling blocks. With that goal in mind, I felt armed, wiser; knowledge is power. Fueled by a stirring of my Samurai-warrior spirit, I wanted to channel everything I’d learned, turn my life around, and realize my potential and destiny.

  Chapter Thirty:

  Laurie and Hilary

  While my life and career were floundering in 1985 and 1986, Laurie Lister was rapidly becoming a top-player in the publishing industry after leaving Penthouse. She went from being an associate editor at William Morrow to a senior editor/vice president at Simon & Schuster, commanding a significant salary in the publishing industry at the age of thirty-two. She edited a number of high-profile books, including Joe Klein’s biography of designer Oleg Cassini who, in addition to creating the look for First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, was married to legendary Hollywood beauty Gene Tierney. Laurie also edited Wolf Blitzer’s autobiography and Mafia Princess, written by Mafia kingpin Sam Giancana’s daughter, among others. During the year after Studio 54 but before Betty Ford, I called Laurie a number of times, wanting to have dinner and maybe rekindle our relationship. I wanted to pick up where we left off before Studio 54, but she wanted nothing to do with me—with her sharp, perceptive eyes and ears, she could always tell when I was doing drugs.

  However, she decided to give me another chance. After all, it was Laurie who arranged the intervention and it was Laurie who visited me at Betty Ford. She believed in me to her core and we began seeing each other again. The positive energy and lessons gleaned from my experience at Rancho La Puerta in 1986 and the changes I made to integrate them into a new and healthy lifestyle gave Laurie the confidence she needed to believe that I truly had changed. When she told me some months later that she was pregnant, I knew in a heartbeat that I was ready to start a family with her.

  Aileen Mehle (aka Suzy Knickerbocker) got it right in the last line of our wedding announcement in her social column in the New York Post on July 11, 1986 when she said:

  Mark Fleischman, once the big man at Studio 54, is getting married on August 10 at his home in Garrison, New York. The bride-to-be is lovely Laurie Lister, a Vice President and Senior Editor at Simon & Schuster. Mark gave up the flashy disco-life a couple of years ago, sold Studio 54, and settled into the hotel and restaurant business. And not a moment too soon.

  We had a beautiful outdoor wedding. Steve and Ian gifted us with a magnificent, elaborate flower installation created by Robert Isabell, a highly in-demand floral designer. Robert created, with Ian’s input, a magical atmosphere, and well-known Westchester caterer Abigail Kirsch prepared the food. The event was a huge success. Our one hundred or so guests included my mother and father, Uncle Hy, cousins, Laurie’s family, and our close friends, including Bob and Eva Shaye and their beautiful daughters Katja and Juno. My brother Alan was my best man, as I had been in his wedding a year earlier.

  Me and my parents with three-month-old Hilary.

  Then, two events occurred over the course of two years that forever changed my life. The first was the birth of our daughter, Hilary, on February 18, 1987. I was in the delivery room for close to twenty-four hours while Laurie was in labor. Finally, she delivered, and when the nurse put the baby in my arms, I declared, “She’s a redhead!” I was consumed with love. I’d heard that taking part in the birth of your child is the most gratifying experience of all—it’s true—it was a natural high. The moment Hilary was born, I knew that I would love this child dearly for the rest of my life. I was beside myself with happiness. Because I worked from home and Laurie worked from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Simon & Schuster, I was able to spend serious quality time with my little girl. Hilary was cute, happy, and smart right from the beginning. I remember how proud I felt when I bumped into Antonia de Portago one day at a local supermarket with my beautiful Hilary slung on my back. Antonia could hardly believe it: the Lord of the Night was now a doting father with this fabulous child. And now, thirty years later, Hilary continues to light up my life. She made me so proud as a graduate of Mount Holyoke and, now, as a director with an international private investigation firm. Recently, Hilary married a fabulous guy in an old-fashioned wedding ceremony in New Orleans, and I could not be happier for the couple.

  The second event occurred about a year later, in March 1988. My father died of a heart attack. He suffered for a week in the hospital, and I suffered along with him. I was beside myself with sorrow. He blamed me for permitting him to have an operation a few years earlier to relieve blockage in one leg when he could have had a less invasive procedure. He suggested I was responsible for his condition, believing that as his eldest son I should have somehow prevented this from happening even though I wasn’t there at the time. The doctor explained to me that my father was irrational and not in his right mind, but that did little to console me. I was devastated, and when it was my mother’s time years later, I more than made up for it when she passed away at age ninety-six with me by her side at my home in Malibu.

  My father’s death had a profound impact on me. He and I had gone into business a number of times together, and he taught me so many valuable lessons that still apply to this day. I found myself deep in circumspection, fueled by loss and regret. My father meant the world to me. At times I tried to tell myself that I’d surpassed him in business. He ran small second-class hotels while I chose more well-known, high-profile enterprises. I was the guy who could take a failed business and turn it into gold—or so the press had said over the years. I had read so many glowing articles written about my exploits that I thought I could do no wrong. I believed I was destined to be greater and more successful than anyone before me in my family—what nonsense. My father and my grandfather were great businessmen and my uncle, Hy Zausner, had been the largest importer of Danish cheese in the US. He was also the visionary who founded the Port Washington Tennis Academy, nurturing such unknowns as John McEnroe and Vitas Gerulaitis. These men always made money, while I frittered away opportunities and millions of dollars, getting high and leading a hedonistic lifestyle.

  But it wasn’t until after my father died that I appreciated the point of view expressed by him and my mother, having lived through The Depression, World War II, and, in my father’s case, World War I, while he was still in Romania. You might say I was no different than some of my fellow baby boomers who didn’t grow up until they reached their forties. I didn’t make it to mature adulthood until I was nearly fifty. Before losing my father, I hadn’t allowed myself to admit how much I depended on him, psychologically and emotionally. And then he was gone—and I longed to tell him. For the first time in my life, I knew that the only one I could rely on was me.

  So, in March 1988, I gave the eulogy at my father’s memorial service, which was officiated by the fiery Rabbi Hecht. On that day I made a pact with myself. I thought about my responsibility to Hilary and Laurie. I thought about my father—the pride he took in his granddaughter, the joy she brought him, and the pleasure he would never know watching her grow up. Right then and there I knew I had to make something happen—hit a home run in my chosen field of endeavor—for me, for Hilary, and for my father. I sensed he was still watching me.

  A re
turn to Rancho La Puerta was imperative to any future personal growth. I was convinced that any hope I had of finding the spiritual strength and guidance necessary to meet my goals was to be found there. The challenge ahead: to succeed in an evermore competitive world in which I was no longer one of the leaders of the pack.

  Laurie was not thrilled. Who could blame her? Hilary was just over a year old and I didn’t want to leave her—even for a week. Laurie could not fathom my running off to “Mount Cuchi-Cuchi,” as she referred to Mount Kuchumaa. I explained to her that this wasn’t a time for vacation but a time to prepare myself for what I hoped was to be a new beginning for me. There was more to be had from The Ranch and the spiritual mountain. I had to pick up where I left off and finish what I had started two years earlier. I was eager to apply the sensibilities gained during my first trip to The Ranch along with the wisdom and good sense that my father would have espoused. I was also ready to apply the lessons I’d learned over the years from my numerous business misadventures. I had given up drugs and hard liquor, but I was still drinking too much wine, which slowed me down. In a word, this was about getting my mojo back. To be successful in that quest I had to be in peak condition—physically, spiritually, and mentally. No excuses. It was a fight to the bitter end to reinvent myself in business.

  In the spring of 1988, I returned to my place in the sun, hoping The Ranch was as special as I remembered. It was. This time I dove into the hiking and exercise program and by the end of the week I was closer to top condition. The organic vegetables (which at the time were not yet available in New York) together with an extreme exercise program made me feel healthy and strong. I was on a natural high. It was on this trip that I finally gave up the one-pack-a-day smoking habit that I had picked up at Betty Ford. I was also magically drawn back each day to the sacred Mount Kuchumaa, where I hiked alone for five miles every morning and watched the sun come up over the horizon, casting the early-morning glow from the rays of the sun on the granite boulders that clung to the mountain. It was majestic. I appreciated the warmth of the sun on my back as I hiked in that cold desert air and I felt very much at peace. I loved The Ranch and what it did for me. How it took me to my innermost place within, to my core.