Anecdotal Montage

Improper Fractions

2010-02-05T12:07:00.000-05:00

In fourth grade our math teacher had a very specific way of teaching. She used a goofy, self deprecating humor that was probably over our heads, but thinking back to it 18 years after the fact, I found myself chuckling.

Mrs. Rollo wrote two fractions on the blackboard. This was back when teachers still used chalk and there were no dry erase markers unless it was to be used with an overhead projector.

On the right, she pointed out, that there were two kinds of fractions. She went on to explain the difference between the two. On the left, there was what she called a Dolly Parton fraction, because the top is bigger than the bottom, just like Dolly Parton. On the right, there was a Mrs. Rollo fraction, because no matter what, there was always going to be a bigger bottom half.

It is a pretty amusing analogy. I can’t remember if Mrs. Rollo had a large bottom half and it’s probably also unlikely that many of the kids in the class knew who Dolly Parton was. In the end she told us the correct terminology, but I wonder how many of us went home and explained to our parents that we learned about Dolly Parton’s big upper half.

That's an Elephant Joke...

2010-01-15T10:00:00.002-05:00

"Teamwork" or "What has four legs and is always ready to travel?"

Summer 2009, Acrylic

Die Hard with a Vengeance, the third in the series, is one of the most viewed movies among my sister Amy and I. I would never sell short the first Die Hard, with its classic unwilling and unlikely hero story that develops in that a perfect blend of action, humor and tension. It’s got tremendous rewatchability, with a wide variety of lines that can be repeated – almost everyone I know has a different favorite. I am always torn between Hans Gruber’s reading of the special message on Tony’s sweat shirt (Now I have a machine gun, Ho Ho Ho) and Ellis’ horrible attempt to negotiate with the terrorists. (Sprechen ze talk? Hans, bubie, I’m your white knight).

I don’t know why we gravitated so heavily to the third movie. Maybe it was Samuel L. Jackson’s involvement or the great cat and mouse game that keeps the movies middle section moving at such a rapid pace. It’s been rerun on various networks more and more over the years, and every time it is on, Amy and I are on the phone reciting our favorite lines before they happen.

This brings me to the scene in question – the riddle involving a three gallon jug, a five gallon jug and trying to fit exactly four gallons into one of them. It’s a great riddle and every time this scene comes on I like to remind myself how to solve it before it occurs. This happened one time in college where we documented the step by step details by drawing the steps on a piece of poster board. After years of going back and forth with my sister about this movie, it seemed like an obvious painting choice for her birthday present.

Anecdotal Sophomore Year

2010-01-08T10:00:00.001-05:00

That year went by very fast.

Last January I changed my blog format with the goal of putting up a new story every week. Now that it’s 2010, I can look back and say that this experiment was a success, aside from one entry that was forced to be removed by an attorney and one missed due to Thanksgiving travel and work schedule.

So, what’s on tap for this year?

I guess I want to broaden the style of the site so it’s not confined to the same format every week. Sometimes I like writing what’s on my mind that specific moment. I’m getting married in eight months, so I think that will prove to be a big theme this year. I want to get back into writing some movie or television reviews as well. Maybe I’ll even write some actual articles where I push myself to do some research.

Don’t get me wrong, there will still be stories. I certainly have enough anecdotes to continue on this format that I’ve started. Once the brainstorming sessions started the stories just came to me – from the well talked about to the ones that were so obscure that even immediate family members did not know what I was talking about.

We’ll see what happens. The main goal is the same - to put something out every week.

Thanks for sticking with me.

Our Christmas Eve Tradition

2009-12-25T10:00:00.002-05:00

Growing up, my family had a tradition every Christmas Eve – like most of the Jewish community, we’d go to the movies. No matter what time of year we went to the movies, Mom and Dad always warned us that it would be very cold in the theater. We would usually be the only family seeing a movie on a July afternoon wearing sweatshirts and long pants.

My mom had gone to high school with the theatre manager, so if there was a movie we wanted to see (provided it wasn’t opening weekend) all she had to do was put in a call to him and we were set for tickets. We often ended up seeing the biggest family movie of the season, which would have come out around Thanksgiving. By the time a month had passed and there was little to no public interest anymore, then we’d go with our passes.

The most influential Christmas Eve movie of my childhood was not so much for the content, but for my reaction, was My Girl. On our usual movie night in 1991, we headed towards the theater with some friends to take in the new Macaulay Culkin comedic romp. He had earned our trust the year before with Home Alone, so we figured this was another sure fire hit. I was at the same age of the characters in the movie and in the same awkward “friends who are girls” mode in school, so I wanted to sit a few rows in front of the rest of the group. What nobody could have seen coming was the way this movie ended. Culkin’s character, Thomas, was in the woods and he ran into an angry hive full of bees, which he happened to be allergic to. While trying to run, he lost his glasses, tripped and that was it. I was shocked – how could this happen? To pile it on, when they found his body, the mood ring he had received from his girl-friend, it had changed color for the first time. That was the final straw – I started bawling uncontrollably through the end of the movie and into the credits. My mom came to get me because everyone was leaving and she found me with my Starter winter jacket pulled over my head, hiding my tear soaked nine year old face. It was the first time I had ever cried at a movie and I would be relentlessly teased about it for years to come.

The Christmas Eve tradition took a huge hit the following year when the entire family went out and proceeded to dislike the Robin Williams movie Toys. It became a long standing joke in the family that any time the movie’s name would be mentioned, we would react like someone was talking about Voldemort. It was because of that experience that we were almost hesitant to see Toy Story in 1995 because of the shared name. When high school rolled around, my sister and I were usually away for Christmas at a USY convention. Then came college, when I was usually staffing those same conventions. Another problem seemed to be Hollywood releasing all of the really good movies on Christmas Day, meaning that our annual tradition would occur one day early.

When I moved to California I attempted this tradition with my roommate one year and ended up seeing a double feature of Spanglish and Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events, effectively putting the bad memory of Toys out of my mind forever.

These days we usually hang out at home and watch Christmas movies or play video games. The past two years we've made our own pizza dough with friends and just stayed in. The one common theme every Christmas Eve, no matter what I'm doing or where I'm going - I'll always put on a sweatshirt just in case.

Mario and Me

2009-12-18T10:00:00.003-05:00

This week I got a Nintendo Wii and I’m every bit as excited as my fiancé is nervous that we’ll never have another conversation. It’s the fourth video game system I’ve owned, the first one I've had when it was first out and brand spanking new. In the past when I've gotten a system, the newer upgrade had already come out - always one step behind. But it’s the system I was never allowed to have that will always carry the fondest memories to me.

My parents never got me a Nintendo when I was a kid – I guess I would have been angrier about not having one if it weren’t for the fact that nearly every one of my friends from school and all of the kids in my neighborhood had them. If I was really jonesing for some Contra, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Ducktales (my favorite game at the time), my fix was never so far away. Not having the system myself was never a back and forth struggle with the parents, nor did it become a large argument, it just was what it was. It might have had something to do with us owning two pinball machines. We also had an old Atari and my Dad often had new computer games for us to play. A four-colored computer version of The Price is Right could really incite the Lurie children’s competitive nature.

At my 8th birthday party, my secret love of Nintendo came to the forefront when I had friends come over to watch the Fred Savage movie The Wizard. A very odd choice for someone who didn’t even own the video game system the movie was shamelessly promoting. The movie was a glorified 100 minute commercial for Super Mario Bros. 3 – a new game that single handedly increased my number of play dates during the early 1990’s.

A few years later, something big happened. At an afternoon screening of Batman Returns at the North Haven Showcase Cinemas, I noticed a bunch of teenagers crowded around one of the arcade machines. As I inched closer, I saw the most violent fighting game I had ever laid eyes on - Mortal Kombat. In the days before the Internet, you heard about things from your friends at school. By this time, most of my friends had upgraded to the newest video game console, Super Nintendo (SNES). Not only had they already heard about this fighting game, but according to their subscriptions to Nintendo Power Magazine Mortal Kombat would be available on the SNES in the not too distant future. That settled it – I was shut out of the original Nintendo, but I would not be denied this time around.

Through some miraculous arrangement between my parents, Grandmother and Caldor’s Senior Citizen discounted Wednesdays, I got the Super Nintendo. I got it on a random day in the summer, not on a birthday or even Hanukkah. It came with a game called Mario All-Stars, which contained all three of the original Nintendo Mario games. As far as I was concerned, I was even with all of my friends. The following birthday I received Mortal Kombat II, the highly anticipated sequel to the arcade game I saw. This was a video game that was responsible for creating the video game rating system due to excess gore and violence. Unlike its precursor, Nintendo did not censor the blood in this game. My game collection began to pile up, I got a subscription to Nintendo Power and some extra controllers – I had arrived.

Though I always considered myself a Nintendo kid, when my uncle took a job at a video game company and offered me a free Playstation, I wasn’t going to turn it down. The console had been out for a few years, but it still seemed pretty revolutionary. It came with a bunch of games his company designed – most of them were fun, but a few of them were heavy role playing games that were too clunky for my liking. While I did appreciate the detail, especially with the wrestling games, I always had my SNES plugged in for the sheer fun of its game play.

When I moved to Los Angeles, I took Super Nintendo, not my Playstation, and continued to add to my collection through used game stores and e-bay. Later on, during the height of the Guitar Hero craze I did upgrade to a used Playstation 2 via craigslist and bought the guitar at a charity auction. Now, after about a year of feeling strange that my parents had a Wii and I didn’t, I’ve caught to the in crowd once again.

The first thing I’m going to do is download the original Nintendo version of Ducktales.

What Did You Bring Me?

2009-12-11T10:00:00.001-05:00

Sometime in the early 1990’s, my parents took a trip to Orlando which happened to be a couple of weeks before Hanukkah. It was a short trip for my Dad’s work and we had school – so this was a parent’s only trip. Before leaving, my parents asked if there was anything specific we wanted them to bring back. My sister, for whatever reason, absolutely wanted a black Hard Rock Café shirt and I asked for a Ren and Stimpy shirt.

We were excited for their return a few days later, partially because they always brought something for us, but mostly because they were back. Amy and I went into their room and watched them unpack. Regretfully, Mom informed us that she couldn’t find a Ren and Stimpy shirt and the Hard Rock Café did not have the style of shirt Amy wanted. It was disappointing, but the moment passed.

Amy wasn’t so willing to take no for an answer and she began digging into one of the suitcases until she pulled out a receipt from Hard Rock. She called them out on it, asking “Why is there a receipt for a Hard Rock shirt if you said they were out?”

“It was supposed to be a surprise for Hanukkah!” my mom yelled back.

At this moment, you’d think I’d be able to put together the pieces of the puzzle. Maybe if they were hiding Amy’s shirt, mine was in there somewhere as well. Nope. I was happy believing that Mom and Dad couldn’t find my shirt and went on with my life. It wasn’t until a few weeks later, when Hanukkah arrived and I received the exact shirt I hoped for, that I figured it out.

My mom asked “Did you have any idea?” and I was too embarrassed to say that I didn’t know it was coming. I told her once Amy found her receipt, that I thought my shirt might be hidden away somewhere also. The truth was that I hadn’t even thought about the shirt since the day they came back and it was a really good surprise.

The side note to this story is that back in those days, when I was in 6th grade, I was wearing big t-shirts. A lot of the shirts I had back then would still fit me today. Case in point: I still own (and wear) the Ren and Stimpy shirt at least fifteen years later. I’m also convinced that this entry will be a good indicator if my fiancé actually reads my blog – if she does, the shirt is probably going to be a topic of conversation this evening.

Thanksgiving Side Dishes

2009-12-04T10:00:00.001-05:00

I didn’t post last week – things became chaotic with the Thanksgiving holiday and working the day after. I never really got the chance to develop the story I wanted into a full fledged entry. Devoted readers might recognize that I tend to use story themes based on the time of year. For last week I was leaning in two different directions as far as Thanksgiving related stories go – one story about the actual Thanksgiving meal and a more recent story about the insanity that occurs during the day after shopping. Neither of these were really main event stories, both constituted more of a side dish feeling.

Story 1: Turkey Day sans Turkey

When I was a kid, I was a picky eater. I realize now that I might still be considered in the picky range, but thanks to some new found food bravery and constant encouragement (and the occasional forcing) by my fiancé, I’ve tried many new things of late. If you invented a time machine for the sole purpose of going back to tell the child version of me that in the future I would be eating tomatoes, mushrooms and eggplant, I probably would have vomited uncontrollably just from hearing about it.

One of the things I didn’t eat was turkey. I love it now, but back when I was a kid, I could not fathom eating it. My mom would be in the kitchen all day, preparing this amazing meal, and I would stand next to her in the early stages of a tantrum just thinking about what was going to be served. Mom did what any person who was too busy to deal with my annoyance – she gave me what I wanted for dinner that night so I would shut up.

Hot Dogs.

That’s right – for about three years in my elementary school days I would sit down to a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner of Hot Dogs. I liked the side dishes, but it was easier to have me not occupying valuable kitchen space pulling on her sweater to complain about the food she was making. Eventually I got over whatever unknown problem I had with turkey and began to love it, but not a year goes by that my mom doesn’t remind me about being thankful for Hot Dogs.

Story 2: Fishing with my Father

My father counted down to the morning after Thanksgiving every year. Not having celebrated Christmas, this was easily the closest he would ever come. The advertisements for the various stores touted their best deals and he would circle his favorite ones. The shopping list would grow as larger as the times the stores opened crept earlier each year. I would awaken from my post tryptophan coma and find the living room and kitchen covered in shopping bags from the local stores (aside from the hidden ones that would be arriving to us later on).

After watching this from the sidelines my whole like, I finally got into the game last year. My father, the experienced veteran, made sure I was in it for real and not going to balk at the early hours. I assured him I wouldn’t let him down and we called it an early night to wake up long before sunrise.

The alarm hit just before 5:00 in the morning and we quickly dressed and headed to the car. Some fathers and sons rise early to go fishing, but that was never our style - unless of course, we were fishing for the best bargain in town.

The first stop was Wal-mart where I reeled in a Marlin (a new desktop computer) for our new apartment. Dad hit got a hooked a Red Snapper (a digital camera) for my still sleeping sister. We then crossed the street to arrive at Staples for some much discounted Bluefish, (bluetooth headsets). After exhausting my hometown’s resources, we traveled to North Haven and ran into the soon to be extinct Circuit City to catch some Minnows (DVD’s). Best Buy was next up where my Dad stocked up his Trout collection (Wii games). Next door to Best Buy was Target where I lost track of what we got. On the way home was a quick stop in at Kohl’s.

If you’ve never been to Kohl’s, it’s similar to a smaller JC Penny’s or Caldor’s, to those who actually remember it. It’s an “everything” store and all of their merchandise is usually between 60 and 70 percent off. On top of that, anyone with a Kohl’s card got an extra 15% off, and there were always coupons. The big deal was an electric griddle for $9.99, and I had to have one. I darted to the kitchenware section and saw the depleted pile of griddles. I made it and picked up the last one on the stack. No sooner than I read the front of the box, a woman pointed right in my face and asked “Are you buying that?” I wasn’t about to throw it back, so I huddled it under my arm and left that section of the store.

Our cooler was full and it was time to head back to the shore. We arrived home at 7:00 am and the house was still quiet. There would be a second trip out to scrounge the stores for left over deals when the rest of the family woke up. In the mean time, my father and I sat at the breakfast table and admired our haul, already thinking about our next fishing trip.

Gym Class Hero

2009-11-20T10:00:00.002-05:00

The physical education program in the Hamden Public school system was a series of peaks and valleys. The popularity of each activity rested on how much the activity made you sweat while participating. The less you sweat, the less likely it was to affect your appearance for your next class. Since so much of high school was based on looks, everyone tended to enjoy 6 weeks of badminton was followed by another 6 weeks of volleyball. Both of those were indoors and did not involve an arduous amount of moving around. The most popular was ice skating. Since our town’s public rink was on school property, the high school had access to it during the day. The awfulness of walking up all the football stadium steps to get there was canceled out by the fact that nobody had to get changed.

The worst activities included when the teachers gave into the cultural phenomenon that was Tae-Bo. I don’t care what popularity circle you are in, those videos made you a sweaty mess, and everyone in your next class could tell. Other less popular units included weight training, basketball and swimming. Our school had just gone through an extensive renovation period where we had a brand new swimming pool, and they were going to get their moneys worth.

I hated swimming, mostly because when I was younger I was terrified to go under water. I had always been in the lower groups until during one family trip to Texas I finally went tried it. Of course, that lead to a nasty case of Swimmer’s Ear, but that’s another story.

By the time high school started, I was an okay swimmer, not great, but I wasn’t going to die from drowning or fear. When I walked out to the pool area, the teacher came right over to me. I had missed the placement test because of Jewish holidays. There were two levels: advanced or beginner. Since both were already occupying the pool, I wasn’t tested; she just asked me which I would be more suited for.

I watched the advance class swim lap after full length lap and saw the beginner class flailing around in the shallow end, barely able to walk, playing with a beach ball. Some occasionally went underwater, but most didn’t.

What decision would you have made?

For the next four weeks I was back to my childhood swimming level. I gingerly entered the pool, playing up my former fears and feigned excitement over any minor advancement. I thought this was the best play I could have made – gym was never easier. Of course, when I told my mom, she chewed me out for taking the easy road. My argument of “high school swimming doesn’t matter” was countered with “first this, then what?” We had reached the stand off of gym class apathy against mother’s guilt. I decided not to bring it up until we switched sports. When that happened, I promised my mom I would give 100% effort during badminton.

Smoke if You Got 'em

2009-11-13T10:00:00.005-05:00

or How I Got Asthma for Two Years

I was always a healthy kid growing up, so it came as a little bit of a surprise when I developed an asthma related cough in my middle school years. It appeared out of nowhere, but with two parents in the medical field, it was treated to the fullest extent.

The effects came and went – occasionally in gym class or while playing flag football after school I would need to catch my breath or begin coughing. There was no time that the symptoms were tested more than on the bus rides to and from school. You see, there were two kids named Mike and Kevin sat in the back and smoked cigarettes. This was a completely unbelievable occurrence for me. We all had the same health class where they clearly identified the dangers of smoking, yet these two guys lit up every afternoon.

The dilemma was that the back half of the bus was reserved for the 8th graders, but that’s also where the smokers sat. I couldn’t move up and sit with the 7th graders after waiting a whole year to earn the right to those seats. I stubbornly stood my ground and rode the bus a few seats in front of the clouded last row.

A week passed and I reached my breaking point. I went to the bus driver to have her ask them to stop. She was a skinny woman with a large auburn hairstyle that has passed its prime during the Reagan era. If you looked at her face it was hard to tell if she was 40 or 65, which was reason enough to not look at her at all. I remember emphasizing that I had asthma to gain some sympathy, even putting on a bit of a show with some forced coughs. It did not phase the driver one bit.

At the next stop light she looked at me and said "I smoked when I was their age, and I turned out okay."

"You're a bus driver," I told her with the elitist innocence that could have only been delivered by a privileged child.

She shot me a scowl the likes I had never seen and told me to sit down. How could she not see that this act of young rebellion, smoking, could send them directly down the same path as her, the path that lead to driving a bus? As much as I did not care for the two smokers I didn’t wish the life of a public school bus driver on them.

I was a lot of things, but not a tattle tale. Apparently this didn’t bode true for several of my fellow bus mates, all of whom had mentioned it to their parents when they arrived home that night. These parents called other parents and the phone tree grew to include my mother, who asked why I didn't say anything about it. The next day we had a new bus driver. I guess she wasn't doing so well for herself any longer.

In a related side note, my asthma and any signs of it went away shortly after I got to high school. The unused inhalers collected dust in my bathroom cabinet while I was able to get by without using them. We used to joke about the urban legends of the school being built on a lead field because the land was cheaper, but the in 2001 the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry released an assessment on the school's neighborhood. It featured such lines as “The area is associated with landfills that were located in the area from the late 1800s through the 1950s,” and “Residents should avoid digging or other activities that disturb soils beneath the ground surface in the neighborhood.” In short, my old middle school was built on top of a landfill and when gym class was on the field outside, we were not too far above a century and a half of buried landfill waste. The same waste which contained samples of lead, mercury and arsenic, to name a few, only inches beneath the surface. When the report went public, the community demanded change, and a new middle school opened on the other side of town in 2006.

Muddy with a Buddy

2009-11-06T10:00:00.005-05:00

In the spring of 2007, my co-worker Ernest told me about a race called Muddy Buddy. The race consisted of two partners alternating between running and biking for a six mile course which was divided into five legs. At the end of each leg there was an obstacle and at the very end of the race was a very long mud pit that you had to crawl through.

It sounded fun, so we signed up as a team, complete with a terribly obscure name from Futurama – “Team Scooty Puff Jr”. It didn’t seem like a very hard task, plus with several months to prepare, it would be okay. As the days and weeks ticked by, there was very little training, unless you count riding the bike five blocks to my friend Parker’s house to drink beers.

The time flew by and suddenly, the event was a few days away. I packed my roommates bike on to the back of my car, picked up Ernest and we drove out to San Dimas. There was a huge turnout, some in fancy costumes and everyone ready to go.

Upon seeing the course, it was evident to us that somewhere along the registration process, we must have missed the part about needing a mountain bike. The course was full of off-road paths, steep hills, tree roots, and sand. We were going to try and tackle these obstacles with a thin tired city bike. We decided that I would do the bike first and Ernest would begin on foot. This would give me three biking legs, since I was the weaker of the two of us at running.

The race began and all the heavy duty bikers took the lead. I lagged behind a bit and tried to get a rhythm going. The first downhill portion took us on to a beach, through the actual water and back up an even steeper hill. The water was deep enough to make my socks wet, putting me in a pretty foul mood at the time. I parked the bike and tackled the first obstacle - three balance beams – and began on foot. A little while after I began chugging along, Ernest passed by me on the bike and took the lead into the second obstacle – the cargo nets. After the third obstacle – the wall climb – I began running what seemed to be the smoothest and most downhill portion of the course. It was just then when Ernest zoomed by on the pavement, barely even peddling on the bike. After beating the tall, inflatable slide there was one leg left. This was the most ridiculous leg – weaving in and out of trees, steep tight turns while going downhill and a crowded path at that. I ended up running the steepest hill while carrying the bike.

I threw the bike into the parking area and found Ernest. There was one piece left and we were prepared to conquer the famous Mud Pit. In order to make sure you were deep inside the mud, there was a net hanging over the entire thing and you had to get down to crawl through it. I was down to my chin and Ernest was up to his neck, covered in mud.

It felt great succeeding in this task, despite the lack of practical preparation. We both ended up throwing out our shoes and socks into the overflowing garbage can that was already filled by people who had the same idea. There was a small series of tents set up where people were handing out things like free socks and granola bars. After grabbing our samples and hosing off in a crowded outdoor area, we got back in the car and headed out for the spoils of war – pizza and beer.

Candy Goggles

2009-10-30T10:00:00.005-04:00

I grew up in a small town neighborhood with blocks upon blocks of houses stacked very close to one another. The blocks were long and narrow, roughly fifteen houses by five houses. This meant one thing to a kid - lots of Halloween candy to be had.

As you can see, there were many houses. We lived on the left side of Whitney Avenue, on Bedford Avenue, and never crossed to the other side. Growing up, Whitney Avenue was the biggest street around - two lanes on each side, and the crosswalk was a few blocks away. The houses on the other side were a little bigger, but that also meant less houses per block.

As kids we started with the cute plastic pumpkins to hold our candy. Getting older, we tried large plastic bags but eventually switched to pillowcases for their durability and size. They held a lot of candy, and always one toothbrush, given out by the dentist around the corner.

We were able to cover a lot of ground especially after it was deemed alright to go out without parental supervision. The first year of just going with friends, the plan was usually to do one side of the neighborhood, come home, dump the current candy stash on the dining room table, then go out to complete the route. We always had a large haul, which lead to my sister and I trading the ones we didn't like - she'd offer up her 3 Musketeers and I'd exchange for Milky Way or something I knew she'd like. I didn't have a candy I didn't like. I wasn't picky.

The first year I ever dared to do the other side of Whitney Avenue was in 7th grade. My friend Kerry lived on that side, so my friend Lisa and I were dropped off there to use it as a starting point. It was strange trying the other side of the road for a change, but we were able to cover some ground. As much as middle school was starting to alter my main focus to girls, I still liked candy.

The one house I'll always remember during that night was very strange. We stood at the end of the walkway staring at the flickering porch light, trying to decide if it was on or off. The cardinal rule was that if the light was off, the people were either out of candy or didn't want to have kids come to their door all night. After mulling it over, we walked up and rang the doorbell.

The door opened to an older man with a dazed look on his face. "Trick or Treat," we said to him, but he still remained confused. "Happy Halloween?" I said. He still looked like he was not sure what was going on. The wrinkles in his forehead shifted, he looked down at his watch and said "Halloween?" then shut the door. We looked at each other, unsure if we were supposed to remain on the step, when the door opened again.

The man was holding a half used six pack of Pepsi. He casually took one off the rings for each of us as he said "One for you... one for you... and one for you." Without saying anything else, he shut the door and the light was definitively shut off. The first rule of Halloween was to not eat anything that was strange or unwrapped. While this was strange, the cans were still sealed, so we gladly all drank them the next day at school lunch.

The Worst Motorcycle Gang Member

2009-10-23T10:00:00.004-04:00

Each year, the Hamden Middle School drama department put on two performances. The first one was a play and the second one was a musical. None of the musicals were popular or even known. The teacher sent away to a company to receive little known scripts. He was always very passionate about them and soon it became a well known rumor that he was writing them himself.

After working the light board for the play, I decided to try out for the musical. The only problem was that you had to get on the stage and sing. It didn't matter what, you just had to get up there and do it. If only I had the karaoke confidence I had today I wouldn't have gone up there and choked out a soft voiced rendition of "Happy Birthday".

Somehow, I made it into the play. The show was called "Rock and Roll". Not Rock n Roll, but "Rock and Roll," and I was playing the “Stubs,” second of three members of a motorcycle gang. About a week into the audition process, the lead motorcycle gang member, “Hubs,” was promoted to play a bigger role, and I was bumped up to the gang leader.

The costume budget for a public school musical is not exactly hemorrhaging money, so we were asked to bring in a lot of our own costumes. Thankfully, being a 1950’s high school show, many of the characters were able to get by with jeans and t-shirts. Not Hubs, he had to have a black leather jacket, something nobody in my family owned. Thankfully my first girlfriend, Lindsey, was able to procure one for me. It was only at the end of the performance that I noticed it was a woman’s jacket and had belonged to her mother.

There would be three performances of the show in one weekend, Thursday through Saturday. Before the first performance one of the teachers showed me how to draw on realistic looking sideburns using a mascara brush. I thought it looked so cool that for the second performance I drew on an entire beard – a bit much for someone who was supposed to be a high school street tough. It came off realistic enough for someone in the crowd to ask my mother if I grew it out just for the show, to which she replied “No, my 14 year old son did not grow a beard for the musical.”

On the second night my parents and sister brought me congratulations balloons. They had brought the same exact balloons for me on the first night, but they accidentally let go of them. When telling me this, they pointed up and the first balloons were still resting on the ceiling of the auditorium.

I liked being on the stage. Despite wearing a woman's leather jacket, a mascara beard and only being in 4 scenes, it was fun. The musical it self was kind of a blur – it was mainly a rip off of Grease. I was only involved in one song, and it was about French fries. The cast would go in on weekends and double as the crew, building the set and painting backdrops. My high school had an award winning theater department and I was ready to continue on that path. I used my new found love of the theater to earn a role in the high school’s fall performance of Bye, Bye Birdie as one of the adults. It was so much bigger and more time consuming that I eventually dropped out when it began affecting my grades.

The First Week of October

2009-10-16T10:00:00.001-04:00

I apologize for not posting last week. It was the first miss of the year and even though it does make my “post every week” New Years Resolution a failure, I still think I’ve come a long way as a blogger. I did not know when I started this project at the beginning of the year how fun it would be and how much positive feedback I would get from friends and family and people I haven’t talked to in a long time.

On October 1st we drove to Connecticut to start our journey. The late drive was to cut two hours off the much bigger drive we would be taking on the next day. Lindy, my parents and I all got into my fathers car and headed to Cleveland. Lindy and I had done the drive the opposite direction last summer after her sisters wedding, but this was going to be around trip on Friday and leaving Monday.

We left at 7:00 am for what should have been a nine hour drive, but it ballooned up to twelve when every interstate in Pennsylvania decided that this would be the morning they closed to one lane to finish any outstanding construction.

Our stop for lunch was supposed to be the Berkey Creamery at Penn State, but our time was so far off, we had to make a stop around noon to eat our lunches. We still made a separate stop for ice cream - after seeing it on the Travel Channel, it was hard to pass up. Even though we were going 20 minutes out of the way to visit, it was really worth it. Lindy got an amazing pumpkin pie flavor while my Dad and I got a mint-chip-raspberry flavor. Mom, of course, got chocolate.

The drive, though long, was okay. My parents brought their portable DVD player and we took turns in the front and back seat in pairs. We introduced them to a few episodes of This American Life, to mixed reactions of enjoyment and sleeping-through-it-ness. Lindy was the fastest of the drivers, and since she did the home stretch, she seemed to make up some time on the Ohio turnpike.

The weekend was a mix of overwhelming family introductions for my parents and early stage pre-wedding planning for us. We showed off the reception hall and watched Meryl and Benjy’s wedding video to scope out the band and some other details. Thankfully, we were able to take a few hours off to hit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an amazing place to visit, if you’re ever in Cleveland.

It never fails that the drive back is always easier. You have more of an idea what you’re getting into and can better gauge your time. It didn’t hurt that there was barely any construction on the eastbound side of the road, so we actually did make it in the predicted nine hours. After a brief stop for dinner, Lindy and I went all the way back to Boston and got ready for the week ahead.

The Texas Sized Donut

2009-10-02T10:00:00.003-04:00

In March of 2003 my college paid for eleven members of the school newspaper to attend a journalism conference in Seattle, Washington. It was a four day conference that would lead right into the Sunday of Spring Break. I remember almost nothing about the conference itself, but I do remember having a great time in the city. During some of our sightseeing the Pike Place market I saw a chocolate frosted Texas Sized Donut. The same way a munchkin or donut hole fills the middle of a donut, this one was so big that a regular donut would fill the hole. I knew I had to have one.

After eating one of them with a friend or two, I thought that my mother would really get a kick out of this. I purchased another one and got it wrapped up in a to-go box. While preparing to fly back I was very concerned about the donut. During the entire six and a half hour flight from Seattle to Boston I sat with it on my lap, not trusting the overhead compartment during any turbulence.

We landed at 3:00 pm and split up into groups. My friend Laura and I were both heading towards South Station to catch the same train down the eastern seaboard, her to Philadelphia, and me to New Haven. This was the days before the ease of the Silver Line bus to the airport, so to get from Logan to South Station it meant riding the Airport shuttle to the blue line, switching at State Street to the Orange Line and then switching again at Downtown Crossing to the Red Line. To this day there is still no way to connect directly from Red to Blue, so needless to say, it was a complicated trek.

Laura and I entered the South Station concourse at 4:15. We had plenty of time to spare; our train did not depart until 5:25. As I put the donut down on a table my jubilation turned sour. I had been paying such close attention to the pastry and beating the clock that I completely lost track of my suitcase. I got separated from it somewhere along the journey and had no idea where. The logic of the situation began to inflate my mind – three different subway lines, not to mention the stations and the airport. I was about to start freaking out when my cell phone rang.

It was the head of security for the MBTA Blue Line. The good news was they had found my suitcase. The bad news was they were planning on blowing it up. Even while living over a year past the terrorism hyped days which followed 9/11, any abandoned suitcase on a busy means of public transportation would be viewed as a threat. Thankfully, the officials called my number, figuring that any true threat to America would not leave their real name and contact information on the luggage tag.

The man on the phone told me my suitcase was being held at Orient Heights, two stops past the airport. He said there was an office above the tracks and to find him there. Without thinking, I just ran for it. I left my backpack and donut with Laura and told her that I would be back in time. If I wasn't I told her to go ahead without me. There was very little thought put into that plan – what would she do with my things? Would she take them to Philadelphia with her or perhaps throw it out of the train when it stopped in New Haven?

I ran back to the red line, race back to the orange and again to the blue. Each second on the platform felt like 10 minutes. I kept fidgeting and checking my watch as if the trains would arrive faster based on my urgency. When each train pulled up I threw my arms in the air like I had thrown a touchdown. Each transfer made this seem more plausible, despite how quickly time was moving.

I arrived at Orient Heights at 4:46 and bounded up the stairs. The man in the office told me I was very fortunate to be getting the suitcase back and I nodded at a furious pace. There was a screen showing where all the blue line trains were and there was one pulling in to the station. He radioed the conductor and told him to wait for me as I franticly raced down the steps and on to the train.

My heart was beating and I was breathing heavy as I transferred at the same familiar locations one last time. Up and down stairs, taking a long hallway until I finally saw the headlights of my last Red Line train of the night. I made it back to South Station at 5:17, with 8 minutes to spare. I was sweaty and out of breath, but I had my suitcase in tow.

Three hours later I explained the harrowing tale to my mother and presented her with the prize. It was big enough to slice like a cake and we each had a piece. She said it tasted fine, which was code for “not worth the trouble.” Four years later I was back in Seattle with Lindy and we walked by the same bakery. This time I opted to pass on the donut after remembering all the trouble it caused me before.

Cardboard and Tape

2009-09-25T10:00:00.003-04:00

As I have mentioned previously about my arts high school, there were specific requirements for each year – two dimensional, three dimensional and media. The year before the nude art class and the battle with the dance department I again found myself stuck with the three dimensional class for my last semester. I had little to no interest in sculpture and did not particularly care for the teacher. She was the young daughter of the head of the arts department, fairly fresh out of art school herself.

In my own way I felt like rebelling by making every single one of my sculptures using cardboard, masking tape and various paint. I was using a theme based on Claes Oldenburg – a Swedish sculptor who played with sizes, making large things small and small things large. I made a tiny sofa and created a large scale salami, to name a few. Cardboard and tape all around – nothing more, nothing less.

After about eight of these small scale projects I was approached by the teacher. She hadn’t really given me any guidance during the term, but now she was ready to voice her concerns. She wanted me to expand my materials – not so much in those words, but saying that if I didn’t use something other than cardboard and tape she’d have difficulty passing me for the course.

Failing one of those classes was a ridiculous thought – it never happened unless you missed several weeks of class or didn’t complete the required assignment. I took her words to heart and began working on something big.

I grabbed materials – a large wood panel, a hot glue gun, lightbulbs, yarn, a big block of Styrofoam and of course, just to stick it back at her, some cardboard and tape. I cut the panel into four strips, two thin and two slightly wider and nailed them together. It created a five foot tall, thin box. From there I used a hand saw to cut a set of feet to attach to the bottom and scissors to cut out some letters. I painted it all red and it was clear to everyone I was making a six foot tall Pez dispenser.

The hardest part was the head, carving it from the Styrofoam block. I carved deep eye sockets and stuck in the lightbulbs, but didn’t have enough time or know how to make them light up. Instead I painted pupils on the bulbs and continued to carve. It wasn’t the most artistic face, but you could tell what it was. In the end I said it was a caveman to cover for the crudeness of the work. The face was painted and covered with a 99 cent store wig to complete the sculpture. I installed a pivot on the neck so it actually opened as a real dispenser would, but did not make the candy inside. The work was proudly displayed at the senior showcase and garnered some attention, mostly because it was so recognizable.

At the end of year, Hamden announced several participants to it’s annual “Salute to Young Artists” and I was named to the list. Along with receiving a certificate and being a part of a big ceremony, I got to select three pieces to be displayed at the town library for the summer, one of which was the six foot Caveman Pez dispenser. At the opening a man asked me to make one for him, only blue and with Batman’s head, but he never followed through. The dispenser is still proudly on display in my parents attic.

*Editors Note: I am looking for a old photo to scan. If not I'll take a new one in the attic, where the dispenser is laying on an old twin mattress.

The Hartsfield Dash

2009-09-18T10:00:00.003-04:00

Karma is a funny thing.

During one visit to Connecticut, I decided to check the status of my flight back to Los Angeles. It turned out that my flight from Hartford to Atlanta was now delayed two hours, thus making me arrive at 1:37 for a connecting flight that left at 1:15 . That wasn't going to work. I got on the phone with India, I mean, Delta, and began trying to fix things up. She tried lots of things that weren't going to work, such as putting me from Atlanta to Salt Lake City and staying overnight - though I wasn't going to make it due to the delay to Atlanta in the first place. It was nearly as inane as the counter attendant in Tommy Boy when they need to go to Chicago right away. It clearly wasn't the brightest conversation I've had, but I suppose she was following her script, which I figured out when she asked if I needed a hotel or car rental before I hung up.

When I arrived to the airport, the Delta line was insanely longer than all of the other airlines. Lindy's flight on Southwest was on time so she had to go. After we said goodbye my parents got in line for me and I jumped on one of the Delta phones near the check in counter.

At about the time I got through, my Dad came over to check on me, since the line wasn't working. Before he could speak and elderly lady grabbed his arm and said she couldn't hear the voice on the phone. He got her flight changed for her, talking to the Delta rep and writing down the information. She thanked him, said 'bless you' and was on her way. Back on my end, I got put on another delayed flight to Atlanta. It was supposed to leave at 7:15am, but was now leaving at 10:15am. The dark cloud behind the silver lining was that I'd be landing in Atlanta at 12:41 pm and I was still on my 1:15 pm flight to LAX. Not to worry, the woman reassured me, the flights were only one terminal apart.

I checked in, boarded the plane, sat in my front aisle seat and prepared to leave. Except we didn't take off anywhere close to on time. In mid-air the captain said our new arrival time was 12:50, and we'd have to take an extended taxi route to the terminal due to construction. We'd get to the gate at 1:00 pm. This was bad, since the woman on the phone said they close the doors 10 minutes before departure. I had five minutes. Then the news got worse. The gate had been switched to B36. Just to give you an idea of how far apart that is, I made a little diagram

The bottom right dot is where I arrived and the top left one is where I had to be in five minutes. The paths in the middle were the underground walkways or monorail stations. Clearly it's hard to tell by the drawing, but it's clear they're not so close together if the travel options include monorail travel.

The second we landed, I grabbed my shit and go. I'm running, swerving around people, cutting in front of the little beeping cart full of old-timers. I get to the escalators to the station - 1:04 pm. I am on my way down saying excuse me and everyone is kindly letting me by, except this one woman who had a bag with her dog in it. She reached down, I thought to move it, and she was only scratching his cutesy little head. Finally I hit the bottom level and see there are moving walkways. I bolt to them and make some okay time through Terminal A and to the stairs at Terminal T. It's 1:09. I get up the stairs and see a sign that says Gates 1-8, so I figure I'm real close and head that way. The hallway begins with Gate 8 and goes down by ones. Maybe it was the frustration of knowing that I would not be on a flight until 5:59pm, or the knowledge of previously being stranded in Atlanta's airport due to a tornado - I was not going to be denied.

I run to the gate. The plane is still there, but the sign says "Flight Dispatched". I said "Fuck Delta!" to myself, but apparently loud enough for the attendant to hear. She asked for my ticket to put me on standby to 2:30 and I obliged, crushed, winded and with sore knees.

Then her phone rang.

It wasn't the white phone on the podium, it was the red Batman-style phone. She told me to wait right there and I did as she said. She opened the door and headed back into the entry tunnel. I looked out the window to see it reconnecting to the plane. The only time I ever saw that was for Uchenna and Joyce during that season of Amazing Race in the finale they were sure to lose. The attendant came back out and said a passenger was sick, and if the paramedics said she couldn't fly, the seat was mine. Only a few seconds passed when she grabbed my ticket, while holding the door open with her foot and said 'hurry up'. I was on.

I don't know what that lady did to Karma, but I was thinking about that as I saw her passed out in the entrance ramp as I walked to the flight. I guess I was being rewarded for my father's good deed from the morning. The guy next to me told me the seat was unlucky, and I proceeded to let him know that I was lucky.

Of course, my winning streak ran out when they announced the movie they were showing was Lindsay Lohan's Just My Luck.

Though my bags didn't make it until the next Atlanta flight arrived, it was still a victory for me. I would have only been standby on the next two flights, and only confirmed on a 5:59pm flight that would have got me in closer to 8:15pm pacific time. I was happy to wait the extra 35 minutes for my bag to arrive instead of having it delivered four to five hours later. If I hadn't, Karma would have probably been pissed at me and made the bags late on their delivery.

Karma is a funny thing.

A few thoughts about September 11th

2009-09-11T10:00:00.003-04:00

This isn't really an anecdote, it's more of a continuous train of thoughts that I began writing and wanted to see where it went. It may or may not make sense.

The thing about anniversaries are that you they exist to remind you of the events that occurred on that day. For some reason people find the most comfort in the bigger anniversaries, the monumental ones, multiples of five or ten.

In two years it will be the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001. There will be books and dedications of plaques, ceremonies and reminders of what happened that day. It will also probably trend highly among twitter users and Facebook status updates – and then the next day, it won’t. History’s greatest tragedies always felt much heavier when reading about them in school books. Stories about those events that were told for generations, not a Nicolas Cage movie. How will that day be taught to our children? Today is the 8th anniversary. Does it matter? Do people need a reminder to remember?

I remember waking up that morning for the first day of classes of my sophomore year. After taking a quick shower, I came out to the common area of our suite to find one of my roommates awake long before he usually rose. The television was on with live footage of the still standing first tower as it burned. The second plane hit in front of our eyes. I went to class and the teacher canceled it ten minutes after it had started. The class was called History of Ethics.

I remember it taking a while before I could get through to my sister who had just moved to Brooklyn, right across from the newly named “Ground Zero”. She told me she was okay, but there was soot raining down from the sky in her neighborhood.

I remember the media explosion. One newscaster said this event was our generations Pearl Harbor. The Westin Copley hotel was stormed by authorities on live television because the hijackers had stayed there the previous night.

I remember the rumors. More attacks coming. Boston was next. The rumors got so strong that girls who lived next door to us fled to New Hampshire for the weekend. A few of us walked down Boylston and the streets were eerily vacant. We nervously walked by the Prudential Center and Hancock Tower, Boston’s tallest buildings. Eventually the nerves subsided and people began getting back to their routines.

I remember things moving on. Everyone talked of revenge, but the idea was not really so cut and dry. In the meantime sports came back, as did late night comedy. There was an outrageous list of songs that were banned from the radio because of words like crash, fly, and airplane in their lyrics. Other songs profited, using lyrics about the events of that day to get country music fans fired up.

I remember Universal Studios having there was a park wide moment of silence commemorating the anniversary, but that stopped after five years.

I remember not even noticing much the last few years. I hope I don’t forget.

Future's Last Ride

2009-09-04T10:00:00.005-04:00

To commemorate the two year anniversary of the closing of Back to the Future the Ride, I thought I would re-post the entry I wrote in my old blog to mark the occasion. There are some minor edits and changes since it's original post, but it's generally the same. Some might call this a cop out, but I prefer to call it a "classic". Hell, comic strips, columnists, even podcasts put out reruns every now and again.

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My first experience with the ride was in 1991 at Universal Orlando. It was the summer the ride first opened and my family was on vacation. Being an nine year old kid who was afraid of any ride that looked scary - despite having never actually been on one - I was really scared to go on it. My parents convinced me to get in the car, but during my first cycle, my head was down and my eyes were closed the whole time. If not for the more visible vehicles at the Funtastic World of Hannah Barbara later showing how the motion simulation worked, then I might never have gone on BTTF with my eyes open. Eleven years later I was struggling to find a job after moving to Los Angeles, so I turned to Universal Studios Hollywood. I was hired during a mass summer employment seasons and was offered a choice between Van Helsing or Future.

"You're the suckers Doc conned in to his Time Travel experiment."

Choosing BTTF was probably the best decision I could have made. From the start of training, these people became my first real friends on the west coast. It made the transition away from home all the more easy. It was hardly like work at all – between the four minute ride cycles you had down time to talk with, or avoid, those you were positioned with. If you could find just one or two people with something in common, your days would fly by. Aside from that, there was hallway basketball using the garbage cans and the game I made up with one of my co-workers April where you got points every time one of your guests mimicked the dummies did in the safety video. I was always put out at the Greeter position during rain or cold weather because of my east coast weather tolerance. I loved turnstile spiels and hated gigantic groups that didn't know their exact numbers. Even the elastic ankled khaki pants became tolerable. Secretly I hated being a lead because you spent all your time isolated in the control tower, dispatch, or doing walk throughs. The Tower was the loneliest, dark and sad place in the building, and sitting there for two hours straight was torture. All you had to do was watch the surveillance monitors, up to 12 at a time, to make sure that nothing was going wrong. I would have rather dealt with the angriest guest of all time than sit in tower.

"Remember, the future is what you make it."

Some of my favorite moments were being asked to redraw the two pre-show chalkboards on level one and three. Guests would come by while I was drawing and think that I was actually doing some kind of scientific equation (which is what I told them). I got to bring family and friends to the park and lock them down in their ride vehicles, which was both fun and embarrassing at the same time. There were barbeque's and parties. There was a great special event for Microsoft with no kids or lines and lots of free booze – made for an easy night of carefree adults who were just there for fun. Things were pretty similar every day, so when someone famous came to the ride, a lot of people would run to see them. It's hard to tell if more employees would check out a celebrities or just pretty girl. I'd say the girls. When Wrestlemania was in Los Angeles, I got to put several wrestlers in their vehicles, also Wilmer Valderama and Snoop Dogg. Summer new hires would come and go, but we all knew which people would be around for the long haul. I was there for the long haul, going from Lead to Supervisor for the Summer of 2006.

"Have a nice trip, see you next winter."

After my summer as a Dome supervisor, I was promoted off the lot into an office. I had made it out of Future, which was great, but I missed the daily routine just a little and my friends over there a lot. When the announcement of its closing at the end of the summer was made it never really hit me. It just seemed like one of those things that would be down the road some time and never actually happen. Summer flew by, and suddenly it was Labor Day weekend – Future's last stand. Though I hadn't actually worked at the ride in about ten months, the place still felt like home to me. I'd stop by occasionally during the last couple of weeks just see everyone and remember the times that were had. The management "Last Ride" was a really thoughtful thing for the company to do – they knew how much the ride meant to us as well.

Watch your step as you exit the vehicle.
Exit towards the red flashing light.
Enjoy the rest of your stay at Universal Studios Hollywood.

People DO read my Blog

2009-08-28T10:00:00.007-04:00

I'm popular!

Apparently a little too popular.

When my parents came back from their vacation there was a message on their machine from an attorney who represented a client that I had written about. The attorney asked my folks to get in contact with me and have me remove a certain blog entry. If I removed it, the attorney said, "this will be the last you hear of me." The lawyer must googled his client or the client googled himself and thought it necessary for an attorney. There was nothing shown or written on my blog that was false - everyone knows all of the best stories are the kind you couldn't make up if you tried. I still decided to take down the entry. I don't need any trouble, especially for something as stupid as this. Now if only someone could perfect an "eternal sunshine" device to have the memories wiped clean from my brain.

Hotel Bathroom Capacity

2009-08-21T10:00:00.008-04:00

Every summer on Wheels, the staff would split into girls and boys and do evening activities on our own. The goal was to bond the genders together and create a good group dynamic. One summer I was privy to a group with an insanely disproportionate ratio of 24 females and 7 males. The problem with boys and girls nights was that for the guys, every night was a boys night. The seven of them only took up two hotel rooms, and when those rooms had connecting doors they all got to hang out together. The gender nights were continued out of jealousy from the girls, who wished they were as close as that summer's guys.

For the girls, these nights meant a lot more. There was notable jealousy of how close the boys were, so we tried a couple of these activities. Since the guys were used to this kind of thing we had a low key night. Our allotted budget was used to order to movie X-Men 2 on my hotel television and make iron on t-shirts with out nicknames. Towards the end of the movie, I realized that it was well over two hours long. During the climactic battle scene there was a knock on the door.

It was one of the female staff members – easily the stricter of the two. I looked at the clock and noticed it was nearly 11:15, past the previously discussed curfew. The girl’s activity must have already ended and they were already put in their rooms. Instead of admitting I was wrong and telling this staff person that the guys were still in my room I thought it would be best to try and shoe her away. I hid all of the guys in the bathroom and told them not to make a sound or move until I opened the door.

There were many faults to this plan. What if she had to use the bathroom? What if they made noise? What if she was bringing me to a meeting of some kind and I never told them they could leave?

The plan of shoeing her away quickly went out the window when she walked right in to my room and sat down on the bed. She wanted to know how the boy’s night event went and proceeded to tell me about how theirs went. The whole time I nervously eyed the clock.

All the while three of the guys stood in the bathtub and the other four were sitting on the tile floor. At one point, one of them made motions like they had to sneeze. Working like a well oiled team, the guy closest to the tissues passed one down and reached the sneezer before he could make a noise.

I was finally able to break free when the group leader called us to come to our nightly staff meeting. I let her go first, saying I had to go to the bathroom, watching to make sure she left the hall. The two rooms of guys were only a few down the hall, but if she had seen them out of their rooms it would have looked bad. Most of the guys were just upset to have missed the end of the movie, so I recounted it as best I could – the dam explodes, the Phoenix saga sort of begins and so on.

We never really discussed it openly as to not alienate the female staff member, who some of the kids already viewed as a bit of a stick in the mud. The other staff got a bit of a kick out of it and if the goal was to further the bond between the boys, then mission accomplished.

The Log Cabin Hospital

2009-08-14T10:00:00.004-04:00

Two weeks into my first time on Wheels, the group arrived at Yellowstone National Park. The furthest west I had ever been was Texas, so everything in the Rocky Mountains was very new to me. When the group settled in, there was time to go and explore, as long as there were groups of three. I headed off with my friends Jessica and another girl named Stephanie.

Our trio saw a sign pointing in the direction of “The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone,” and decided to check it out. We were at least two weeks away from seeing the real Grand Canyon, but we figured it would be good to see another one. Upon arriving to the lip of the canyon there was a rickety set of stairs leading down the steep edge. They seemed sturdy enough so we headed down them and took a photo, in which the wind was gusting so hard my shirt blew up and you can see my stomach.

On the road back, there was another huge gust of wind and I felt something in my eye. I did the first thing you’re not supposed to do and began to rub it, hoping to cry it out. It was hurting pretty bad already so I knew I needed to get somewhere and rinse it out.

We had been walking for a long time prior to this event and I knew I needed to rinse it out as soon as possible. At the time, it seemed like a medical emergency, so we decided to hitchhike back to our campground. Approaching the road, Jessica stuck her thumb out in classic hitcher format and a car pulled over for us. She explained my eye and they took us towards camp, dropping us at the Yellowstone Laundromat. I found a sink and attempted to rinse it out, but it wouldn’t work.

From the payphone I called Aaron, the group leader’s emergency pager number, which I would later learn did not have any service while inside any of the National Parks. I left a mildly frantic message and continued to walk to his cabin. When we got there, the two girls split off and left me with him.

He was in the middle of shaving and he took the cap to his shaving cream can and filled it with water, asking me to try flushing the eye again. I took the murky lidful of water and dumped it out, determined to rinse it a few more times as not to get shaving cream residue in my eye, on top of what was already in there. A few flush attempts proved to be fruitless, so as is the case with any medical situation on this trip, no matter how small, I was taken to the hospital. On normal hospital visits, one staff member would accompany the kid in a taxi from the hotel to the hospital, but again, being in the National Park, we had none of those luxuries. The only option was for Jen the staff member and I to use the group bus.

We drove about 15 minutes down some dark wooded roads to reach Lake Hospital, a 10-bed clinic constructed out of a log cabin in Yellowstone National Park. There was nowhere to park a bus, so the driver backed in to the helipad while we got out and went to the waiting room. We were greeted at the front desk by a woman or a man, okay, a person of very indiscriminate gender. This person had a thick flannel shirt and a hairstyle resembling Jaromir Jagr’s rookie card. We were instructed to sit and peruse the selection of nature magazines.

The on call doctor saw me about 15 minutes later and told him the whole story. I said that there was an entire leaf in my eye, because that’s what it felt like. He told me in return that the leaf was likely on the hard to reach back hemisphere of my eye, as illustrated by the brown dot in the eye below. His plan was to drop some numbing solution in my eye and use a throat culture swab to get it out.

The numbing solution was cold and turned the white of my eye yellow. It took a moment for it to start working, but then it felt like I couldn’t close my eye. There was something very unsettling about not being able to brace myself as someone moved the business end of a throat culture stick towards my eye. I had not choice but to stare right at the swab, unable to look away. After fishing around for a few seconds, there, on the end of the cotton swab was the cause of my gigantic pain for the last few hours. It was slightly larger than a grain of pepper. As he tossed the swab into the garbage I couldn't believe something that small had caused me such pain.

By the time we returned to the group, everyone was already in their rooms for the night. A girl’s birthday had to be postponed until the next day because though the staff had bought her a cake, it was in a cooler on the bus, which we had taken with us that night.

The next morning, Jen called my parents with the lead in line "Don’t worry, your son is fine." This is not the great conversation starter you’d think it is. My parents calmed down once I talked to them and I hardly thought about the incident for the rest of the summer.

For anyone interested, it costs $116.50 for someone to jab you in the eye with a stick.

Popular Jerks are Good at Basketball

2009-08-07T10:00:00.005-04:00

I went to a Jewish sleep away camp for two summers. That is to say, the camp was about as Jewish as anyone who would mark the box marked Jewish on the SATs, but wouldn’t know a lulav from a bamboo shoot. The real emphasis on was sports. From the moment breakfast was over it was sports, swimming and more sports. The annual highlight was the 4-day long camp wide Olympiad, but aside from that, the day to day activities consisted of what the counselors thought would be entertaining.

One day they decided to have a basketball skills competition. It was easy to arrange this since the basketball court was located right outside our bunk. My friend Adam won the foul shooting contest, hitting nine out of ten. When it came time for the three point contest I inexplicably caught fire and managed to hit seven out of ten to win.

A few days later, the counselors organized a half court 2 on 2 tournament and participation was mandatory. Part of me looks back and thinks the counselors were doing things like this for their own amusement. There were clearly four boys who were the best at basketball and it was only a matter of time until they played in the finals - the other several rounds were just to delay the inevitable.

I always viewed my popularity at camp as somewhere in the middle management. Comfortable with my group of friends, more popular than some, and disliked the kids who were higher up on the food chain. Those kids were jerks, but when you're 13, and the jerks are popular, you still find yourself envying them. People might think that I only think these kids are jerks because I wasn't in their group, but that's not true, and I'll give you two examples.

One night I woke up and my face was burning hot. Someone in the jerk group had a small bottle of tabasco sauce and had put a few drops on my face while I slept. I ran to the sink to find two other campers flushing their faces in the sink with the same symptoms as me. That was the night I had won the three point contest, so the good feeling I had was washed right down the sink.

The two oldest boys groups, the "super-seniors" shared one large cabin split into two sides by age. The older guys were on the left, younger guys on the right and shower stalls and bathrooms connected the two. A rare night occured when all of the older boys climbed to the roof of the bunk to sit and talk. It was not a typical bonding session, but we had a good time. When the counselors told us to come down and go to bed, one of the jerks walked across the shower roof and began to urinate off the side. The stream went right onto a window sill that aligned with the top bunk of one of the younger boys.

As luck would have it, these popular jerks were the best at basketball.

I approached my friend Adam, said that we had a decent shot, having won the individual skills competitions. It never occured to me that both of these could have been gigantic flukes. My only thought was that if we teamed up, we could surprise some people.

Our first round opponents were a kid in Teva sandals and another kid nicknamed "Beef" for eating an inhuman amount of meat during one lunch session. As I have mentioned before, participation was not an option, and these were two kids would have probably passed on the tournament if there was a choice. In the second round we escaped by a slightly better team to make it to the semi finals.

The last four teams featured the two popular jerk teams, our team and one other surprise team. We were up against one of the high seeds. They handled us with ease at first, jumping up to a big lead before we even got on the board. The games were to 21, going by ones and it was a quick 7-1 lead for them. When the score reached 10-2, one of their players sat down on the court and let the other do all the work. They swapped out on occasion, but it was still embarassing and arrogant on their part. With the two on one advantage, we chipped at the lead and brought it back to a 15-9. It must have been too close, because the other kid got back up, seemingly bored and they proceeded to finish us off to the tune of 21-10.

I remember the feeling of anger build up in me watching them sit on the court and laughing at us. I fought off every urge to throw the basketball as I hard as I could at him, partly because I had only been in one fight before and partly because I thought he might just catch the ball. I don't remember is who won the tournament or the names of any of the jerks. I've even looked at the bunk picture from those two summers and could barely identify any of them. I hope that they took a lot of pride being the best basketball players in a southern Connecticut semi Jewish summer camp. As far as that can get you in life, if you live your life as a jerk, it's only a matter of time before you piss in the wrong persons window sill.

Four Teenage Boys and an Adult Film

2009-07-31T10:00:00.003-04:00

I was out with my uncle on a family visitation on our last night in San Francisco and I already felt like I had been pulled away from my new family. Little did I know that I would soon have quite the bonding experience with my roommates.

I arrived back to the hotel after curfew so everyone was already in their rooms. When I got to the door and knocked there was a lot of commotion. The door opened slowly as my roommate Matt peered through the crack. "Oh, it's you," he said, then calling to the other "It's just Paul!"

He pulled me into the room and slammed the door. The other two guys sat nervously at the foot of one of the beds looking as if they just got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Before I could ask what was going on, David pressed the power button on the television and there it was. The reason they were so jump and that Matt opened the door so cautiously appeared on the screen. Two giant palm trees. When the camera panned down to reveal two sweaty naked people, the truth hit me like a rush of blood to the head: my roommates had ordered an adult movie.

The rules of the trip stated that nobody was allowed to order any hotel amenities. No room service, no dry cleaning, no movies - especially the adult ones. We'd all joke about it, going so far as to see what the choices were. It was an X-rated game of chicken. The first guy would check the menu, the next would read off the list, then read a description and so on. If someone felt particularly daring they would attempt to watch the preview which showed roughly 30 seconds of footage.

This time around Matt came back to the room and decided to peruse the selections. As the other two guys opened the door, Matt was startled, and instead of hitting the menu return button, he hit the purchase button. Once he realized what he had done, the panic began to set in. What kind of trouble would Matt be in? Would he be yelled at? Would his parents get called? The worst case scenarios danced through his head and before the opening credits were over Matt was out the door, full speed towards the front desk.

"I didn't mean to, I swear," he pleaded with the reception desk. "I accidentally ordered a movie and I didn't do it on purpose. I'm going to get in huge trouble, please, you've got to believe me." The clerk typed on her computer, pulling up the room account.

"Here's the charge, $9.95 for one movie," she said, peering up at him, eyes full of doubt. After glaring at him she realized that he was legitimately freaking out - sweating and breathing hard. She removed the charge from the room. Before he could thank her she continued, "Just so you know, I removed the charge, but the movie can't be stopped once it starts." The gears in Matt's head began turning, leading him to choose his next words carefully.

"So you're telling me, the movie is on in my room. I won't be charged for it and you can't shut it off." The hotel woman nodded. "Then what am I doing talking to you?" He took off down the long hallway back to the room at twice the speed he traveled to get to the desk in the first place and broke the news to the other roommates.

Up until this point I was still out with my uncle for dinner. Here we were, four sixteen year old boys with a free pornographic movie. We watched for a while before there was a knock on the door. Shit, staff doing bed check. The same commotion that happened when I had originally knocked came out for an encore. We scrambled to shut off the television and one of us ran to the door, while the rest sat innocently on the bed. As we opened it, our staff member Lowell could instantly tell that something was up.

"What was that?" he asked.

"What was what?"

"The noises I heard from the hallway."

I thought about the best possible cover and gave it a shot. "It was one of those shampoo commercials where the women really, really like the way their hair feels." Clearly not buying it, he made his way over to the television and turned it on, There in glorious color was two overly tanned people participating in something I would later learn was called "reverse cowgirl".

We all feigned surprise, another act that Lowell didn't buy for a second. Matt frantically told the whole front desk tale again and the only thing that upset Lowell was that he had left his room after curfew. He looked at the screen, looked at us and then back to his check list. "One-two-three-four. Everyone is here. Have a good night guys and don't stay up too late."

With that, he left. We were free. Immediately we called the other guys to brag. You see, this was no ordinary movie. Matt was a very thrifty consumer - he had ordered something called "Sex in Hawaii - Parts 1 & 2". This was a double feature which ran nearly three hours and didn't even bother with plot, characters or any dialogue at all. If there is one thing to say about porn, guys don't have a long attention span when it comes to watching it - a couple of minutes max. So a three hour feature was far more than anyone could handle.

As our interest wained, we left it on in the background. We began a game of cards on one of the beds. One of us wrote postcards home. Matt took a couple of photos of the screen with his camera. The night passed and when the movie ended we were actually pretty relieved. In the morning nobody called Matt by his name anymore, they all called him "Porno," a name that I coined due to the alliteration with his last name. The nickname stuck for the rest of the summer and way longer.

After the trip ended, Porno was showing photos to his dad. He had forgotten that he took pictures of the television screen that night in San Francisco, when suddenly he got to them. This was back in the days of sending film away and getting it mailed back, so there was no delete button. Thankfully the first one came out blurred and when his father asked what it was, he told him it was "a cave." The next one however, came out crystal clear and his dad glared at him and muttered something about the trip being "money well spent."

The Potter Lottery

2009-07-24T10:00:00.015-04:00

Halfway through my 2005 Wheels trip there was a somewhat large event in the lives of the kids on the bus. The 6th book in the Harry Potter series would be released. It was a big deal for them - most of these kids weer 14 or 15 years old, which meant when the first book arrived in the states they were only 9 or 10. The most obsessed kids already had arranged for their parents to buy the book and overnight it to them on the trip at our next stop in Los Angeles. However we were in San Francisco for the weekend. Los Angeles was on Monday - an eternity away, considering the book came out on Friday.

By some stroke of luck there was a Wal-Mart and Barnes & Noble in the plaza adjacent to our hotel and Saturday night I agreed to take any of them who desperately wanted to on a walk over to the stores. I told the eleven kids who came that there was almost certainly going to be no copies available - fans of the series had been waiting for this day for two years. Anyone who wanted to read it the night it came out would have reserved a copy ahead of time and there wasn't going to be random excess stock.

We walked to Wal-Mart first to find empty shelves and employees who laughed when I asked if they had any extra copies. Upon arriving at Barnes and Noble it looked something like the Filene's Basement wedding dress sale. It was definitely more people than I had ever seen in a book store at 10:30 pm on a Saturday night.

I approached the customer service counter with trepidation. I had already been laughed at once for asking if there were copies available. By some incredible dumb luck, the woman handed me three copies of the book that were left behind at the customer service desk. She said people had reserved the book at this location then later canceled because another store had a better release party. I asked the woman to please hold the books for me because I had eleven kids who were interested in buying them, now I just had to figure out who got to.

There was a brief thought of a trivia contest or some Potter related skills competition, but in the end we needed something quicker. I went back to the desk and procured a sheet of paper. I ripped it quickly into eleven pieces. On three of the pieces, I wrote "You can read!" and the remaining eight I wrote "Sucker!" Each piece was folded up and put into my hat. The Potter fans lined up and each picked a piece for the right to purchase this $30 book. Before anyone could open their paper, my friend Mordy, who had been visiting with our group for the weekend, switched his camera to video mode.

One of the kids jumped up and down even though he did not win. Another later revealed he had no interest in the book at all, he just wanted to see where everyone was going. Yet another defeated girl willed herself to purchase the audio book version, which was made up of 17 discs and clocked in at a monstrous 19 hours.

There were a few catches for the winners of the contest. Those who now had the book were not allowed to stay up for the entire Saturday night and finish it. The book was 672 pages long and we had a full day of San Francisco sight seeing the next day. It would be easy to tell if one of the kids had forgone sleep to be the first one finished.

The other stipulation was that whoever finished first was to turn the book over to me so I could read it next. It might have offset the first clause but I was willing to wait. As it turns out, one of the girls was finished before the drive to Los Angeles. I took my time and probably finished it in a weeks time, being lapped by several of my kids in the process.

The Curse of the Donuts

2009-07-17T10:00:00.021-04:00

On the road from Kansas City to Grand Island, Nebraska a lot can go through your mind. It is easy to think about that this city you are heading towards is not an Island and is certainly not Grand. Like a handful of the more rural stops on my trip, there is not much in the ways of Kosher food. When something like this is known, one of the bigger cities, like Kansas City, packs us a second dinner to heat up in the hotel the next night.

It works out great, unless a staff member leaves it in the Kansas City hotel freezer. This fact came to light while visiting the Island Oasis water park, a great place for the locals, but not much for these east coast kids who had seen bigger and better. While the kids were there, I took on the task of dinner by hitching a ride with bus driver to the corner supermarket. By this point in the afternoon, the bus was a disaster. There were extra donuts and crumbs everywhere. Our once brilliant prize had come back to haunt us in the form of smashed and wasted donuts.

Inside the store I scraped together a complete makeshift dinner. Anything that could be put in a convectional oven soon found its way into my cart. Waffles, fish sticks, various Morning Star veggie products and fries made up the main components of the meal. I added in some fruit and vegetables to try and even things out. Anything with a kosher symbol was given a green light. It was a mess, but when we got back to the hotel it worked out.

To avoid further disaster, and because the kids had been bugging me about it, I decided the group would just do laundry that night. The woman at the front desk of our hotel told me about a decent place about a mile down the road. The recommendation seemed suspect, but once I verified the number of washers and dryers, I deemed it to be alright. Anyone who has had the misfortune of doing laundry with 48 teenagers knows it can be a war zone. A lot of them are wide eyed first timers, having relied on parents to do it at home. I know I was when I first did this trip in high school.

Once the loads were started, things began to cool down. People talked, played guitar, played cards and some of the boys were kicking a soccer ball around in the vacant parking lot. I was unaware of this, but certainly one of my other staff members might have thought this was not a very good idea, except for the fact that my staff member all had their usual routines. One was usually on her phone, one usually on his laptop and the other two were on each other.

I sat on the curb watching the Nebraska summer sunset, thinking about how we avoided disaster with tonight's dinner. I wondered what would happen to our large trays of frozen spaghetti and meatballs that had been left. Like clockwork, the buzzers began to go off and people began to shift their clothes to a dryer.

Once the dryers had been rumbling for several minutes, a light blue car pulled up. A skinny, mulleted man in white-washed jeans and cowboy boots opened the back door and put his feet on the ground before it was fully stopped, as if he was Fred Flintstone helping the car slow down. He yelled out "the laundromat is closing in five minutes". It was now 8:30 and the sign on the door said it would be closing at 9:00. I told him that the group almost finished and he said "don't even try it, there was a robbery here last week, so everyone has to be out in five minutes". I tried explaining that these were just kids and we only needed 20 minutes or so, we'd still be finished before 9:00. Mild hysteria ensued when he started opening the dryers and pulling clothes out on to the floor

There were four girls who combined their load in a economy sized dryer that was locked shut. Try as he might, the Mullet Cowboy could not make the door budge. The man granted these girls immunity and said they could stay but everyone else had to move their wet clothing. Despite the fact someone from our group got to leave their clothes in, he still made everyone else vacate the building. I gave up trying to reason with him as he ignored each one of my requests and questions.

At this moment, I was approached by a woman from Arby's and asked me if I was in charge of the group. I said I was. She told me one of my kids threw a rock and broke a window in her establishment. As the lunatic cowboy ran amok through the laundromat, I grabbed one of my staff and instructed them to have all the kids pack their stuff and get on the bus. The laundry was becoming a side note to the situation as Mullet Cowboy was starting to concern me. She said it was one of the soccer playing kids, so I rounded those kids up and questioned them about it. All of them said that they didn't do it to the point where they had no idea there was even an Arby's in the parking lot.

I told the woman that my kids said they didn't do it and I trusted them. This woman, however, did not trust them. She wanted to see what the kids would have to say to the police. While the staff was occupied by the laundromat fiasco and I was with the kids sitting on the curb while on the phone with the program director, trying to figure out what to do next.

It was bad enough being separated from the group, but when the cops arrived, they began to question the kids one at a time while taking down their names and hometowns. All of the kids repeatedly denied picking up any rock in the parking lot. When the cops stepped aside with the woman from Arby's, the kids again pleaded to me that they didn't do anything. After all six had been talked to, one of the cops pulled me off to the side and asked when we were leaving. I told him we were driving to Denver first thing in the morning. He said "That's right," as if we were leaving only because he decreed it.

Dismissed by the police, the six boys ran back to the laundromat to see what was going on. They had a late start gathering their clothes from the machines and getting back on the bus. The Arby's woman threw her arms up in the air and began yelling at the police, at which point I thought it wise to make my exit as well.

When we returned to the hotel, I had the group stay on the bus momentarily while I had a word with the front desk. I spoke slow and calm, like a man about to snap, because at this point I didn't know if I would cry or spontaneously combust. I discussed with them the situation we were put in, including the fact that they were the ones who recommended the laundromat. The hotel graciously offered up their two industrial dryers. It wasn't ideal, but it was our best option - everyone would have their clothing dried together in two giant sized dryers, one of whites and one of colors.

Throughout the whole ordeal the kids were great. They complied with each step of that night, no matter how horrible it got. One by one, they brought their bags of wet clothing through the back corridors of the hotel, through all the service areas until reaching the terribly humid housekeeping area. The manager explained what had happened to the staff and both dryers were emptied. The kids emptied their bags into the machines and returned to the group room for evening services.

On the way through the courtyard I was approached by one kid away from the rest of the group. He needed to tell me something. As soon as he looked at me I knew exactly what he was going to say: he was the one who threw the rock. My instinct proved to be right as he timidly confessed.

I wanted to yell. I wanted to scream. I wanted to react at all, but after the day we had been through, I didn't have the energy. I also knew there was a specific chain of command that had to be followed before issuing any disciplinary action on the trip, so I couldn't do anything on the spot. Instead I used the only method I had free range to use: guilt. I mentioned to him that six innocent of his friends were being questioned by the police for no reason while he sat on the bus and watched.

Following the end of evening services I addressed the group with the same demeanor which I had talked to the front desk. It bordered between breakdown and calm. I told them the plan was for them to head up to their rooms for the night while the staff dealt with the laundry issue. There would be a slightly earlier wake up call in order to take care of dividing up the clothes. Then we'd pack the bus, drive to Denver and pretend like this night never happened.

The laundry was finally done about an hour later. The staff brought it to our group meeting room using huge bins. We stayed up for hours sorting it out. The task was large and we tiptoed towards delirium. We assigned tables in the meeting room for each variety of clothing: one for shirts, one for socks, another shorts, and one for other things, like towels. There was one last table for girlie things that we didn't (and I'm sure they didn't) want laying out in public view. We covered the items with a table cloth.

Some of the kids woke up even earlier than we had told them to in hopes of finding their stuff before the rush. The room resembled people rummaging through the results of a natural disaster. Poking through the shirts, checking tags for their names and trying to find what belonged to them. Some things were surely destroyed because the heat was too high or they were delicate, but nobody complained to me.

The summer had been great and drama free up until the point we got the donuts, so we attributed the bad luck to us receiving them. Before the ride to Denver, we stacked the remaining donuts in the corner, hopefully leaving behind our bad fortune for good.

The Blessing of the Donuts

2009-07-10T10:00:00.012-04:00

During the summer of 2005 I was the group leader of a USY on Wheels trip. It started out like any other night of the trip. I arranged for the group attend a baseball game on July 6th - the Kansas City Royals were playing the Seattle Mariners at Kauffman Stadium in KC. Seeing as most of the kids on the trip were from the north east, I wanted them to be able to experience baseball somewhere out of the Eastern Time Zone. At the time, the Mariners and Royals were the two absolute worst teams in baseball, so if anything, this was going to be a treat. The game went as expected - close score, very few extra base hits, sub-par pitching - but in the bottom of the 8th inning, everything changed.

The Royals had logged their 11th hit and the stadium began to stir. Being out-of-towners, we didn't have a clue why Homer Simpson's face appeared on the jumbo-tron. I asked one of the security guards what the fuss was, and he said that every time the Royals got twelve hits, everyone with a ticket stub won a free dozen doughnuts from Krispy Kreme. Suddenly the crowd was invested in the game again. There were two outs in the inning when back up catcher Jack Buck stepped to the plate and nailed a double in the gap for hit number 12.

The crowd went ballistic. This probably did not happen so often, being that the Royals sported a record of 27 wins and 55 losses. (Further research indicated the Royals achieved this feat 15 times in the 2005 season.) Who wouldn't be excited about the promise of a dozen overly sweet tasty treats. My kids were psyched and I was excited for all of us. Then the math kicked in. 48 kids + 5 staff + 1 driver meant we had 54 people. 54 people x 12 donuts = 648 donuts.

The group had an early ride to Grand Island, Nebraska the next day. It was nowhere near our longest drive of the summer, so an early wake up time would allow us to claim the donut prize. I decided to call ahead to the local Krispy Kreme before going over. They said they would surely honor the ticket stub rule. When I told them the numbers, the lady on the phone had a mild freak out. From my end of the phone it sounded like when a submarine commander was preparing the ship to dive. She managed to calm herself down and asked us to give them at least 20 minutes.

When we got there, I walked in first. I told the lady we had arrived and they had several dozen prepared. I went back to the bus and told the kids that this would be done in an orderly fashion. I felt bad for the staff of the shop so I encouraged the kids to get drinks even though I knew it would make us have an early bathroom stop during our drive.

The site of 648 donuts was intimidating and there were lots of pictures taken to back up that theory. The staff wore paper Krispy Kreme hats. Everyone had one or two (except for the girl with the gluten allergy) and we had a good laugh about the situation. During the course of the day, one girl ate 30 or so after being egged on by some other kids. Looking back, we should have found a place to donate at least two-thirds of them, but at the time we were all blinded by a combination of gluttonous thoughts and pride in claiming our reward from the night before.

We got back on the bus riding our sugar highs. As we began our drive, many of us drifted off to a morning nap, our stomachs were full and feeling happy. Nobody could have known what was waiting for us five hours down the road.

To be continued...

The Fastest way from Toronto to Syracuse is not through Philadelphia

2009-07-03T10:00:00.012-04:00

Two friends from my own 1998 Wheels bus were getting married during my summer as a Wheels group leader. It was on July 3rd and my trip would be in Toronto, fairly close to their Syracuse wedding. I convinced the powers that be to let me take 24 hours off to attend the wedding. My friend David, a former Wheels group leader offered to come in and cover for me during the 24 hours I was gone. The plan was to meet back up with the group in Chicago the next day.

The first thing I learned was that a flight directly from Toronto to Syracuse did not exist. They were right across Lake Ontario from each other, but there was no way to find a flight that didn't go through somewhere entirely out of the way. It would have probably been more direct to take the four and a half hour bus ride, but I wanted to get their as fast as I could.

I had an early flight out of Toronto through Washington DC. I got through customs and was waiting by the gate when the flight was canceled due to plane mechanics. It was certainly an inconvenience, but I'm sure it would have been more so if the pilot decided to chance it and the mechanics became a problem mid-air.

I had to go back out to the main ticketing area and attempt to find a new way to Syracuse. At this point it was nearly 10:00 a.m. and the wedding began promptly at 5:00 p.m. I was supposed to originally land there at 1:00 pm, get picked up and have time to hang out with some of my old friends, but that was looking very unlikely.

Already had gone through customs. Had to come back out and go again later.

I was put on a 12:00 flight to Philadelphia, PA. I would arrive around 1:35 pm. The only flight to Syracuse was at 3:00, but since it was with a different airline, I had to pick up my back and re-check it before getting on the plane. I had no other choice but to comply even though arriving 40 minutes before the wedding started was going to be tough to pull off.

Visual Aid! Toronto to Philadelphia to Syracuse.
The plane touched down in Syracuse at 4:25 and I instantly grabbed my phone. I tried to plead with all my friends who were in town for the wedding. I hoped one of them had rented a car and could get me. Unfortunately, the synagogue wasn't right in the middle of Syracuse, it was out in a suburb called Manlius, about 20 miles away. All of my friends were already dressed and on their way there. My roommate had brought my suit with her from California and I told her to bring it to there and hang it in the coat room.

As we waited to deboard a couple in the row behind me asked if everything was alright. I told them the short, flustered version of my day. As it turns out they knew Jaclyn's father and wished me luck on my journey.

I ran ahead to the cab stand but none of them could understand what I meant nor did they seem to want to drive out to the suburbs. I hung up the phone, starting to feel defeated when the same couple from the plane approached me again. They offered me a ride and said it was only a little out of their way. I offered them money and they declined. They also declined the next offer of me naming my first born child after them.

We pulled up to the shul at 4:51 pm. All of the formally dressed guests were arriving and here I was, a 23 year old sweaty mess wearing jean shorts, a t-shirt and a baseball cap. I arrived at the door the same time as my roommate happened to be walking up. I yelled at her "I got here before you! Will explain later, where's my suit?" She told me it was in the coat room. I grabbed it and ran into the tiny synagogue men's room.

In the next five minutes I felt extremely fortunate that nobody entered the two-stall men's room to find me in my underwear changing into a suit. I splashed water on my face and threw on some extra deodorant before throwing my other clothes in a duffel bag and hiding it in the coat room. I sat down at 4:57 for the wedding. By the time the reception rolled around, my heart rate had slowed and I had finally stopped sweating. It was a great night.

I ended up staying in Syracuse for less than 14 hours, with a flight that left the next morning around 6:00 am. I was meeting back up with my group in Chicago, which, out of Syracuse meant a connecting flight in Washington D.C. I landed at O'Hare, took a cab to the Museum of Science and Industry and proceeded to fall asleep on a bench waiting for them to arrive.

Happy 4th Anniversary Ben & Jaclyn and congratulations on baby Ari!

Which one is Zack?

2009-06-26T10:00:00.020-04:00

Nobody could find Zack anywhere. All we had to do was give him a phone message. The message was cryptic - it just said "I'm home okay" - but nobody could locate the kid. I walked up and down the New York City dinner cruise boat looking for Zack, one of the 48 kids on my Wheels bus in 2002. It was only the second day of the trip and there were four buses (about 200 kids) on the boat - finding him was no easy task. I met up with one of my co-staff members and we both shrugged our shoulders. We tried to remember what he looked like but the only detail in my mind was that he was wearing a University of North Carolina hat. It takes a while to have every kids name and face memorized.

The boat docked and we put 97.9% of our kids back on the bus. The group leader stayed off for the time being, cell phone pressed against his ear. Next to him was the program director, also on her phone. All of the kids might as well have had their noses pressed against the glass watching this mess unfold.

Then the police showed up. It was logical - a group gets on a boat cruise with 48 kids and returns with 47. Though I probably couldn't pick him out of a line up, I hoped he wasn't dead.

Earlier that day Zack had pulled another vanishing act. During a visit to the Museum of Natural History we gave the kids free reign, provided they met back at a certain time. Zack, an NYC native, spent a little time in the museum before sliding out one of the side doors, hopped on a subway train and went to a friends house. He returned in time for check in none of us the wiser.

Confident over his afternoon success, he bragged to a few of the other kids, saying he could probably skip the boat cruise and nobody would notice. He went on to say he didn't even want to be on the trip and he was sent there as punishment. As prior to any activity, the kids lined up and we counted them, reaching our desired total of 48. We began to walk down the dock, but Zack dropped back, hid in the bathroom until we were gone and hopped a train uptown to his Uncle's house. Once there he phoned the office to let us know where he was and that he had arrived okay. Considering we might panic, this was a thoughtful gesture. Unfortunately the office heard this as a message to Zack, not from Zack, resulting in all the evenings events being set in motion.

As the cops showed up and discussed the very real idea of dragging the river, our group leader received a phone call from Zack's mom. She had originally had no idea where he was and was freaking out when we first contacted her. Eventually on her list of emergency contacts, she reached the same Uncle's house where fled to. We now had a dilemma: the group had to head back to our hotel in New Jersey and get ready to drive to Boston the next morning. What would happen to Zack - his status on the trip and his luggage that still resided in the Jersey hotel.

"Leave his stuff in Jersey," his mom said, "we'll come get it. He's not going on the trip."

Judging by her comments she had come to a realization that this trip would not serve as a good punishment for someone. If he didn't want to be there he would find a way not to be there. In the years that followed, the staff began to make ID cards with kids pictures and names. These are one of the first things made in the pre-trip week. Before they are distributed to the kids, the staff uses them as study aides to memorize who is who before actually meeting them for the first time. I think we might have played a big role in why the ID card studying became such common practice.

Death to Bouncy Balls

2009-06-19T10:00:00.015-04:00

During my years staffing USY on Wheels I had the best summer job in the world. Unfortunately, I finished my classes during school the last week of April and Wheels didn't begin until the second or third week of June. That was an eternity. I went to a temp agency in Hamden, hoping to earn some money for the trip. That and my parents didn't want me doing nothing for five weeks. I was fine with that, but ended up losing that argument.

I aced the typing test and did well in the interviews, but there was nothing available. I couldn’t understand why nobody wanted a smug 19-year-old. It took another week to find a job for me at Blue Cross/Blue Shield. It sounded okay - a known company where I would probably be doing some computer related task.

Nope. The temp agency thought I'd be perfect for a job in their warehouse.

I showed up for my humbling first day and was told about my job. There were Health Care expos across the state that Blue Cross had involvement in. The warehouse stocked all their literature - brochures, booklets, pamphlets and other information. The presenters at each expo would call in the amount they needed, and we would fill the order. It seemed simple enough.

Just like any health expo, job fair, college fest or car show - it wasn't the information that drew people in, it was the free stuff. Key chains, buttons, coozies - this is why people would humor you and listen. I know this first hand as my father used to go to conventions and return suitcases full of swag. Pens, fun shaped tablets of paper, hats and chachkies all with the drug company's name and logo. Once he came home with gallbladder and stomach action figures.

This year, Blue Cross would hand out bouncy balls. Not just any, the kind that triggered a small red light to illuminate when you bounced them. There were hundreds of cases of these balls. When you opened a box, each ball was individually wrapped in plastic, like a happy meal toy. The powers that be were furious about this. The idea was for the balls to be free inside the box so the average consumer wouldn't have to struggle with a plastic wrap. Upon being introduced to the balls, I realized that this would be my main job. I was to open each box, cut out each ball, throw away the wrapper, place the ball back inside and reseal the box.

I forget the break down of how many boxes there were, but at the time I calculated somewhere between 70 and 75 thousand balls. That’s 75,000 red lights, all triggered by the slightest touch. I could see those lights when I closed my eyes. I could see them in my sleep. I later learned that I was the fourth person that the temp agency sent and the only one who lasted more than one day – one guy didn’t even make it through his lunch break.

The thought of quitting entered my mind but I didn’t have a choice in the matter. My dad dropped me off in the morning and picked me up each night. I survived the job by dragging the task to a snail's pace. It was a six week sentence for a job that could have probably been finished in two if I was focused or monitored. I made the most of my breaks. The only other employee in the warehouse was the delivery driver and I got to have a break for every cigarette he smoked. I used all of my breaks to read. By the end of my time at the job I had finished nearly five books.

Occasionally there would be a large delivery that would require an extra hand and I got to head out on the road with the driver. We would make small talk while I attempted to stick my head out the window to avoid his second hand smoke. During one long drive, he revealed that he just got out of prison and I was convinced I was in imminent danger.

"As soon as you get in there, you stab someone," he warned me, "and finish the job, or else you'll look like a punk."

I silently nodded back to him as if I was taking mental notes. The only thing I noted was not to anger this man who I shared a truck cabin with, miles from anyone I knew. When the subject changed to NASCAR I was able to breathe again, even though all I knew were Dale Earnhardt jokes my college friends told. He asked who my favorite driver was and I quietly said Dale.

“The Intimidator,” he laughed. “Good man.”

It must have been the right answer because two days later I received a Dale Earnhardt pen that he got from "a guy who got them cheap." All in all, he was a pretty nice guy for an alleged murderer.

The job was easy, the pay was alright, and I probably wouldn't have found anything else to occupy my time before my real summer job. I took a couple of the bouncy balls as a souvenir. As soon as I got home that night, I took the drivers advice and stabbed a ball with a pair of scissors. I pulled it apart, ripped out the light and smashed it with a hammer. I didn't want to look like a punk.

Driving Phyllis Diller

2009-06-12T10:00:00.007-04:00

I landed my first job in Los Angeles through a friend working on a movie set. It was an unheard of independant movie that went nowhere, but it was filming on the Universal lot, which was a big thrill for me. This was before I worked for the company for four years, so the excitement of living and working in Hollywood was still very much a factor.

I was able to drive on to the lot and park behind the house from Psycho. I waved to passing studio tours because for all they knew, I was somebody. The location had all the glamour of Hollywood, but the job itself saw me locked up in a stuffy old trailer making photocopies. The first day I worked nearly fifteen hours for an hourly wage that was not near worth the amount of work I was doing. At this time I was living my terrible USC subletted apartment, so at the end of each day I had to drive all the way back there.

The job was wearing me down after only a few days. I think it was obvious, because one of the slightly higher ups offered me a chance to do something different: go pick up one of the stars and drive them back to the set. Higher budget movies would probably use a town car service, but this one was going to wow the talent with my 1995 Toyota Camry.

With my yahoo map print out in hand, I headed towards the familiar address. I later learned that it was familiar because it was the same street as the OJ Simpson murders. I pulled into the driveway and pressed the button on the intercom, informing her that I was here to take her to the set. The gates slowly swung open and I pulled into the turnaround. I got out of the car and put on the biggest smile I could. Out came Phyllis Diller and her daughter (and/or manager). As I started to head back to the drivers side, I realized she stopped at the passenger side and I needed to open the door for her. It felt like a monumental mistake, but this was my first time, so I tried to shake it off.

As she got into my car, she did not scoot in far enough, leaving just enough of her backside in the way of the door closing. I attempted to close it as gently as I could, thinking it was set. When I sat down and began driving, everything seemed cool, until I noticed the door ajar light was on. I couldn't bare to pull over and say "I'm sorry I forgot to close the door." I had too much pride and did not want to lose my job. Plus, she would think I was a moron, which, as it turns out, I was.

I continued to go as if my Grandmother was riding in the car with me. She can't tolerate any speeds above 30 or even the slightest bumps. The ride took us over the Sepulveda pass on the 405 and on to the 101 back to Universal. A ride that normally took 15 minutes at mid-day ended up taking nearly twice that. Neither of them noticed anything, spending the entire ride trying to figure out how to program Phyllis' new cell phone.

During the entire drive my head was swimming with thoughts of her falling out of the car on to the highway. It would be a very detrimental black mark on my resume if during my first job I ended up killing a comedy living legend.

We made it to the lot and through the security check point. I jumped out and sped around the car to open the door for her. I was trying to make up for not opening the door for her in the first place and I also didn't want her leaning on it to find out it was open. As it turns out, the door had latched just not fully shut, so it wouldn't have opened all the way.

Later that week I declined an offer to pick up Henry Winkler, fearing that something terrible might happen to one of my alma mater's favorite alumni. I left the job a few days before production ended in order to start working at Universal full time in the theme park.

Post Script:
Okay, as I was looking into the movie for this blog entry, I found out that not only did it finally get distribution and a release date, the release date is today, June 12, 2009. It seems purely coincidental that the movie is hitting theaters nearly five years to the date that I actually worked on the set. I would have never even known about it if not for a random googling to check some of the movie details.

See for yourself: http://www.unbeatableharold.com/

Student of the Month

2009-06-05T10:00:00.004-04:00

There are eleven schools in my beloved hometown of Hamden. One high school, one middle school and nine elementary schools. Once a month, each school selects someone who embodies everything they are looking for in an ideal student. Those students get to attend a special ceremony at the Board of Education office where they are awarded a certificate and get to meet the Superintendent of schools. Parents come and take pictures, there is a small reception afterwards, it's all very nice.

I won this award in December of my Senior year of high school. As a result, I had to sit at the front of the room with a 12 year old girl and nine elementary school kids while the Superintendant, Dr. Alida Begina (seriously), talked about how proud she was of everyone. It was a little awkward because I had already been accepted to college, not to mention that I was the only student with sideburns.

The best part was when the Superintendent went down the line, asking each student what their favorite flavor of ice cream was. It was very cute when a first grader took a long time to think of their answer or a third grader said knew exactly what they liked right away. I could tell the she was aware of the silly turn that the ceremony took when it came time to ask me. I was several inches taller than her and being the smartass that I was, I said "Chunky Monkey." Dr. Begina didn't know what that was, so I had to explain all of the ingredients.

All I could do was laugh to myself. The entire presentation was geared towards the younger kids, who had earned their accolades by making a great diorama or reading very, very well. I never really found out who nominated me or for what reason, but I did get a gift certificate for an ice cream cone (the survey question tied in nicely), a bumper sticker for my parents (I'm Proud of my Hamden Student of the Month) and certificate to hang on the fridge.

Tank Top Currency

2009-05-29T10:00:00.011-04:00

For the first part of the summer of 2003 I interned with a movie promotions agency in Boston. We sent out passes and occasionally put on promotional events where we got rid of our mountains upon mountains of movie swag. During that summer, one of the hotly anticipated movies was Legally Blonde 2: Red White and Blonde. The office was littered with cases of tank tops, miniature nail files, fans and other relatively useless bright pink items.

The good news was that the movie came out July 2nd, just two weeks after the Boston Gay Pride Parade. In a genius move, myself and some of the other interns were dispatched to the Boston Gay Pride Parade to promote the movie. We would set up a small booth on the Commons and people stopped by to browse and grab things they wanted.

It was very hot, so many people weren't wearing even wearing shirts, nonetheless our shirts were going over very well. Everyone needed to have one. The good news was we had several dozen large boxes of them at our table. There was no way we would ever run out, I mean, how many people at a gay pride parade would want a Legally Blonde shirt?

As more and more people reached the Boston Common where we were stationed, the shirt stash began to dwindle and the demand for them became greater. It was like the end of It's a Wonderful Life, when the townspeople crowd the bank asking for their money. A few of us grabbed what we could and went out amongst the people, handing them out to anyone who wanted them. In short order, we were running down to the last of our supply.

A short overly tanned man without a shirt on asked for the shirt that I was wearing and the crowd cheered. Immediately I turned red, but still gave him the shirt. I think the fact that I was wearing a t-shirt that said "Hulk" underneath didn't do me any favors with that crowd.

Thankfully I had put one away for myself before the event, or I wouldn't have been able to take this lovely picture yesterday after coming across the shirt amongst my regular undershirts.

Two Yutes

2009-05-22T10:00:00.021-04:00

This weekend I'm headed to Alabama for my cousin's wedding. The last time I was in Alabama was during my drive out to California in January 2004.

I had left Connecticut and picked up my friend Justin in Maryland two days before. We had a stopover in Atlanta and were now coasting down I-65 somewhere between Mobile, Alabama and the Mississippi state line. We had just completed an unplanned stopover at the Tuskegee University Book Store to get souvenirs. We were now in a very rural area with a lot of trees, bushes and obvious speed traps. It turned into a game, seeing who could find them first without trying not to stare for too long.

Until we did. Both of us turned to look at a gap in the foliage the exact same time, making long eye contact with the two state troopers attempting to hide out in their cruiser. The stare lingered, then we both turned back towards the road. The troopers pulled out right behind us.

In my mind I thought they had received a distress call, that they had somewhere to be. I thought it best to clear the path for them, so at my earliest convenience, I merged to the next lane over to the right. As soon as we merged, the lights came on and we were pulled over.

We weren't speeding. We possessed nothing illegal. I suppose our only crime was driving a car with Connecticut plates through Alabama. The first trooper came to the window and asked for both of our licenses. He was very short and asked if we knew why he pulled us over. We told him that we honestly did not.

"You were following too close," he explained, "You have to be ten feet back for every ten miles per hour." It seemed unfair since we only moved out of the way to let him by, but there was no way I was going to argue about it with an Alabama State Trooper.

The first cop took our info and went to run the license information, at which point a second cop suddenly appeared at Justin's window and spit a mouthful of chewing tobacco on the ground, some of it tailing down the side of the car. "Where ya headed?" he asked us for the second time.

"L.A.," I replied, then clarifying "Los Angeles" as not to be confused with Louisiana's postal abbreviation. I told him the story of us driving there for my last semester of school. I don't remember the exact wording but there were a lot of "yes, sir" and "no, sir" involved. He asked why we weren't in school right now (semester break). It was the first week of January, and he couldn't understand that we would be on vacation. Why was someone going with me if he wasn't going to school (to split driving and have company). How was he getting home if I was keeping the car (catching a flight back). There was a debate for several minutes over who the car belonged to. Most of these seemed to be standard, if not unnecessary questions to try and stumble upon some trouble that didn't exist.

He asked where we both went to school. Justin said Maryland and I said Emerson. He lit up and asked "Then why is there a Brandeis sticker on the car?" He looked smug, thinking he finally caught us in the lie he was hoping for. I explained that it had once belonged to my sister.

"If you're not staying out in California, how are you getting back?" Justin explained that he was flying back to the east coast afterwards. To make sure our story checked out, he asked to see Justin's flight information. I guess his alternate goal was to divide us up and question us alone. The flight info was in his suitcase in the driver's side back seat. To retrieve it, Justin had to pull his whole suitcase out into the road towards oncoming traffic.

The first cop came back to the car and talked to me while Justin was stuck with the tough guy. Both asked us the same questions. It started with "How well do you know this boy?" We both gave the same answer, "pretty well."

"How long have you known him?" It turns out we both said "about eight years." The whole situation was turning in to a bizarre version of the Newlywed Game. We were very excited to find out we gave the same answer because we didn't actually know the exact time table or have any time to rehearse.

"Ever seen him do any drugs," my cop asked me. "No."

"Got any drugs on you," Justin's cop asked him. "No," he said, "We're both 21 and we don't even have any beer."

"How 'bout marijuana?" No. Then he continued to ask about a long laundry list of various narcotics, to all of which Justin said no. The cop was not convinced.

"If I brought our dog over here, would he tell me anything different," Trooper #2 said sternly. Later Justin told me he was thinking how amazing it was that these cops had a talking dog, but it wasn't exactly the right time or place to unleash that comment.

"Carrying any weapons?" Justin said no. At this point I saw Justin through the rear view mirror appearing to get patted down by his officer. The officer saw what he thought was a weapon. When Justin tried to reach for his pocket, the officer yelled "Stay where ya are," and the officer reached in to find out that this weapon was just his keys.

When they finally finished asking everything they could think of, we were let off with a warning. They wrote a pretty pink warning ticket for following too close. That's right, when I pulled over to let them by, during that five second increment, I was too close to the truck in front of me. The whole incident took about 45 minutes and Justin and I did not leave until the cops pulled away first. We didn't stop driving until we reached Mississippi, where we got out at the Visitor's Welcome Center and hugged.

(As a side note, during the interrogation, I received a call from the Los Angeles office I applied for an internship with. I frantically called back afterwards and explained why I couldn't answer the first time. We went back and forth with some quotes from My Cousin Vinny, because of the easy parallels. When I arrived for the interview, we reminisced about the story and I ended up getting the job.)

After a few days in Los Angeles I cleaned out the car and came across the actual written warning. The ticket actually said "following to close." He was probably so angry because he was never taught proper grammar.

Beacon of Hope

2009-05-15T10:00:00.009-04:00

My Accidental Rise up the College Newspaper Ladder

With zero journalism experience, halfway through my junior year I applied to be assistant Arts and Entertainment editor of Emerson's school paper, The Berkeley Beacon. Okay, I lied – I had some experience with the paper – I wrote a single semesters worth of terrible comic strips for the purpose of including secret coded notes to a girl I liked. It's hard to believe something equally intricate and nerdy didn’t work out. My newspaper career was over as quick as it had started. The attempt to reboot my journalistic self was due to the paper constantly getting free movie passes and the pretentiousness (and expense) of the film department. I figured as a film major it would be okay to lend my opinion to some movie reviews.

As I spent winter break staffing a USY convention in Orlando, major things were brewing at the newspaper office. It seems that the current Arts & Entertainment editor decided to transfer to a school closer to home, vacating her position. Nothing could have caught me more off guard than receiving a call I thought was about the assistant position and being offered section editor.

I accepted the position, ruffling a few feathers among the current staff, what with me not being a journalism student. Others were upset because they didn’t even know the position was open (neither did I). I switched one of my electives to be an introductory journalism course to learn the basics. Twenty-four eager freshmen and one out of place junior.

Once I got comfortable, I awarded myself a weekly column entitled "My Cleverly Titled Column," where I wrote about such important issues as television, what I wanted for my birthday and the state of professional wrestling. I went to a lot of press screenings, even those I had no intention of reviewing. There were meetings with celebrities in town promoting movies. I went to for personal reasons. Jack Black wished my sister happy birthday on the phone. Ridley Scott autographed a copy of Black Hawk Down for a friend. I was in a good place.

The semester flew by. Every Wednesday night we worked late hours in the office for the Thursday morning publication. The school paid for ten of us to attend a week long collegiate journalism convention in Seattle for spring break. I attended equal number of information sessions and press screenings. Most of the week focused on real news. The trip turned out to be more fun than learning, but when we came back to Boston it was back to work. By the time summer arrived, it was a much needed break from the weekly deadlines.

Three weeks before the summer ended I got a call from the new editor-in-chief. Both of the previous managing editors had graduated and the rest of the staff was all going to be sophomores or juniors. She offered me the position because I was going to be one of the only other seniors and I had come highly recommended from the previous editor. Now I was perfectly content to stay on and have another easy going semester watching movies and writing about anything I wanted. In the end, I took the position on the condition that I could still write for A&E when I wanted.

It was a lot more work, having to edit every article before it went for the final review with the chief. I wrote articles for news, editorial, sports, comics and lifestyle - basically every section that needed a fill in that week. When I moved to L.A. for my last semester, I wrote a few columns giving the west coast Emerson perspective, but eventually my involvement faded. A lot of my writing, including this blog is strongly influenced by the inexplicable year of my life where I accidentally became a journalist.

Art Wars

2009-05-08T10:00:00.012-04:00

Each year at ECA, the visual arts department students were required to complete one two dimensional class, one three dimensional class and one media class. For one of the quarters, you could do any of those a second time.

The problem here was that if you took two media classes and a two dimensional class then only one three dimensional class was offered, then you were stuck. My senior year that's precisely what happened in the third quarter.

Almost all of the seniors had taken the nude art class. Many of my friends and I took a video class after that. Since we couldn't do video twice, a lot of us got stuck with a mixed media design class in which we all work with the dance department for their upcoming recital. For some reason, the visual artists and dancers did not get along. It was just two different kinds of kids. Smiling, outgoing dancers and moody, cynical artists were not meant to befriend each other.

One time I was carrying a bucket of paint down the hall and a dancer, who happened to be flamboyantly swinging his arms, knocked into my bucket. He saw the tiny amount of paint that had gotten on his hand and began snapping at me that I better watch where I'm going and continued skipping down the hall. I just stared and waited for him to leave so I could laugh.

The goal of the class was for the dancers to create the choreography while we, the visual artists made costumes, set pieces and props. There were no real rules - the dancers would work with what we gave them. The paint bucket guy was in the class and I could not wait to make him look stupid.

The first costume idea was to have them look like flying squirrels. Full arm to leg leotards were equipped with excess spandex that was attached at the wrists and ankles. When the performer lifted their arms or kicked out their legs, the fabric would created a winged appearance.

One set piece involved giant plastic rectangles. Large wood frames were made with clear plastic wrap surrounding them. A performer would enter through a slit in the narrow side and push around the giant box from one end of the stage to the other.

For set design, I took large sheets of cardboard and cut them out free hand to create random animal shapes. Once they were done, I outlined them and painted them in a color that was not exactly spot on. There was a maroon monkey and a teal armadillo with a silver head. These were tied on strings and hung from the catwalks above the stage.

On the subject of the catwalks, the biggest and most outrageous piece dealt with that as well. My friend Trevor sketched an 10 foot robot that was hung from the grid above the stage. I'd say that 75% of it was the robot torso. The dancer would put on these wire framed pants and climb into the bottom of the robot, making the legs tiny in comparison. The robot had two 6 foot long arms that swung on pulleys which were also controlled by us from above.

I'm sure there was more to the class than that, but I remember this as the culmination of the departmental rivalry. The recital actually got canceled because of a blizzard and when it was rescheduled for a Sunday afternoon and I didn't even go. From what I heard, almost nobody did.

Minnie's Case of the Madness

2009-05-01T10:00:00.002-04:00

My former roommate Alicia was friends with a girl named Heather who in turn was roommates with another girl named Becca. Our two apartments were basically extentions of each other as we shared many similar interests and fun times together. No time was more fun than when the four of us teamed up to take on Minnie's Moonlit Madness.

Minnie's Moonlit Madness (or MMM for short, in order to preserve my dexterity) was a Disney company based competition that takes place every May on the hollowed ground of Disneyland. Only one of the team members needed to be a mouse house employee - Heather was our in, working in their DVD department. MMM combined a team's knowledge of trivia with the experience of a scavenger hunt inside the gates of the happiest place on earth.

Did I mention that all four team members were tethered together at all times using a rope? This added the unique challenge of being forced to stick close together. The only time people could unclip was for one of the designated restrooms or if a task required it. The bathrooms were monitored by a Disney employee. Any team caught unattached would be disqualified. The whole event was timed, which caused people to move at speeds that shouldn't be attempted while dragging three people with you. It was serious.

Anyone who knows me knows how much of a Disneyland maniac I am. I have read countless books on the park, I have the whole park soundtrack on my I-pod and went there at least a dozen times during my last full year living in southern California. Needless to say our team was excited for the competition - enough so to make matching team shirts with one of the "Lands" on the front. Heather was Frontier, Alicia was Adventure, Becca was Fantasy and I was Tomorrow.

In the pre-game application each team would choose the difficulty of their ten clues, ranging from hard to easy. Being novices, we opted for two or three hard and the rest were easy. The hard ones brought in more points, but well, they were also harder and we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

The Disney company closed the entire park at 6:00 for the event. We might have been at a disadvantage being from the Burbank offices, since many of the competitors were employees from the park. They would have the clear advantage of knowing more. Team captains signed in at the designated ticket booths and received their team packets. The envelopes contained team numbers, pens and pencils, a lanyard, a blank standardized testing bubble sheet, maps of every Disney park in the world and a flag of a foreign country. Our bib number was 216, which I thought was lucky, because at the time I had just started dating Lindy, and this was her Cleveland based area code.

Opening session took place in the Snow White theater. Minnie and a cast member explained the rules, followed by 50 rapid-fire multiple choice trivia questions ranging from theme parks to ESPN, basically anything that resided under the Disney company. Each question was only on the screen for a few seconds, so we tried writing down ones that we didn't know right away. A sample question: "Disneyland opened to the public on July 17, 1955. What day of the week was it?"

Disney voluntEARS (their pun, not mine) collected the answer sheets and all of the teams were instructed to head outside to Small World plaza. Each team was instructed to rope up as we were greeted by a video projection on to the front of It's a Small World. There was a long introduction which featured random clips of hundreds of Disney movies. The facade went dark and random International flags appeared on projected in various bubbles. We were given no instruction aside from "your first clue is at this location," just the flags. In front of each flag was a clue written in that country's native language. We had an Italian flag, so when I found that on the screen, I noticed two key words in our clue - "rosa" and "pizza". I didn't know what the other words meant, but I my context clues told me we should go to Red Rocket's Pizza Port, located in the center of Tomorrowland.

At this point it's important to mention there were nearly 300 groups, totalling 1200 people all jammed into one big Disney cul-de-sac. We attempted to navigate towards Tomorrowland, but there were at least 25 flags, so people were headed in every direction possible. Clusters of four were running into each other and getting tangled together. If another group was headed towards us I'd yell out which direction we'd take, in order to avoid a collision. When we made it, taped to the front of the restaurant door was a box with clues in it. We grabbed it and it had the answer, which we had to return to clue central, at the central hub of Main Street USA.

Each answer was only one word. These were figured out by completing a task or solving a complex puzzle. You wrote this word on an envelope and turned it in to clue headquarters to get the next clue. Some required you to venture into the park, others were mind puzzles you could sit down and do right there.

From there the night took off and everything was a blur. We darted all over the park, mostly in the Main Street/Fantasyland/Tomorrowland vacinity, never too far from the Matterhorn or Castle. Some of the more insanely detail oriented clues included:

A musical clue where teams were given sheet music and access to a keyboard. Thankfully Becca retained enough of her childhood piano prowess. She played the notes and we had to identify the movie which the song belonged in and take one indicated letter of the movie title. After doing this ten times, we had to unscramble all of the letters. The whole thing felt like when Andie had to play the giant bone organ in Goonies.

Walking up and down Main Street and looking at every single window display. Each display had a characters from a Disney movie with a book opened next to them. We had to read the paragraph on each book, answer a comprehension question and unscramble the clue from the fourth letter of each answer.

One clue said go to "Where 13 is lucky." We went with our first hunch and high tailed it to the Haunted Mansion and there was nobody there but a very confused janitor. It turned out we needed to find the place on the map numbered 13, which was the Coca Cola pavillion.

All of the International maps were used, including having to trace lines between landmarks located around EPCOT's lagoon. These lines would form certain letters which spelled our an answer. The clue only said "Italy, France, Mexico, Canada," which meant put your pen down at Italy, trace to France and so on. This one took us so long to figure out, the woman at the station practically gave us the correct method after we kept asking for hints.

Another clue took us to the Mad Tea Party, better known as the Teacups. We had to dash from cup to cup (not easy to do while tied together) and read a trivia question about Alice in Wonderland. The questions were written in a spiral, so we had to keep rotating in order to read them.

In the end, only the top 3 teams got prizes, which ranged from a cruise to hotel stays to dinners. If you weren't one of the winning teams, your results wouldnt be released until a few weeks down the road. We were all very shocked to learn that our team had come in 23rd place, the highest finish ever from someone in Heather's department. To this day her co-workers still talk to her about it.

We returned to the Madness in 2007 and came in 34th (or something close to that). I blame the drop in rank on the fact that it took place across the way at Disneyland's less popular cousin, California Adventure, and the theme was High School Musical.

The State of Autograph Seeking

2009-04-24T10:00:00.007-04:00

In the spirit of the recent DVD announcement, I thought I would share some experiences I had personally with each of the members of the mid-90's MTV comedy group, The State. My friend Jay gave me a copy of the groups book "State by State with the State," when we graduated college.

Late Late Show, Michael Ian Black's guest hosting - Various days in September 2006

Michael Ian Black, Ken Marino, Kerry Kinney, Thomas Lennon

The idea of autographs first popped into my head during the Late Late Show host audition process. Craig Kilborn had abruptly left and the vacant job would be decided after a series of test runs. When I found out one of the auditioners was Michael Ian Black, I knew I had to try and get him to sign the book. He did well in his first try and got invited back for the final process, in which four candidates did an entire week of shows. Thomas Lennon and Kerry Kinney came in to bits on the show, acting as fake experts in their fields. I believe Lennon brought out a kitten, or a similar animal but would only identify it as a tiger, or something it clearly wasn't. Kerry Kinney told me how people in Reno wrote nasty letters to the Reno 911 offices, saying they were upset it wasn't actually filmed in their city. The people knew it wasn't because of the palm trees that appeared in many shots, and there were no such trees in real Reno.

Ken Marino was on the production guest list, but just to visit and hang out in the green room. He was very outgoing and excited to be there. There was an X-Box and Playstation 2 in the green room, but he was one of the only ones to ever play it, even challenging me to Tiger Woods golf. When he saw I was in possession of the book, he offered to sign it before I could even ask. Then he sat down and re-read it, saying "I haven't seen a copy of this in years." Michael Ian Black was very busy doing work for the show, but right at that moment he came into the green room and Ken showed him the book. Michael said "I suppose you want me to sign it too," while looking just as shocked as Ken to see an actual copy of the book.

I had only thought I would get Michael Ian Black this week, but with four members of the group, my new goal was to get all ten who helped write the book (the eleventh member, Tood Holoubek left the group before the book was made).

Reno 911! Miami Movie Premiere, Mann's Chinese Theater - February 15, 2007

Joe Lo Truglio, Michael Patrick Jann, Robert Ben Garrant

Through a website that gave away tickets to advanced movie screenings, somehow I landed two tickets to the Hollywood Premiere of the Reno 911 movie. I thought it would be just another screening, but when the tickets printed out, they said Mann's Chinese Theater. After working in the promo screening business I knew people normally showed up early, and since this was special, I left work at 3:00 to get in line, State book in tow.

The line for the regular people was across the street from the theater, while the bigger names got to walk the red carpet. When they had all gone in, we were shuffled in through a security check point and then in a small side door. After that, we were on our own. Sure, our seats were assigned, but there were celebrities in the lobby, at the concession stands and in the theater. People were everywhere to the point where it probably deserves a separate blog entry, but as I was getting popcorn, I saw Joe Lo Truglio and Ken Marino walk in with their dates.

I didn't waste any time, walking right up to Lo Truglio and asking if he'd sign the book. He graciously did, but afterwards Ken Marino had a look on his face that said "what about me?" Sensing this, I opened to the front inside cover and said "Look, Ken, you already signed for me!" He noted this and said, "That's okay, I'll initial and date it to prove you met me again." In the midst of this, Michael Patrick Jann walked in, and while he was exchanging pleasantries with Lo Truglio and Marino I was able to get him to sign the book as well.

Right before the movie was to start, all of the Reno cast members were going to come in and do a speech. My seat was far enough back that I could see Robert Ben Garant waiting to walk in. I snuck by their security saying I had to go to the bathroom and handed him the book. This ambush led to one of the most regular notes any of the members wrote, "Nice to meet ya." Most of the others either just signed their name or wrote something funny, but catching Garant off guard may have startled him.

My autograph total now stood at seven. Three to go.

Wet Hot American Summer screening, NuArt Cinema - July 28, 2007

David Wain

The night of my ex-roommates birthday I saw there was a Wet Hot American Summer midnight screening at the NuArt Cinema. It was taking place a week before the release of David Wain's new movie, The Ten, hit theaters. The web site for the theater advertised Wain would be appearing, along with other special guests, so we had to go.

While waiting in line with several friends, Ken Marino walked out of the theater with flyers for The Ten. He stopped and talked to everyone in line, telling them to go see the movie. Though we were not allowed to go in the theater yet, Lindy and I went into the lobby to "use the bathroom," where we saw Marino standing with David Wain and Peter Salett (guitar dude from the movie).

Lindy was very excited because David Wain is from Shaker Heights, Ohio, just like her. When we walked up to him, she mentioned that and the fact that his father did the voice over work for her fathers radio ads when he ran for judge. David Wain did not really know what to say to this, but clearly was not as excited as she was. Nonetheless, he signed the book, took a picture with us. Marino sort of remembered the book by this point, and decided to initial it a second time, bringing his total to three.

Right as we took the picture, Marino let out a huge, raspy laugh, causing Lindy to crack up.

Wain complimented my shirt, which said "Rodeph Sholom Day Camp." I never went to this camp. I got the shirt at a thrift store years ago and decided it would be good for the screening.

Eight down, two to go.

The State Reunion Show, UCB Theater Los Angeles, March 19, 2008

Kevin Allison, Todd Holoubeck

By the time I heard about the State reunion show at UCB West, it was already sold out. Truth is, that theater is so small, there would be no way to get tickets unless you knew someone on the inside, especially for an event like this. I heard through the grapevine that there would be a small number of stand by tickets available. The two shows were at 8:00 and 10:00. I got to the line at 3:30 in the afternoon, and there were five people in front of me.

I met a girl named Sara and her friend while waiting in line. Sara had flown in from Chicago. They were huge fans and we had some good conversation while waiting for them to let people in. When the ticketed people began showing up for the 8:00 show, things looked grim. There was not room for a single person in the stand by line, so we would be outside in the rainy weather for another two hours. We did see several known comedians and "Weird Al" Yankovic go in to the show, which was pretty awesome.

When the crowd exited the first show, everyone loved it. The ticketed people for the second show began to go in. At that point, the stand by line went all the way around the corner. One guy tried to draw his own hand stamp on and got past the door man, causing the stand by line to go ballistic. All of us had seen him do this and knew he could be taking our seat away.

In the end, the first ten or fifteen people got in to the show, and it was great. The whole group, aside from Showalter and Black were there, but they sent in a video skit to play. Since we were in the later show, there was no rush to leave afterwards. We stayed in our seats and the cast began to hang out on stage drinking some beers. I casually walked up on to the stage and chatted with a few of the cast members before making a direct path to Kevin Allison. I told him about my quest and he said he would gladly sign. He had been especially difficult to get because he rarely leaves New York. Todd Holoubek even signed it, even though he had nothing to do with the book. Before I left, I went up to Ken Marino one last time. He initialed and dated the book for a third time.

Stella Live, Comedy Connection Boston, December 11, 2008

Michael Showalter

This was it, the white whale. It had been 9 months since my last autograph and I was losing hope. Days and weeks before the show, random facebook photos had been popping up for other stops on the tour which showed the three guys signing autographs. I knew I had to bring the book.

At this point in the history of my book, everyone had signed one page, making it kind of cluttered. The page opposite it was completely blank, so I would tell Michael to sign there, rather than squeeze in somewhere else.

The minute the show ended, I jetted out to the autograph table and was the first one in line. People began to line up behind me as we waited for the guys to push through the crowd. They sat down and I walked right up to Showalter and said "You're the last one I need," and told him he could have the entire page. He drew a large picture on it and wrote "From Mike S."

So there it is, in all it's glory. My quest was complete, three years after it began. I would have never been able to do this without living in L.A. and having some of the jobs that I did out there. Maybe my new quest will be to get them all to autograph the DVD when it comes on July 14th.

Putting Her Best Foot Forward

2009-04-17T10:00:00.008-04:00

When you’re dating someone long distance every aspect of the relationship gets put into a time warp. Sometimes the only times you’re able to see each other can overlap with other events. Since seeing the other person is already so rare, you’ll take what you can get. I guess that’s how Lindy ended up meeting my parents after only having been dating for five months. Even as I say we had been dating for five months, I have to clarify that during that time we had only been together about five or six times. The whole first year was a whirlwind.

I had already been planning to come home for Rosh Hashanah and I invited her to come home with me. The logic behind it was that a trip from Chicago to Connecticut would be a lot cheaper than going to Los Angeles.

The visit went fine. Everyone loved her. On our last night there, the conversation somehow moved to my high school art projects. I started talking about a couple of them and Lindy wanted to see. My mom told us they were stored up in the attic.

Lindy had been in attics before, but only ones that were furnished. My parent’s attic was far from furnished. It was a glorified storage space, a museum of childhood relics and old clothes. It was arranged so there is a small pathway around perimeter of the floor, with all of the stored items in the center. To get to my artwork, we had to walk the entire pathway to the furthest corner.

Among my work was my six foot Pez dispenser, some paintings and the main portfolio, which was what we were searching for. I showed Lindy a few items, stopping to remember and retell the stories behind them. I turned back to further rummage through the portfolio for one specific painting. After finding it, I turned around and Lindy was gone. I looked left and right, but didn't see her until I looked down.

There she was, sitting down with her left leg stuck through the attic floor. I hadn't noticed whatsoever because she did not make a sound. Even when I grabbed her and pulled her back up to a standing position, she was still in a silent shock. There was a foot wide hole in the floor and we could now peer into my sisters bedroom.

After making sure she was okay, I whispered in her ear "someday, people will tell this story at our wedding," as I laughed outloud. I then turned towards the staircaise and yelled "Daaaaaad!" while still hugging her, unintentionally screaming in her ear. My dad ran upstairs and yelled out as soon as he stepped into my sisters room.Everyone's initial reaction was to find out if she was okay, which she was. One step further to the left and she would have gone through completely, most likely dislodging my sisters ceiling fan and landing on her bed. The events of that night led to Lindy's mom and my mom speaking on the phone for the first time. Lindy's mom offered to pay for the damages, but my mom wouldn't let her because it was just a simple accident.

Once things calmed down, we watched Glory Road, but I don't remember anything about the movie. Everyone was too busy making comments about the hole, and Lindy was a tremendous sport about the whole thing.

"Nice of you to drop in," said my sister.

"That's putting your best foot forward," said my father.

"You really made an impact," said my mother.

Looking from the attic to Lindy and my sister, in her bedroom.

The full view under a ladder.

My dad ended up temporarily patching the hole using a piece of wire tied to a ruler. He thread the ruler and then pulled the wire to close the two pieces of sheetrock that were sticking down into the room. After shaking all the dust from my sisters comforter, it was good as new. You can see the handywork in the following photo:

Today is the three year anniversary of when we realized that this whole thing was just crazy enough to work. Sure it was long distance for over two years, but now we're living together. The waiting excruciating but it was also worth it and I could not love her more. If you have doubts about long distance relationships, please know that it can work.

Just stay out of the attic.

A Few More Eggs

2009-04-10T10:00:00.007-04:00

Growing up, Passover was always about time with family and food. There were so many great things that we only had once a year, but there were also times when we didn't look forward to it. When I was 3 and my sister was 5, we didn't care for any of the breakfast options provided for us. My Mom tried to create breakfast foods for my sister and I - eggs, Matza Brei , cream cheese on Matza - we wouldn't eat anything. We were used to having cereal every day, or occasionally waffles, pancakes or eggs. How were we supposed to last a whole week without our precious breakfast treats.

This was back before the days of boxed cake mix being plentiful. The cereal options were disgusting and we were finicky matzoh-ed out children. My mom was able to get past all this and figure out a solution. She took my Grandma Betty's beautiful sponge cake, sliced it up and soaked it in egg and turned them into Passover french toast.

What you have to understand about this recipe is that like many items cooked over the week, it already contained twelve eggs. The idea of soaking the cake in more eggs and frying it was delicious, but hardly the healthiest idea. That didn't matter at the time - we were kids and we weren't eating anything, so she did what she had to do. In less than a week the entire cake was gone and everything was fine.

Until my Mom casually mentioned to Grandma what she had done.

"You did WHAT?"

Grandma was not happy that her precious sponge cake had been defiled, no matter how ingenious the idea was. She was shocked that it was used to "make breakfast". These were famous cakes that were baked in mass. My father, aunt and uncle used to come home from school to find dozens of them laid out on their beds. In the end Grandma Betty got over it, probably because my Mom was able to recreate the cake so well on her own. She continued to make the cake for us each year, and we loved it in it's original form as well. To this day my mother makes the cake using Grandma Betty's recipe and her cake pan.

How Many Times Can I Use the Word Balls?

2009-04-03T10:00:00.012-04:00

Freshman year in college by its nature is a time where you do a lot of stupid things. My freshman experience was no exception to the rule. I lived in a suite with four other guys. I shared a double with Dave, the other double was occupied by Rob and Chris, and in the rare freshman single was Josh.

One afternoon I was up in my room and got a phone call from Josh. I was still a year away from owning a cell phone, so it was on our dorm land line. He said he needed help with a couple of packages he received today. In college it's a great feeling to open your mailbox and have a package slip inside. It's a feeling of knowing someone cares about you enough to send something big. This happened so infrequently that it was always a big deal when you got one. I didn't think anything of it because his birthday was that coming weekend, but when I got down to the mail room, nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

Ball pit balls, as it turns out, is the official name for them, and we had five full boxes. (This picture is a little inaccurate as his came in groups of 50, but it's the best I could find.) That's two-hundred and fifty little plastic balls of various colors.

When we got to the common area of our suite, we opened all five boxes at once and poured them amidst our living room. Our hopes of a thick sea of plastic balls, a la a McDonalds Play Place were quickly dashed. Our college-issued couch had large wooden sides that went from the arm rest to the ground, leaving a big gap underneath. Many of the balls rolled free and resided below it, making it hard to retrieve them. The dream of being able to hide or sit in amongst the balls was nothing like the reality, a sparsely covered linoleum floor.

The two lounge chairs provided to were one cushion replicas of the couch. By angling two of them agains the wall and having their armrests come to a point, we were able to create an isolated triangle to store the balls. The main problem with this was that it was entirely too small for any college aged male to fit in, except maybe Chris.

For the most part the balls were just in random places in the living room, but playing with them lost its luster very fast. This soon resulted in us throwing the balls as hard as they could at each other, which resulted in us all having welts. Random people from our hallway would come into the room only to turn right around, fleeing from the assault of plastic balls whizzing at them. The balls didn't look like they'd hurt, but we all had marks to prove that they did.

Little by little the total began to diminish. Some were bitten into because they "looked delicious". Others were stabbed with forks or popped in other ways. By the end of the semester nearly all of the balls were gone except for one of each color that I hid away in my room. I actually found one of each color tucked away in my old bedroom at my parents house last time I was home for a visit. They're still fun to have around, even not in mass quantity.

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Date

2009-03-27T10:00:00.011-04:00

In early 2005 I was still fairly new to Los Angeles. I didn't have many friends there and the ones I did have were trying to fix that problem. My old internship place set me up on a friend date with their new intern. We talked a few times, maybe even went out for a meal or two. She was a local girl, finishing her last semester at USC and I was new. It was nice to meet someone who knew their way around.

After talking a few times she mentioned her sorority and how she wanted to set me up on a date for one of their big events. I agreed because I had nothing to do that night. As it turns out, they would have probably picked anyone for this girl, I just happened to be available on instant messanger at the time. After agreeing, the following things were brought to my attention.

It was an 80's party, so people were wearing costumes.
It was a mystery bus ride, meaning we met up and were bussed to a surprise location.
She was a college freshman who just turned 18. At the time, I was 23-years-old.

The thought of backing out was in my head, but apparently this girl was the last sister to get a date for the event already. I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but in my mind this night had already been downgraded from a potential for fun to a favor for a friend. My date and I exchanged a couple of e-mails, mostly about logistics - costumes, dinner beforehand, address. There was a tiny bit of small talk and it was clear we didn't have so much in common, but that didn't prevent her from "friending" me on Facebook.

I picked her up at her dorm and we drove to the downtown California Pizza Kitchen. There were three or four other couples, all noticeably freshmen in college. It was obvious because all of the guys were mesmerized by when I ordered a beer. After the awkwardness that was dinner ended, the group went back to someones dorm room. The kids all started doing straight shots of cheap vodka. When I opted out, my date called me a party pooper. I reminded her that I had to drive us to the bus pick up. After taking her final shot, she filled a water bottle with the remaining vodka and tore the label off.

We met some place on campus and got on a yellow school bus. My date sipped occasionally from her bottle with the subtleness of carrying it in a brown paper bag, shouting to her friends all over the bus. I opened the window to get some air. It was mostly for her benefit, as she was already drunker than any 18 year old should ever be.

Upon reaching our destination, everyone got two drink tickets. I held on to one and my date grabbed the other from me. Apparently only the people distributing tickets checked IDs and the bartenders were informed to allow anyone who possessed a ticket to use them.

As concerned as I was about her slowly declining sobriety, speech patterns and ability to stand up straight, I was equally concerned that I forgot to wear a belt. This wasn't normally a huge issue, but I picked my jeans that night not based on size, but based on closeness in color to the borrowed denim jacket I wore. The winning pair happened to be my baggiest; at least one, maybe two sizes too large, bought in a time that I thought jeans had to be gigantic. The jeans weren't falling all the way off, but it was a nuisance to have to pull them up every ten seconds.

I danced with my date for a while and was actually starting to have an okay time. Then my date took my lack of wearing a belt as an indication to get handsy. I told her to take it easy and went to find the bathroom. On my way back, I stopped at the bar to look for her. I located her in the darker half of the room making out with some dude with a lot of hair gel and much closer to her age. Nothing could have made me happier. As I was still initially looking in her direction, she opened one of her eyes and caught my field of vision. She stopped making out and came over to me at the bar and asked if I wanted to come play truth or dare in the corner. I politely declined. She went back to that same guy and started going at it again. I glared at the dancefloor, looking right at the friend who set me up. She looked back and mouthed the words "I'm sorry".

I figured this was as good a time as any to use my one drink ticket. Everyone over the age of 21 was given two tickets, but my date snatched one of mine immediately. While getting a beer, I saw the girl whose apartment I subletted the previous summer and I asked if she remembered me. She didnt, and it was probably better that way.

My date was gone. My drink ticket(s) were gone. The worst part was that I couldn't leave. The return bus was still two hours away and I didn't even know where I was. It was a hotel in downtown L.A. I passed the rest of the night on the patio making desperate phone calls.

When we got back on the bus, my date sat with me and fell asleep on my shoulder. The only thought running through my head was the scene from Animal House when Pinto drops his underage date off in a shopping cart. Then I thought about where the closest Ralph's was.

During the return trip, the bus made many campus stops to let people off. My date got up for one of these stops and asked if I wanted to come with her. I said no. She said okay and I saw her walk off with hair gel dude. By the time the bus made it to the original pick up I was one of the only people left. Most of the others got off at various points along the way. I couldn't speed out of there fast enough.

The 18+ Art Class

2009-03-20T10:00:00.006-04:00

During my first two years of ECA my classmates and I were all aware of the "Seniors Only" drawing class that involved nude models, but I don't think anything could have actually prepared us for it. To say it was awkward was a collosal understatement. On the first day there was a very uneasy feeling in the classroom. There were fifteen easels set up facing a wooden platform in the center of the room. Our teacher was covering the window of the door with some old newspaper as we awaited the model's arrival. As a class, we were usually loud and sarcastic, but today nobody was saying a word.

There was no extra budget from the school to pay models. The models who came were exactly the kind of people who would sit naked for free - the kind of people who you would not want to look at unless you had to. Some of them were friends of the teachers, others were just random people who probably replied to a flyer around town. It was an exercise in extremes. One man had a large gut, another woman was oddly tall and had very long arms and legs, the third model was a man with hair that went down to his waist. Every class consisted of a big, blank pad of paper and the models changing positions their position after about ten minutes. You could spend that time on one drawing or one hundred, there was no real structure. Each year was divided into four quarters, giving us ten straight weeks of these people.

The tall woman was affectionately known as the bird lady, because every time she moved her arms in a pose her shoulder blades would stick out very far. She also had a large, beak-like nose. My friend Kevin coined the name and drew a couple of sketches drawing out her bird features. Occasionally the models posed with objects and we all nearly lost it when she held a large feather for one class.

The man with the long hair had two large tattoos. He had a dove on his left shoulder and a large cattle skull on his chest. There were times where I would focus on drawing one of those instead of the body because it was frustrating staring at this man's ass all day long. Occasionally I would make the tattoos more cartoony, giving the cattle skull a voice bubble or making the dove into a drawing of Big Bird's head.

The only real freedom we had in class was that we could listen to our own music. Everyone would come in and put on their various CD or cassette player headphones. Nobody ever spoke during the class. Even though we were seniors, we were only seventeen or eighteen years old, and this was still kind of an uncomfortable situation.

There was one specific day with the Bird Lady posing on an old wooden chair. She would sit on the chair or stand with one leg on it. At one point, she put her hands on the seat of the chair and bent all the way over, practically touching her toes, with her long, flat ass aimed square in my direction. With Stone Temple Pilots blaring in my ears, I muttered "Oh, great" under my breath. Or so I thought. As it turns out my comment was more than audible to everyone in the class, including the Bird Lady. My outburst drew her ire, as she spent the next hour of class giving me poses that were either difficult to draw or look at. The bottom of her foot, the top of her head, and once she just pointed her finger at me and looked away.

When the ten weeks were up, our group moved on to a video production class and were back to our normal cynical selves. We never spoke of the nude models again.

Corey's Personal Escort

2009-03-13T10:00:00.009-04:00

During Halloween Horror Nights 2007 I was put on the "operations security team". This meant that one of the us (or sometimes all three) would respond to incidents (fights, intoxication, etc) in the park. The main problem was each maze and area had their own supervisor, by the time we got there, things were already under control. It made for boring evenings - most of which were spent monitoring the entrance lines for the first few hours, then walking around the park seeing where help was needed until 3:00 am.

The opening weekend there was something called the Eyegore Awards. Corey Feldman, David Arquette, Rob Zombie and others were on hand to receive an award while plugging the release of Lost Boys 2. When the awards portion ended, almost all of the celebrities went home, but Corey and his entourage wanted to see the park. I know this because his manager was bitching to anyone who would listen that Corey needed a personal escort. He didn't know who to talk to, as most of the events staff was only there for the Award portion of the evening. I walked up to his manager, Tim, and offered my services. He quickly pulled me aside and let me know what was going on.

"Corey is a big star. He wants to see the park without being stopped for autographs and photos every ten seconds. Are there back ways to go in and see everything for a couple of hours before we leave?"

I knew that I had exactly zero pull in regards to taking someone behind the scenes, but I also knew ways to navigate the park that did not involve using the main pathways. It wasn't too impressive, but I told Tim that I would do everything I could. I guided them through the less crowded areas, avoiding crowds, spouting off facts about the park when I could.

When we got to the lower lot, I gave the group options of what they wanted to do. They chose to do the Texas Chainsaw Massacre maze, followed by the Jurassic Park ride, but they didn't want to get wet. I dropped them off at the VIP entrance (which was for anyone with a Gate A Pass) of the maze, and called over to the manager of Jurassic to arrange for some ponchos. The entire group was very impressed. As a reward I got to hold all of their designer handbags while they went on the ride.

When they got on the "Terror Tram" I escorted them to the loading area but I knew I couldn't get on with them. I got in my golf cart and frantically rode it to the walking section to meet up with them. When they finished their it was back on to the tram as I followed behind in the cart.

After one more maze, the group decided it was time to leave. Tim approached me and said "Corey will take a picture with you now," as if this I was waiting for the moment and it was the reason I volunteered to walk him around in the first place. I gave Tim my e-mail address, since it was taken on his camera. One of Corey's friends slipped me a twenty dollar bill, which I tried to refuse, but they insisted that it was okay for me to take. After all this happened, it was only 10:30 pm. I still had another four hours left of my shift.

The funniest thing was despite his concern, not one person came up and stopped Corey Feldman for a photo or an autograph during the course of the night. Now the park was dark, the streets were foggy and it was very crowded, but I'm sure he was at least somewhat noticeable, wearing a bright red shirt and a shiny, black paisley suit with dark sunglasses. At least he wasn't dressed like a goon with a radio earpiece, a name tag and an all-access pass.

Paley Festival Debacle

2009-03-06T10:00:00.005-05:00

The Paley Fest is an annual television panel that features show casts and crew answer questions, show clips and interact with the fans. The shows can be rookies, reunions, solid shows, or the occasional one on one session. Twenty-five years later it remains a very hard ticket to get, but members of the Museum of Television and Radio get first stab at tickets. After enduring a couple of ticketing failures (Arrested Development and Lost) I got a membership for one reason: The Office.

For anyone who has wanted tickets to an event only sold through ticketmaster on-line, you know how dreadfully frustrating that can be. There are virtual waiting rooms where people wait until someone randomly is picked and given the chance to buy tickets. I was on the site 15 minutes before tickets would be on sale. The moment 10:00 am hit, I learned tickets were already sold out.

Impossible. There was no way that this could happen so soon, especially during a members only pre-sale. There could not be this many members eagerly waiting for their chance to get tickets. I was not ready to take no for an answer, but there were no real customer service lines for the Museum of Television and Radio (MTR). Calling the general information number, I was passed around until I got to an assistant who I told about my situation - the birthday membership, the instant sell out, two years of disappointment - I laid it on pretty thick. She called me back later that day having found two tickets for me.

My friend Orli was the biggest Office fan that I knew, so the other ticket was hers. She was at University of Florida, but I knew she would fly across country for it. It was going to be a pretty awesome short weekend. She'd fly in on Friday afternoon, we'd go to the panel that night and possibly Disneyland the next day before heading out to Purim parties.

That's when the situation took a turn for the worse. I got an e-mail from the same MTR assistant. Apparently the tickets she promised to me were promised to someone else at the same time and that person won out. I no longer had tickets, but I did have a friend with a non-refundable cross country flight. I do not remember the exact reply I sent, but I know it contained a lot of words like "outrageous" and "shockingly incompetent," all the while forcefully telling them that there was no way I was getting shut out of the show.

I think it's important to add that during these exchanges, I used my Universal Studios e-mail address hoping to appear I had some pull in the entertainment industry. I don't know why I thought this would help, but for some reason I thought they would try harder to please someone who was actually important, even if they had not heard of this person.

After that fuming message, I was directed towards the events coordinator, who attempted to calm me down. She informed me there were zero tickets but she was trying and I told her that trying was not good enough for someone on a college budget who just spent close to $400 on a flight for the sole purpose of going to this event. Every time we spoke I made it sound worse, driving the stake of guilt right into her as hard as I could.

One of the local radio stations I often listened to gave away tickets every year. I decided a last ditch e-mail to their entertainment reporter would give me an alternate route to receive tickets. I clued him in on the whole situation and what did he do? He betrayed me and forwarded it to the same MTR woman. She wrote back to me and said she was disappointed I tried to go around her to get tickets. I replied telling her she had no right to be disappointed about anything. This continued for about five to six days.

The day before the show I finally got a confirmation e-mail saying that I would have two tickets waiting for me at will call. I decided not to tell Orli, and I let her get on the flight without knowing. I told her there was a concert we could go to if the tickets didn't come through. She was on to this scheme from the beginning and was not surprised at all when I told her.

As for the evening itself, it began with an old episode ("Cocktails"), a preview clip of the not yet aired episode ("The Negotiation"), and a blooper reel. After the reel, the panel came out - everyone except John Krasinski, who received some ribbing for missing it to film a movie with George Clooney (Leatherheads). I got called on in the Q&A session and asked Brian Baumgartner (Kevin) if his character's Police cover band Scrantonicity might get a CD or iTunes release. He turned to one of the producers and said "that is a great idea!" He is a lot more animated than his character on the show.

Towards the end the host announced they would be doing trivia questions. The second question asked what Dwight got Michael for his birthday? Without thinking, my hand shot up and somehow I was the first one seen. As the lady walked towards me with the microphone my brain processed the question and I was able to get the words "hockey jersey" out. The room went silent and the other super fans immediately raised their hands, sensing it wasn't specific enough. I grabbed the microphone back and said "a hockey jersey that said From Dwight on the back." The prize was awesome. It was a gift bag that contained season 1 and 2 on DVD, a hat and an "Office" computer mouse.

When the show ended, the cast stayed around talking on stage, so we stormed up front. Everyone was very nice, taking time to talk with all the fans, signing autographs and taking pictures. The pictures of that night can be seen on my facebook page. The whole night was well worth all the trouble. I only used my MTR membership one other time - to watch video of the Arrested Development Paley Fest that I had missed two years before.

My Hourly Soundtrack

2009-02-27T10:00:00.010-05:00

School vacation week is over. For 9 last week, the Aquarium was overrun with an incredible amount of guests because Boston Public Schools were off. Due to the large crowds, a tent was set up to protect those waiting in line from winter. There was a video screen in the tent for the last vacation, this go around it was decided to just have music. The idea of hearing the same songs repeat over and over all day was not a new one for me.

While working at Back to the Future, there were a variety of positions you could be placed in. The greeter position was located at the main entrance of the attraction, where, well, you greet people and answer the stupidest of their questions. It is your duty to tell people that their kids do not meet the height requirement, the wait really is that long, they have to finish their ice cream before going inside and most frequently, where the nearest bathroom was. But that's not the worst part. The worst part was the music.

The powers that be at Universal Studios Hollywood (the entertainment capital of L.A. ... sorry, force of habit) once decided that the same 13 upbeat songs will play on a loop. From opening to closing in Future Plaza, there was no break from the designatd playlist except during the Christmas season (approximately November 1 - January 15). The rest of the year, we were stuck with the following songs:

Shakira - Suerte, The Romantics - What I Like About You, Enrique Iglesias - Escape (en Espanol), Ricky Martin - Loaded, Christina Aguilera - Come on Over, The Wonders - That Thing You Do, Bob Seger - Old Time Rock and Roll, Jennifer Pena - Besame, Kenny Loggins - I'm Alright (theme from "Caddyshack"), Katrina and the Waves - Walking on Sunshine, some unknown Spanish Marc Anthony song, The Gogo's - We Got the Beat, and finally, Three Dog Night - Joy to the World.

Each time you were sent to a new position it was for a minimum of one hour and that was if your rotation was made on time, which it usually wasn't. It took approximately 45 minutes to get through all of those songs, so by the time you were rotated out, you likely heard several of them more than once. Since I worked there for over three years, I personally heard each of these songs enough times to have choreographed individual dance moves for each beat. I didn't really - but I could have. In the days before Rock Band was a video game, I would sometimes play along on air drums with That Thing You Do to see if I missed my calling as a rocker.

When you're out there too long, you get something I like to call, "the mix tape prediction syndrome". You know the feeling. When you have a mix tape that has random songs in a certain order, and you listen to it enough, that when you hear one of said songs on the radio, you are expecting the next song from the mix to come on next. It worked that way at Future. For the longest time, I couldn't hear Come on Over without thinking That Thing You Do should be on next. It's a good thing I never listened to Come on Over outside of work.

Get Back on Defense

2009-02-20T10:00:00.002-05:00

When I was a kid I played games all the time. I tended to succeed most in the unorganized neighborhood games like kickball, whiffleball and freeze tag. I was damn good at freeze tag and in elementary school I ruled at kickball. I was one of only two kids to kick a ball over the fence, bouncing it off the roof of the house next door - but I am about five years ahead of myself. Real sports were just hobbies, but they became more official when I was signed up to play several actual sports in organized leagues. At age seven I joined Greater Hamden Baseball Association (GHBA) and Hamden Soccer.

From the start soccer didn't seem like a good fit. I never watched it on television or talked about it with my friends. For my birthday earlier that year I received a soccer ball and a soccer "activity set," which consisted of some different colored cones to set up as the goal. People assumed I loved soccer because if anything, I was always polite about receiving gifts. Sweaters, belts, things I already had - I reacted like it was the greatest, because it was for me. Maybe I should have opted for honesty with the soccer gifts. It soon became plainly obvious that I was not cut out to be a soccer player for one specific reason: the running.

Baseball was good for me because you could stand around in the field and wait for something to happen. I had a very active imagination and would completely zone out sometimes in left field. I would pick grass, throw my glove in the air and try to catch it, or pretend I was a big league pitcher during the down time.

There was no down time in soccer games. From whistle to whistle, the kids ran after the ball from one end of the field to the next. It was fun at first, but I quickly grew tired of the fruitless pursuit. I wasn't the fastest kid nor was I the best kicker. Somewhere in my head, I was the smartest, and I devised a plan. I would wait on one end of the field, it didn't matter which, and after all of the other players ran to the opposite end and back, I'd be the freshest runner. My aim wasn't to score a lot of goals or play excellent defense. I just wanted to kick the ball as hard as I could. It didn't matter if I kicked it only once per game, I wanted to wail on it and see how far it would go.

As smart as my idea was, it made for lousy home videos.

"Go after the ball!" my father would yell as I stood by myself, 20 yards away from anyone else.

"They're just coming back here anyway," I would say back, kicking up some clumps of grass.

I was either the smartest seven year old on the field or too lazy for soccer. You'd think that by conserving my energy so by the time the ball was back on my end I'd be the only one able to run full speed, but of course that never seemed to matter. Seven-year-old kids have insane amounts of energy, and the idea of any of them becoming winded in a twenty minute soccer game was idiotic. I only played soccer for one season.

After soccer ended, I followed in my sisters footsteps to various activities that she had tried and enjoyed. First came ice skating, but I was terrified to let go of the wall. Then came gymnastics, which I only really liked because there was a trampoline involved. I enjoyed baseball, but once went an entire 22 game season without getting a hit. When I hit a growth spurts in the fourth and fifth grades, I became the tallest kid on my JCC basketball team. Unfortunately, these growth spurts came at a time when I had not yet switched to boxer shorts. I also believed that there was some kind of aerodynamic advantage in playing in sweatpants. This resulted in me having to stop every ten seconds to pick my underwear out of my crack and there's plenty of video of that splendor.

What do I play now? Kickball. The same game I loved from the start. The same game I was great at during elementary school. I guess my journey as an athlete was more of a 18 year feeling out process that resulted with my gut instinct being the correct choice. Unless of course an adult recreational freeze tag league opens up anytime soon.

A Five Letter Word for Victory

2009-02-13T10:00:00.006-05:00

Lingo was a game show I watched on occasion when I couldn't fall asleep. It certainly wasn't appointment television, or even something that I recorded to watch when I had the time. Contestants had five chances to guess a five letter word with only the first letter given to them. They were told when their letters were in the right spot, or if they had the right letter in the wrong spot. From there, the contestants had to rearrange the letters to reveal the mystery word. To me, the main aspect of the game was the result of mixing a word puzzle with the childhood game Mastermind, but it was then mixed with Bingo. With each correct word, you would have the chance to pull out a numbered bingo ball, in hopes of making a "Lingo". It seemed easy enough to play along at home, but I never thought about trying to be on the show.

One day I came across a craigslist ad looking for Lingo contestants. Usually these ads are the definition of sketchy, boasting "soon to be network shows" or "big money prizes". This was the first time I had seen a game that I had heard of, so I figured it was harmless to send over an e-mail.

I got a reply saying my partner and I could come in and audition next week. As excited as I was, I did not have a partner. This role needed to be filled by someone who had free time, good with words, and was not shy. My friend Matt had just been fired from our job, so clearly he had open availability and could use the extra money. He agreed to come audition and our team was formed.

The audition took place in a studio lot on Sunset Boulevard. They took us into an office building, to open corner of a random room with chairs set up and a dry erase board on an easel. Everyone took seats with their partner and began filling out various paperwork. Had you ever been convicted of a crime? Have you won money on a game show in the last 6 months? The two producers called each team up to hear a personal introduction and try a practice round of Lingo.
While the others took their turns, we had to think of something for Matt to say. It was amusing to say he recently unemployed theme park worker, but he opted for college student. I noticed most of the other teams had at least one actor who was trying to make some cash. Every time a contestant said they were an actor, a producer would stop tape and ask for something else. "People at home don't want to see actors on game shows," one of them said. "That is what sitcoms are for." Most of them settled on labeling themselves as bartenders or personal trainers. When it was our turn, I noticed Matt was a little camera shy, so I hammed it up more than I should have. For our practice round, we used all five guesses to get the word BLEED. Any word with a double letter is tricky - even if you guess the letter, it will only show up in one of the spaces, so it was tougher than expected. With that, the audition ended and we were sent on our way.

It was a while before I got a call. As it turned out, we were selected as the first alternates and a team had dropped out. We were needed to come film the following week, on Valentine's Day. The final detail we heard was that it was going to be a science fiction themed week and we were supposed to dress accordingly.

Matt and I began Lingo boot camp. I recorded every episode I could and we watched them all while we made our science fiction uniforms. These uniforms consisted of two pastel t-shirts we stamped with an atom and a rocket. We had put them together in less than an hour using $12 worth of supplies from an arts and crafts store.

On the day of our taping, we got to the studio in our home-made science fiction gear to find that we were horribly under dressed. There were two girls were wearing full Star Trek uniforms, complete with Spock ears. Another guy had a hat that looked like the planet Saturn. There were light sabers and ray guns. We were the more subtle side of science fiction.

We got into the same room the original audition took place in and sat down. There were seven teams there, six who would film that day and one as an alternate. A man who worked as a game show union fairness representative gave a speech. His job was to go from show to show and make sure contestants understood the rules and believed they got a fair chance. If a contestant felt at any time that we were being cheated we could talk to him after and possibly get a do-over. He made references to the old game show scandal on '21' and most of us just nodded approvingly to move the process forward.

All of the teams drew numbers from a bag to see who would play who, and in what order. I picked the number three, which meant we had to square off against the two female trekkies from the line. We'd also be the last game of the day. They whisked us to the actual studio where each team was isolated in their very own practice room. This was a small dressing room which had a couch, a chair, a bathroom, a table, a dry-erase board with marker and a television. There was also various snacks, a couple of bagels, some trail mix, cheese and crackers, pretzels, candy, water and soda. If we knew the length of time we'd be in there, we would have rationed it better.

We went right to the dry erase board, working out our strategy. The goal was to get all the vowels in play as fast as possible. We went over good four letter combination words to use. We tried words with at least 2-3 vowels every time, like AUDIO, DEALS, SOLAR, BOUTS and TEACH. The main trick was to not use words with repeating or duplicating letters.

We had spent three hours in the room and the food was long since finished. We were all practiced out; the dry-erase board now sat idle in the corner. The standard Springer-type morning television was terribly boring, aside from one car chase. Though we seemed out of options, we also figured that our opponents must be in a similar situation. At least the playing field would be even.

Suddenly our door opened and a lowly P.A. grabbed us and took us to visit the make-up department. Matt went in first as I argued with the wardrobe woman that I should wear my silver shirt unbuttoned over my hand made one. When I got to the chair, Matt's face looked as pale as a kabuki performer. I was worried. We had seen a previous team come out of there looking foolish, with their hair blown out in a wild rejected Jetsons style. One of the ladies said "Let's match the symbols on their shirts on their foreheads also!" We tried to talk them out of this idea, but they had the final say. It would have been fine, but the atomic symbols on our shirts seemed to be too difficult for these women to replicate. Their barely passable ovals looked more like cocktail hot dogs, but the make-up women thought they were fantastic. Looking ridiculous as ever, we were ready for our date with the game show gods.

The set was actually big despite not having a studio audience. I found that amusing, because when watching, I could always hear people laughing at Chuck Woolery's jokes. We became the yellow team and the girls were now the red team. Chuck came out, with rather orange looking skin. He didn't come over to talk to us until the second round when he was required to. Shandi, or however you spell it, came out wearing a tight, black leather outfit which was impossible to walk in. Some brilliant person in wardrobe must have told her it was related to science fiction. Chuck was fascinated by her outfit and repeatedly told her to stand up so "the viewers at home" could get the full picture. The duo had an unusual relationship. When one of them attempted banter, often the other would not respond at all, making it very awkward. Chuck kept making comments about her dress, at one point saying "You're dressed like you should be in one of the movies I rented this weekend." Matt and I looked at each other, not sure if he was saying she looked like a whore or was admitting to renting dominatrix pornography.

The rules were then explained to us by a man in a shiny purple robe who was holding a big green alien mask. I assumed he was dressed up because he would be on screen at some point, but he never actually made an appearance.

The game started, and we had to stare across the stage to this tiny camera in the wall to do introductions. It was nerve wracking, especially knowing there was a stand-by team waiting in the wings in case we stunk up the joint. We won the coin toss, so we went first, took immediate control and didn't let go until we had won. We nailed the first three words. With each correct guess, Chuck would say "reach in there and grab a couple of balls," while we tried our hardest to not giggle. We achieved a Lingo before the first commercial. When the break ended it was time to meet Chuck.

Our strategies proved to be very successful, but we also figured out that the science fiction theme wasn't just for the set. A majority of the words were related to the science fiction genre. The words used for the regular game were: ATOMS, DEMON, RISKY, STEEL, LOSER, CLAWS, PORCH, TOWER, BREED, ROCKS, OUTER, NERDY, and LASER.

The girls finished off the game by getting a few words in a row, but one of them was our own fault. They had guessed NERDS, which had every letter except the last one correct and had flustered them. I leaned over to Matt and whispered "nerdy." As soon as I said it, both of the girls jumped up with the same epiphany and yelled it out at the same time. It was a good thing we were so far ahead, or I would have been upset with their treachery.

As the game went on, the girls became more and more fed up with the fact they were losing. By the time they were able to pick Lingo balls in the second round, they had a noticeably sarcastic tone, knowing there was no way to come back from the deficit. The final score was 575-175. Chuck Woolery said "Some teams just dominate," as he continued to apologize to the girls for the beating we laid down on them.

The words from the bonus round were: FORCE, TITAN, BONES, DWARF, TREKS, EVADE, SPEAR, WHILE. We ran out of time before we could guess the ninth word, which turned out to be GRANT. We had eight chances to win the bonus money and went through almost all of them. By the time we were down to our last three picks, we figured out that mathematically there was no way to lose.

I was scolded by the wardrobe lady for wearing my button down shirt over the home made one. I had forgotten if she told me not to or to keep it on, so when I did, apparently I made the wrong choice. She made some kind of remark about slapping me around in her British accent.

Back in the dressing rooms, we both washed the make up off so fast that our skin hurt. There was no way we'd look that stupid in public, just on expanded cable television. On the way out, we noticed a box of Lingo t-shirts sitting in the hallway and I asked if I could have one for my Grandma. They told us that only the losing team gets to have t-shirts. I even offered them to deduct the price of the shirt from my winnings, but the assistant firmly stood by the ruling that only the losers got to have them. I immediately called my Grandma to tell her that I won, and my mom and dad and sister, but that's it. Everyone else I only told to watch when it was on. The episode aired in June of that year. Six weeks after the episode aired, a full five and a half months later, we each received our share of the $5,000. Not bad for one days work.

The DMV Trilogy

2009-01-30T10:00:00.004-05:00

The summer of 1999 was all about driving. After a full slate of horrible classroom sessions, on the road experience from Sears and practicing with parental guidance, at the end of August I was ready to take my drivers test. The only problem was that my town’s DMV had a long waiting list. The next available time to schedule a driving test was in the middle of October. I simply could not wait that long. I was already 17 years old and going to be a senior in just a few weeks. I opted for instant gratification instead familiarity, opting for a test the following week in Old Saybrook, a small town about 40 miles away. It was besides the point that I didn't actually own, nor have plans to get a car, I wanted to have the option to drive one if I was allowed.

There was no reason for me to doubt my abilities or to consider myself unprepared, even with driving on roads I had never seen before. I had been using my fathers bright red Acura Integra. It was a two-door car with a moon roof and small fin on the back, but more importantly, it was the older of my parents’ cars, which was why my sister and I both got to use it to train. The strict training regimen began with navigating an empty Caldor's parking lot on Sunday mornings and continued with my father setting up Rubbermaid trash cans in our street for me to attempt parallel parking between them. I hit the can on my first try, knocking it to the ground, but as I got better, I asked for him to move the cans closer together for more of a challenge.

The drive to Old Saybrook was long. My father drove, which in hindsight, it should have probably been me. I had been driving all morning and all weekend, and wanted to stay fresh, as if conserving stamina behind the wheel would make a difference.

An old man walked out from behind the counter holding an old fashioned wooden clipboard. He looked down and said "Lurie." It was my time to shine. The man was tall and lanky, probably in his 60's with a permanent frown. He wore a white short sleeve dress shirt with a dark tie. There was no small talk. In fact, there was barely any talk at all. He nodded towards the door and we walked to the car. Before I even had the chance to, he grumbled "seatbelt," while still looking straight ahead.

"Go left," he muttered, gesturing towards Interstate 95.

"There? On to I-95? Are you sure?" I said back nervously, assuming that sound actually emerged from my dry mouth.

He could sense my obvious fear. "Go left," he growled back in a more firm manner, this time while writing something down on his clipboard.

I had not thought that this would be included on the test, having never driven on I-95 during my practice sessions. Hamden was nowhere near not close enough to that highway for me to feel the need to try it. The closest I had come to highway driving was during my very first practice session at Sears, my instructor, Rosa, had me drive on the much smaller Wilbur Cross Parkway. The Wilbur Cross is a two-lane, 30 mile long continuation of Merritt Parkway (Route 15) from Connecticut to New York. No large vehicles are permitted and the speed limit caps out around 50 miles per hour. I-95 is a nearly 2,000 mile road from Maine to Florida with no limits of vehicle size and a notably higher speed limit.

I couldn't back down now. As I entered the ramp I knew that it was important to speed up so I could merge seamlessly. The intimidating highway drew closer, vehicles began flying by at speeds I had yet to reach. The white line to my left became dashed and I knew it was my chance to jump in, but for an unknown reason there was a fast moving semi-truck in the entry lane. Though I was still going slower than this truck, something in my brain caused me to believe I could outrun it, so I slammed down the gas. Blame it on pure inexperience or just never having been witness to the speed of a truck that large, but the race was not mine to win and I had to veer off into the breakdown lane. My life passed in front of my eyes at roughly the same speed of the giant semi-truck.

The instructor didn’t say anything, he just pointed forward as a gesture for me to continue. Once the coast was clear, that’s what I did. I made it to the next exit and followed his minimalist instructions. “Left. Right. Right.” He wasn’t much of a talker. When we made it back to the DMV I had to back into a parking spot with no cars on either side, and I nailed it. From the moment after the race against the truck I was flawless. Maybe he’d let me slide through and forget about my epic stupidity that could have easily killed us both. He wrote on his clipboard as I nervously waited. “Be more careful,” he said, the longest sentence he has spoken the entire day, handing me the failed test.

For my second try that November, I actually had more motivation to succeed. Homecoming was two weeks away. If I could get my license this time, then I'd be able to drive myself and my date to the dance. I had something to shoot for this time around, but still, my town had an obscene waiting list for appointments, so it was back to Old Saybrook. At least this time I wouldn't be going into it completely green. I took the wheel for this 40 minute drive to Old Saybrook, and though I was a little nervous, I was able to navigate I-95 without incident. When we arrived, I was thrilled to see a round, jolly man come towards me instead of the scary old robot. He clearly loved his job, making jokes and commenting on my fathers Marvin the Martian floor mats. He even told me to start the car while doing an impression of the character. I felt very comfortable with this situation. Perhaps too comfortable. The DMV brought was atop a hill which was at the apex of a near hairpin turn. This made seeing any oncoming traffic from either direction very difficult. After checking the oncoming traffic each way five times, I inched forward and a speeding minivan came around the curve, honking at me as it passed. The instructor yelled "Woah," and told me to stop the car. The once jovial man in my passenger seat then gestured to a telephone pole across the street. There was a large pink ribbon tied around it.

"That ribbon is for the last person who didn't check for oncoming traffic," he said solemnly.

In my mind, having the instructor yell out "Woah" and telling me that I was seconds away from reenacting a telephone pole memorial was not a good thing. I put him on the spot and asked him straight forward, "Did I just fail?" He said back to me, "Let's keep going."

I took a deep breath and exited the DMV parking lot. He informed me that it was time for a rematch with my old nemesis, I-95, but this time I was ready. It was the Rocky II of driving exams. I didn't accelerate or try to pass someone while entering - I was patient and more aware - I nailed it. I did everything perfect for the duration of the test. When we got back to the DMV I backed into the parking space perfectly, shut off the car and turned to the instructor.

"You failed right at the start," he said, handing me a familiar piece of paper.

For my third attempt, I finally got an appointment at my hometown DMV. It was now January. At this point I had already been accepted into college before getting my license. If I had anywhere specific to go, it woud have been embarrassing to rely on people for rides.

The day of the appointment the weatherman correctly predicted a huge snowstorm. I was scheduled at 3:00 that afternoon and the snow began to fall at 1:00. I went to the DMV with Dad about an hour early just to be safe, finding out that many people had either canceled or not shown up for their appointments. I was able to go out for my test at 2:15, in the midst of the wintry mix falling outside.

The instructor reminded me a little of the second test, except more straight forward. He wasn't as business-like as my first try, but I think he knew the snow was going to get worse before it got better.

Then came the shortest driver's test in history. We left the DMV, turned left, then right onto a rural street. Halfway down the street he asked that I perform a three point turn and head back to the DMV. I was told to back into the parking space, but due to the snow none of the lines were visible. The instructor told me to do my best. I figured as long as I didn't back up on the curb I was going to be fine. I backed in, not coming close to

The instructor opened the door and said, "Would it be really mean if I shoveled off the line to see just how accurate you were?" My jaw dropped as he started to laugh. He handed me the same sheet I had gotten every other time, except for the result. I had passed. Walking into the DMV, I found my father was the only person remaining. It was not even 3:00, and all remaining appointments were canceled and I was the last test done.

Blue Plate Special

2009-01-23T10:00:00.004-05:00

Prologue
I did not get on campus housing for my junior year of college, so I was forced to search for an apartment. During the initial process, I went to take a look at an apartment my friend Rami had with two guys soon to be moving out. My future roommate, in a show of confidence for all of the appliances, provided a demonstration that each of the oven burners worked. One by one he turned them on and off, explaining which knob corresponded to which burner along the way. What he forgot was that he was in the midst of a defrosting a package of chicken breast on top of the left rear burner, which briefly caught fire when the flame hit it. The plastic and Styrofoam packaging had a small dark burn mark, but the chicken remained in good condition. Despite this unknowing show of pyrotechnics, I still decided to move in.

A few months had passed and move in day was approaching. It was the end of August, and both Rami and I were returning from our second summers staffing USY on Wheels. Rami’s two previous roommates had already moved out, having found a new place, leaving behind various pieces of furniture and other messes. Two other guys we did not know, Ryan and Ian, were also moving in to the apartment, sharing the largest bedroom in order to save some money.

One of the bigger factors involved in my moving in was the way Rami partied. He was a champ. I had gone to one or two of his parties during the previous year and found them to be pretty wild. Lots of alcohol, loud music and tons of people crammed into a moderately sized apartment. Everyone who came through that door knew his name and they also knew just how good a time they were in for. It wasn’t long before the first party of our regime occurred; in fact, it was the first Saturday night in September.

Sometime during the post-party week, we noticed a smell. The kind of smell that isn't overbearing, but still, it doesn't exactly come off as fresh. Someone probably spilled a drink or some salsa that we missed during the traditional after-party clean up session. These sessions usually involved someone taking the Swiffer and creating one lane from room to room. The worst area was the dirt-black floored foyer known as “the dank,” gaining its namesake from everyone tracking in snow, dirt and mud on top of the spills of one thousand beer pong games. But I digress - back to the odor at hand.

It was hard to say what kind of smell, but it wasn’t terrible. Our initial solution was to open the two windows we had in the kitchen and let it be. Any stench would be taken care of by the cool autumn breeze and we’d be back to normal in no time.

It did not go away. Four men in the midst of achieving college degrees could not find the source. There were times we just walked around the kitchen, sniffing out different areas, hoping to pinpoint the location. In some areas it would get stronger, but others it would get weaker. No specific pattern could be made from tracking the smells, so again, the windows were left open. Full bottles of Fabreeze were dispatched in hopes of slaying the stinky giant, but it was to no avail. Had the bedrooms not been located on the complete opposite side of the apartment we probably would have had bigger problems dealing. It became something we lived with, trying to avoid being near the kitchen as much as possible.

A full three week after it first became barely noticeable, it was now hard to avoid. Rami contacted the realty company to complain about the mystery odor. The landlord told us that it was nothing to worry about. He explained that it was probably just a dead rat underneath the refrigerator or oven. To this day I disagree with the idea of a dead animal in our kitchen falling under the heading of “nothing to worry about".

It was now October. We were preparing for another party that weekend and we all decided that the smell could not be included on our guest list. The kitchen was a huge part of having any party - drinks, food, ice - we couldn't have everyone gagging anytime they ventured near that side of our apartment. It was time for a full overhaul. All cabinets were opened and dug through, drawers were opened and emptied, the fridge was taken apart and scrubbed. Still the smell lingered.

At our wits end, I said "What's the deal with the stack of newspapers on the counter?" The large stack of newspapers, magazines and mail resided next to the sink. Nobody knew why, but each of us had assumed they belonged to someone else and decided it wouldn't be right to throw them away. It had been there for as long as I could remember, possibly since I had moved in. I asked the other roommates and nobody had a problem with tossing it out. When I lifted the newspapers that had seemingly occupied the kitchen counter for an eternity. In that instant I had unleashed the full potency of the smell, multiplying the existing odor by at least 500 percent. What we found was a plastic Stop and Shop grocery bag with a receipt sticking out that had the name of one of the old tenants, dated July 17th. After retrieving and examining the receipt, we knew what we were dealing with: a package of chicken breasts. Had we not read the paper, there was no way anyone would be able to identify what was in that bag as anything that ever resembled chicken. It was the color of Superman’s hair – a regal looking black with streaks of blue at certain light. The bag was filled with a watery translucent liquid that had accumulated during its tenure on top of the kitchen counter.

Rami ended up drawing the short straw and had to get rid of it. He snapped on some heavy duty rubber kitchen gloves and held the bag an arms length away. The rest of us pulled our shirt collars up over our noses to open the door for him as he sprinted all the way out of the apartment to the dumpster, leaving a clear liquid trail along the path. We bombed the counter with Lysol, Windex, Comet and anything else we had, creating several dangerous chemical reactions. As bad as it was to breathe in kitchen chemicals that don't get along, nothing could have been worse than what was lingering on our counter for nearly three months.

Epilogue
I would like make sure everyone knows that the initial problem of leaving chicken out was not our fault. I'd also like to say that this was a turning point in our lives, that we all became much cleaner and more responsible around the house. We didn't. It would be nice to say that I never had to tell one of them his sandwich bread had blue spots on the side closest to me. Or that during a cleaning session later on in the year, one of the guys opened a severely outdated bucket of cheese balls, smelled it, and uttered the following words: “Cheese doesn’t go bad, does it?” It was a year full of great memories, stupid moments and a lot of fun - though a lot of it was lost in the flow of keg beer and punch from a giant red bucket.

Blind Subletting

2009-01-16T10:00:00.007-05:00

As my last semester of college began to wind down, it was becoming pretty obvious that I was going to stay in Los Angeles. Before that could happen, I had to go back east for a several weeks. While it made no sense to get an apartment – I hardly had the money to throw away rent on a place I wouldn’t set foot in until the middle of June - I did need somewhere to live when I got back. A sublet was the answer.

I had been in contact with University of Southern California Hillel about attending services, but that never panned out. However, those contacts led me to a school message board where I found a girl named Katie* who had a room available for July and August. Even though I had lived in L.A. nearly four months, most of that was isolated to the Valley. I had no actual idea where USC was. For now it would have to do. The timing and price was right, so I agreed to take the place without once stepping foot anywhere near it. I’d graduate in May, stick around for a while I packed up and head back west in the middle of June. My cousins had already offered to let me stay with them until the room became available on July 1st.

I flew back to the east coast, drank too much, graduated, and my parents threw a tandem graduation party for my sister and I. Then I packed up and returned to California. I spent the next two weeks at my cousin’s house looking for work, which I found at USH. When the time came to move into the sublet I was thrilled about the idea of not living with two kids under the age of six.

The new place took two highways to get to and was just a couple of exits short of a third. I could describe my location as directly south of central Los Angeles. As I turned on to my new street, it was difficult finding a trendy angle-in parking space. Making one more loop around, I found a parallel spot nearby. The neighborhood seemed nice enough at first, but there was seemingly nobody around, lots of nearby construction and loud music coming from various windows. When I got to my building, I stood out front and this is what I saw**

Most buildings on the street were traditional white, brick or brown. My new building was pink, (coral or salmon, depending on who you ask). Someone was leaving as I was going in, and they held the door open for me. Perhaps this should have viewed this as a sign of friendliness instead of a concern for lack of safety. I made my way up two flights of creaky stairs and knocked on the door - it was opened by a heavy set, dark haired girl. Katie* had mentioned there would be others subletting for May and June, so I guessed this was who I was taking over for. The heavy set girl did not say a word; she just opened the door and went back to their room where she was studying with a friend. I walked along the off-yellow colored living room rug and part of me wondered if that was the planned color or one that been achieved over time.

“Hi,” I said, trying to break the ice, “I’m here to start subletting.”
“We’re not done yet. Come back in a few days,” large girl replied.

I told her that I had my stuff with me. Large countered by saying she had finals tomorrow and they needed to study. I agreed to give them extra time, partly because she was scary and partly because I wasn't exactly thrilled with the apartment. She handed me some keys and showed me the door. Taken aback by the situation, I went back to my cousin’s house and e-mail to Katie, who agreed to credit me for time I was not there.

I came back later that week and the girls were nowhere to be found. The apartment looked like it had been abandoned in the middle of a daily routine. Dishes piled in the sink, garbage overflowing and the fridge was a disaster. There was an uncovered large metal bowl filled with a lumpy brown batter-like substance with a spoon sticking out of it. It appeared as if someone tried to make cookies, took a bite, realized it stunk and fled the scene. The smell itself crossed so many levels of foul there were practically stink lines coming off it. I quickly pitched the contents and soaked the bowl in the sink.

The mystery of which bedroom was mine was quickly answered. I tried to open one of the doors and it barely budged. I got it open enough to fit inside – but that’s as far as I got. It seemed the three girls who had lived in the apartment designated this room to hold all of their belongings. Boxes upon boxes were piled up on the floor, on the bed, taking every inch of space. Of the other two rooms, one had a lot more space – because there was no bed. That left me with the smallest room and a metal framed bunk bed. The closet in my room was still mostly full and the plastic dresser drawers were taped shut, so I was forced to lived out of my suitcase.

I didn’t know anyone in my building or in my neighborhood. I would spend all of my free time closer to work and near my family. There was nothing in the apartment for me to do. No television, a terrible air conditioner and faulty Internet that I borrowed from the neighbors - it only worked in the storage bedroom or bathroom. I bought a paper plates, bowls and plastic utensils – nothing was permanent about this place. I had become a traveling salesman, coming home to a shady motel only to sleep, shower and leave.

Independence Day was the loneliest time. No fireworks, no barbecue, no friends. The sole redeeming aspect was that the neighborhood seemed very patriotic. Loud booms were heard throughout the night as I lay in bed. For days following the holiday, I heard the same noises echo throughout the night. In order to actually sleep, I convinced myself that all of the sounds were fireworks.

In those days I was working late shifts at USH that were saved for the newest employees. By the time I clocked out, changed and got home, it was after ten. I tried to put off being home for as long as possible, sometimes by doing unnecessary errands. On a specific night, I juggled three full bags of groceries up the stairs in one trip, not wanting to leave any of my refrigerated goods in the car.

I managed to get the key into the lock, opened the door, immediately dropped all my bags and reached for the light switch. Nothing happened. Like a waiting horror movie victim, I frantically tried it several more times, each yielding the same result. Walking to the kitchen, I soon discovered that none of the lights were working – the power had apparently been shut off. The agreement with the apartment leaser was that the first two month sub-letters would pay utilities for May and June and I would do the same for July and August. This was seemingly dismissed by the large study buddies and now I was suffering. I opened the refrigerator to find my food was as cold as one would expect from a non-air conditioned Los Angeles apartment in July – and it smelled just as fresh.

The refrigerator proved to be the final straw. In a rush, I threw away all of my ruined food, packed up everything I had there, including tonight’s groceries and some hangers that didn’t necessarily belong to me. My cousin reacted surprisingly calm to the late night call asking if I could come back and stay with them until I found a more permanent place.

The next morning I sent off an e-mail Katie, demanding a refund for my rent. She wrote back and agreed, while mentioning the girls who lived there before me had changed their numbers and not returned any of her messages. Giving the key back to her that September was nothing short of painful. It was the first time I was anywhere near USC since that disastrous summer. Katie was no longer in the apartment, having moved into a large, gaudy Sorority House. We exchanged only the simplest of conversation, I handed her the keys and drove off. (I actually ran into her later on in my Los Angeles adventures. She didn’t remember me, but I knew it was her. I'll save that for another entry due out this April.) In the end I got an apartment in a neighborhood that didn’t constantly sound like 4th of July and only was two blocks away from my cousins.

* I can’t remember the girls name for the life of me, and even if I could, I doubt she would want me to mention her in this context. Let’s just call her Katie so I don’t have to keep writing out “the girl who I sublet the apartment from”.
** Image courtesy of Google Maps and its street address stalking ability. I didn't actually take a picture of the building.

Escaping the Gladiators

2009-01-09T10:00:00.000-05:00

In the late Fall of 2007, the higher ups at NBC decided to resurrect American Gladiators, a show that hit its popularity peak in the early 90's, when big muscles were king and nobody asked questions about steroids. The show was brought back to appeal to the reality television fans, to focus more on the contender’s hard luck stories than the Gladiators themselves. I was able to score an invite to a taping through a kickball league I played in. The idea was simple: invite players from local kickball divisions to a happy hour event at a nearby bar and then go to the studio to watch a Saturday taping. The players would fit the key demographics sought after by the producers - just old enough to be nostalgic about the Gladiators of their childhood and show host Hulk Hogan, yet young enough to be excited about the potential modernizations. To top it off, the group would be liquored up, thus enjoying it all the more.

That was the plan. The execution went a little different.

I brought along my two friends, Jay and Krysta, who were just as excited as I was. Krysta’s boyfriend Parker had to work and was upset to be missing the outing. We pulled up to the Venice area bar before noon, which is as good a time as any to start having beer on a Saturday. It was a very similar crowd that I had grown used to over the past year. From past experiences I knew that this group was capable of putting away mass quantities of alcohol and almost as many deep fried appetizers. The organizers of this event wisely provided buses from the bar to the studio, which were boarded by the masses. Our stomachs full of midday beer and seasoned fries, we were ready to be entertained. It was just before 2:00 when we arrived outside the lot and like drones, followed the production assistant to the audience line. The excitement level was high. Complete strangers in line forged bonds over their favorite Gladiators and events of yore. The taping of the show was to begin at 2:30 in the afternoon, the second taping of the day. Having just completed the morning filming, the old audience would exit, yielding their seats to several hundred fresh fans.

As time slowly passed, the line, which began at the bottom of a parking structure and formed along the wall and up the ramp did not move. Two things began to occur. The jovial buzz that most of the participants had achieved began to wear off and the brisk wind of a Los Angeles December began to pick up. Most people were wearing shorts and sandals because it was sunny outside - a place we had not seen in almost 90 minutes by this point.

At 3:30 the line moved. The group marched through the back lot like a bizarre school field trip. We moved in a single file line with a couple of production assistants at the head and rear. The route we were taken wove around soundstage after soundstage in a fashion that both threw off our sense of direction and bought more time for the production crew, I figure. Upon reaching the stage, the group was put into another line, this time for a metal detector. While in this line Jay was able to grab the attention of a man with a clipboard and ask a few questions, like which events we would see that day and what the names of these new and improved Gladiators were.

The names we were told varied from the typical "Titan," "Mayhem" and "Crush" to the unusual "Wolf" and "Hellga". Apparently it was spelled with two L's in order to make her appear more sinister. The man with the clipboard reassured us that Hellga was the biggest woman he'd ever seen - so she had that going for her. As far as the events went, we'd only be seeing one: Hang Tough. As a long time Gladiator fan, I respect Hang Tough as one of the classic events. Crossing a giant grid of rings while avoiding the Gladiator has a certain cat and mouse aspect to it - but it can also be undeniably boring. Someone in the creative department must have been notified of that when redesigning the games and decided it should be played over a giant swimming pool (as was the case with nearly every retooled event - someone must have paid for the pool and wanted to get their moneys worth). The other thing we learned was that we'd be seeing 16 consecutive games of the same event. Due to the largeness of the sets, instead of filming an episode straight through, they filmed one event for every different episode at one time. From a production standpoint this is logical, but from an audiences view, it's dreadfully uninteresting.

The line began moving again and we were finally shuffled on to the set. It looked small, with half of the stage occupied by the previously mentioned large pool and the other half having a large gym mat like surface, possibly a gym mat. Knowing already that our event was taking place over the water, it was unnerving to be seated at the complete opposite end of the arena, far away from the would-be action. With out group now completely sober and getting more agitated by the minute, the producers decided to unleash the audience warm up act.

I've seen my fair share of television tapings, all of which come with audience warm up performers. Comedians, magicians, even hypnotists are dispatched into the crowd to make sure the audience does not get bored or fall asleep during the painstakingly long process of making television. This man made a few jokes, mostly at the expense of audience members. He asked what people were excited to see, and our section yelled out "Hellga" to get his attention. The man asked how we knew about her, to which I said "J-Date," a notion that went completely over his head. After some dance competitions that were wildly inappropriate for the children in the audience, there was a spelling bee which I raised my hand for - and when I misspelled the word, this man screamed in my face to sit down. He repeated this action to several more people, making the already volatile crowd dislike him even more. It was 4:45 when Krysta overheard that the new scheduled end time was going to be 8:00 pm and the staff was trying to make people stay. Originally it was supposed to run from 2:30 until 5:00, which would have been fine. Aside from Krysta having dinner reservations at 7:30, the rest of us just decided that a 6 hour taping was more than we could endure. The afternoon outing had turned into a day long torture session. My two friends and I exchanged a couple of knowing glances. We knew exactly what had to be done. We had seen Hulk Hogan walk by the set once, but we had not seen one Gladiator or event. None of that seemed to matter at this point - one way or another, our time in the studio was coming to an end.

A group of audience members were being taken to the bathroom - after all, being held captive for over three hours with nothing but bottles of water really makes you have to go. The three of us joined the group exiting the stage. Fresh air and the last bits of daylight greeted us upon exiting the arena. There were fifteen people on the bathroom field trip. The production assistant saddled with the task of chaperoning us took a diligent count before turning his back to lead the line. We dropped to the back of the pack, and as the group turned a corner, the plan went into action. As if someone had shot off the starting gun, we made a run for it. We could see the lot exit ahead of us; salvation was only steps away. As we turned through the exit gates, a voice from the security booth yelled for us to stop. Our feet stopped, as did our hearts. Was this hourly waged security guard going to make us turn back and watch the rest of the taping?

“You can’t run in the street, please use the sidewalk,” he said.
“Sure, sorry about that,” I mumbled, realizing we were going to make it.

As we hit the street, another thought came to us – the car was still parked at the bar, about five miles away. Attempts to get a cab proved fruitless. Unlike New York, out in Los Angeles patrons usually had to call for their cabs in advance unless they were at the airport or a night club. What the city lacked in accessible cabs, it made up for in Starbucks across from every major studio. We hoofed it over to one on the corner, called for our cab and headed back to the bar. The drive home consisted of primarily two discussions. One about the adrenaline we all felt while running from the lot and the other was basically me repeatedly apologizing for dragging Krysta and Jay into this mess of a day.

Word traveled back to me from a friend who stayed until the end that the taping concluded around 9:00 pm. People began leaving as the studio could not hold them against their will. Yes, they made it out of there as well, but without feeling the wind on their faces as their feet carried them to freedom. I sometimes wonder about the production assistant making another count on the way back from the bathrooms and coming up three people short. Should I feel bad if he got fired?

We never laid eyes on Helga until the show debuted later that summer. The man with the clipboard wasn't just blowing smoke at us; she was about as big a woman as I had ever seen.

New Year, New Format, New Title?

2009-01-02T08:07:00.002-05:00

My new year’s resolution is to sustain this blog in a more consistent fashion. Since the move to Boston it’s been on and off at best, never more than once or twice a month. The new plan is to post every Friday. It will give me a chance to think about things to write during the week and get them up in time for people to read them over the weekend.

How am I going to maintain this new goal? I’m going to have a completely new format which will involve non-fiction anecdotes of things that have actually occurred in my life. This is obviously a nod to becoming a very big fan of This American Life and other anecdotal non-fiction writing over the past year. It really started to develop in my head when my girlfriend and I were sitting around with the neighbors exchanging some funny stories about bad roommate experiences. The thing is, I used to enjoy writing a lot. I even tried to write a few screenplays and spec scripts once I was out of school and living in Los Angeles. Somewhere along the way I lost my love for this hobby. I think I was too concerned with getting people to read them and trying to sell things than I was with trying to actually write because I liked writing. I liked storytelling. Hopefully this new style blog will help jumpstart my writing again.

Now, the business at hand: I need a new title. PLurie Thoughts will no longer suffice, as these are going to be stories instead of general thoughts. There are enough blogs that are opinionated and your average day to day routine. Give me a hand and help me think of a new title. Put it in a comment for this entry, or e-mail me your suggestions.

The Dan Band Show

2008-12-05T10:48:00.005-05:00

Last night was the Dan Band show at the Roxy. It was pretty awesome. They played a lot of the stuff from their live album and also some new ones - including a Shakira medley and the Pussycat Dolls. There was a strong focus on Christmas music -- the shirts even said "Ho!" on them.

The highlight of the night was when Dan began singing Shoop. He did the usual intro a la Salt n Peppa, you know, the whole "Not you, the bow-legged one... what's your name?" routine. After he said "What's your name?" he stuck the microphone right in my face, so I said "Paul." True to form, he went on with the song and said "Daaamn, that sounds sexy." That's what you get when you're up against the stage.

Here's a video treat:

For some reason, the audio sync is a little off on the video I took last night, but you get the idea. People were really pumped up for the song and singing along, so you can get the general idea. I'm sure there will be other stuff from the show on Youtube, there were a ton of people with cameras just as close to the stage as I was.

What I'm Thankful For

2008-11-26T08:10:00.000-05:00

The train I take to work happens to continue on to Logan Airport. Today, when I got on the platform to wait, I was surrounded by the same thing: college kids with their small wheeling suitcase, heading home for Thanksgiving. A good majority were from Boston University, as I could tell by their matching hoodies, and judging by their nervousness, not many of them had ventured out to the blue line train yet.

Last year at this time I was home, having flown a Tuesday red eye from Los Angeles to Hartford. At this very moment I was probably asleep on the couch, since those flights always left me in a zombe-like state for several hours after landing. This year I'm not even leaving until tomorrow, on Thanksgiving Day. That luxury is one of the biggest reasons that I moved back to the east coast in the first place.

A funny thing happened earlier this year. A good number of my friends in Los Angeles decided to move away. None of these people were California locals, all had moved out there in the past 5-7 years and had decided that their time out on the west coast had drawn to a close. The hassle of planning a trip home from Los Angeles was always difficult - needing to know so far in advance, then practically losing two of the days because of the travel - the visits always seemed a lot shorter than they actually were.

That's what I'm thankful for, in this most hectic of years. The move was incredibly strenuous and I do miss a lot of close friends from California, but I wouldn't change what I've done for the world. I'm thankful for being closer to my family, living with my wonderful girlfriend and settling in to this new life of ours. I'm even thankful to be preparing for the dreadfully cold winter which will surely kill me.

Rainy Day Cliche

2008-11-25T10:52:00.003-05:00

It's raining out. Harder than usual, but not completely unbearable. This kind of weather is difficult to stomach when using an outdoor subway station as your primary mode of transportation. During my junior year of college I had a similar situation over at St. Paul Street, which was actually worse, because the full express trains would pass right by. Now that I'm further down the line I can at least hop on and pray for the train to go express.

While I was outside waiting this morning there were a handful of unhappy people cluttered under the tiny bus stop awning. The braver people were out in the open, leaving their umbrellas to protect them. I waited with the brave folks. After about five minutes, a truck came barrelling down the road a little too close to the stop. I wasn't worried about the truck hitting us, but rather the giant puddle that had accumulated along side the barrier wall. Sure enough, it hit, and my legs got a little wet. The guy that was two spaces down from me got the brunt of it, soaking his backpack and legs. After that moment, everyone took a big step away from the wall, on to the yellow safety line next to the tracks. We all held out our umbrellas facing the puddle, attempting to sheild ourselves from the onslaught. Another girl made her way to the station and decided to lean right against the wall, despite everyone else standing a good two feet away. All of the umbrella holders glanced down the road to see an oncoming school bus, sure to soak the poor girl. Fortunately, the bus got caught by a red light and the train arrived, saving her from a damp morning.

The Aquarium is located right along the water, in the central wharf. There is an alley between the main building and the IMAX which creates a great place for wind to come shooting through. Naturally, while walking up the main plaza today, the wind was hard to walk against. Out of nowhere, a huge gust turned my umbrella inside out. The only reason it didn't completely blow away was that I had the wristband wrapped around my hand. It was terribly cliche and took a little while for the umbrella to be coaxed back into its normal shape.

So, the car splashed me and my umbrella turned inside out. What else could happen? I am probably going to step in a puddle that turns out to be about a foot deeper than it looks. Wayne Knight could crash his jeep on to our front stoop, only to be blinded and eaten by dinosaurs. Maybe Spider-man will hang upside down off the balcony across the street and kiss someone. Then Tim Robbins is going to tunnel out of the basement of my building, only to raise his arms in the middle of the street, victorious.

Actually, that last one would be awesome.

Emerson Quidditch Team

2008-11-21T11:20:00.000-05:00

Emerson, Boston University clash in Quidditch

Yes, my alma mater has a Quittitch team.

No, they can't fly -- I think they are aware of that. I guess it would have to be considered similar to playing hockey in sneakers, on pavement. You're not moving around on the right surface, or as fast as you should be, but it's more like kids pretending to do something their own way.

I'm curious as to how the golden snitch works. I think maybe they hide it in the grass like an easter egg. Maybe someone in a full body camoflauge or green screen suit runs around holding it and they have to chase him. Maybe when the game gets too long, someone just chucks it up in the air and the seekers go apeshit chasing it down.

Apparently they have a well constructed plan: "In muggle Quidditch, a snitch is a person dressed in yellow with a sock hanging from the back of their pants. If a team's seeker is able to catch the snitch and grab the sock, the team is awarded 30 points; games do not end until it is caught."

Yeah. So the snitch is a person. And to win you must pull the sock out of his pants. That will teach him to mislead the ladies in the first place. Either way, I wish them luck in their next two games at the University of Narnia and home against Mordor State.

MBTA Guilt Trip

2008-11-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

This morning apparently there was an issue on the blue line train where a passenger was holding the door open in order for someone else to make it on to their train. The driver became exceedingly angry and this is how it progressed:

"Please do not hold the door."
Fine, a nice verbal warning over the public address system. The typical warning should teach him. Assuming he heard it, we should be ready to roll.

"Why don't you just tell me when you're ready to leave?"
Stepping it up, the driver is now utilizing the same guilt tactics that most Jewish mothers have perfected over the years. The door shut soon after this was said over the speaker for everyone to hear.

Once the train started moving, we were all privy to this gem:
"Everyone on this train is now going to be late because of you. Do not hold the doors open."

Harsh. I guess there's no reward for trying to help your fellow commuter.

Hey Mister Owl...

2008-11-01T15:18:00.003-04:00

Remember when we were kids and there were only a few kinds of tootsie roll pops?

Chocolate
Orange
Cherry
Grape
Raspberry.

There was a bowl of them at work this morning and I did not recognize any of them. The label colors were bright and neon, certainly different from the dull, solid colors of my youth. The new roster of flavors includes:

Strawberry
Lemon-Lime
Blue-Raspberry
Watermelon
Pomegranate

The idea of the tootsie pop is that the middle chocolate section goes well with one of the exterior fruit flavors. I can understand the strawberry choice, those suckers have been working with chocolate for a long time. I don't understand the rest. Lemon-Lime + Chocolate? Watermelon + Chocolate? Pomegranate?? Really? I didn't even know what a pomegranate was during my peak trick-or-treating years, and now it's popular enough to gain Tootsie pop status? Which brings me to my rant of the day: Blue Raspberry.

Not that Blue Raspberry is bad, but I guess I refuse to believe we are living in a day and age where this made up "blue" version of raspberry is more popular than the original. I know the main reason kids want this unnatural blue candy is to make their mouths match the shade, but there must be another way. Raspberry is a good enough flavor on its own, it doesn't need to be taken down a peg by this blue, bastard cousin. My thought: make up a flavor for the blue, like powerade did. "Mountain Blast" is surely nothing more than food coloring, water and sodium, but it works for them. It's a color not found in nature, so don't make kids grow up thinking that they can scamper through the woods and find the ever elusive blue-raspberry bush, it's not happening.

... and we're back

2008-10-21T08:03:00.002-04:00

Almost three months to the day and I'm back in the blogosphere.

I guess there were more pressing issues since my last post in July.

Find a job
Furnish/settle in to an apartment.

Okay, well maybe the list wasn't entirely long, but those are pretty important in the grand scheme of things. I was able to finish list item number one twice, working for Boston Duck Tours during the end of summer and beginning of fall before starting a more permanent job over at the New England Aquarium. I'm a supervisor of box office, so it's a lot of ticketing - for the whale watch, groups, Imax and actual aquarium.

I have a bunch of half-finished blog entries that I've started months ago when I was still in Los Angeles, so hopefully theres going to be time to get a few of those good ones up in the future. In the mean time, things are good in Boston. I've got a job, an apartment, a new kickball team and a girlfriend who loves me. And now I have a blog that is going to be updated occasionally. Huzzah.

Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

2008-07-21T20:17:00.004-04:00

Monday was a terrible horrible no good very bad day. I wanted to move to Australia.

It started, as all days like this usually do, at the Watertown DMV. The branch opened at 8:30 am, so Lindy and I decided to head over there around 8:15, only to find that there were about fifty people in line already. We got our tickets which said we would have to wait about seventeen minutes before we would get our new licenses. Nearly an hour later, our numbers were called and we got our brand new temporary Massachusetts licenses (the real ones would arrive in 7-10 days). All in all it seemed like a pretty good start to the day, as we were finished at the DMV before 10:00.

Since I had newly registered the car in Massachusetts, I would need to get the car to pass the state inspections. Only nine months ago, this same car passed the California state inspection, which is arguably the most difficult inspection to pass. Some time during the inspection, I happened to look closer at the temporary license that I was issued that very morning, and noticed there was something wrong. According to the state of Massachusetts, I was officially listed as a Female.

This led to a long time on hold with the DMV, because the last thing I wanted to do was go back there and work it out in person. The exchange with the woman on the phone went something like this:

Woman: How can I help you?
Paul: I just got a license today, and it has me listed as a female.
Woman: And you're not a female.
Paul: No, I just checked and I'm still a dude.
Woman: Okay. What kind of ID card did you use to get your license.
Paul: Birth certificate and social security card.
Woman: Okay. Go back to the DMV and show them the card and the evidence.
Paul: Show them the evidence? Like right there in front of everyone?
Woman: No, not that evidence. Nobody wants to see that.
Paul: That's not nice. I'm sure somebody wants to see it.

So, lucky as I was, after passing the inspection, I was able to go back to the DMV for a second time and get the error taken care of. Thankfully I didn't have to get back in line, I just snuck up to one of the windows and was able to get it taken care of. In and out. Things were starting to go my way.

I spent the rest of the afternoon sending out resumes and inquiry letters for potential jobs, as this marked the one month mark of not having a job. I was waiting for a call from a place that I had applied to and had several interviews, both in person and on the phone. My last interview was seven days ago and they said I would hear by this afternoon, so I was hoping to get some good news to dilute the rest of the day. The phone did ring and it was a woman I had interviewed with. She did not have good news.

It turns out that instead of hiring anyone for the position, they were putting the position "on hold," while the higher-ups were going to think about restructuring the department. I didn't get the job. Nobody got the job. I wonder how many other people were waiting a week to hear this was the result. I would have been happier if someone else got it, just to know there was something I could have done better in order to improve my interview skills. Instead she said that I was a great candidate, but there was nothing to offer anyone right now. I wish there was at least some kind of awareness of this being a possibility of an outcome, instead of it hitting me from out of nowhere. I guess saying "Paul, while you're a great candidate, it's highly likely that we'll choose to take you through the whole process only to eliminate the position," wouldn't have gone over that well.

I was feeling down, but I knew that there were some good things on craigslist that we wanted to go pick up. One of them, a table, was only available after 8:00 pm, so I called the man involved around 7 and told him we could come get it. He said we could only come at 8:00 am and someone else was coming to get the table because we didn't call that morning, even though the e-mail he sent us clearly said 8:00 PM.

Sigh. We found another desk to look at and walked to the car to find that... the car was gone. We have a temporary parking space in the building lot that goes until the end of August. The building manager took pity on us trying to figure out the parking permit/registration process and let us have the spot for a couple of weeks. Little did we know that during this process, there is a good chance that when your license plates switch to Mass, you're going to get towed. In order to get the vehicle inspection I needed the new plates, so we sent a message to the managers blackberry telling him we were switching plates. He said to send the info and he'd inform the towing company of the new plates in order to keep our car from getting towed (this was the current agreement we had).

We sent the message containing our new plate information at noon.
At 2:45 pm we returned from the vehicle inspection.
A short time before 7:00 pm we found the parking spot empty.

The Boston parking department is the most efficient department of any branch of government in any city on the planet. The truck was ready to swoop in and take our car, despite it being the same make and model of the car that belonged in the space, just with different plates. After a series of calls with our building manager, he said we needed to pay $117 to the company, but we could subtract that from our August rent check. I told him straight forward, being without jobs, it's not so easy to just lay down $117 in cash, and he was able to talk to the tow yard manager and make the charges go away. The unsung hero of the night goes to our neighbor Ben who gave us a ride to "sketchy-town" where the tow yard was located. He's a cool guy.

That is the story of the terrible horrible no good very bad day.

In other news, we got some furniture:

Check out this rockin' Ikea dresser. Originally thought we were missing over twenty pieces that were required to hold it together. In the end we were only missing three pieces, and none of them were really required to build it. They were more like accent pieces.

Our awesome bed.

The couch and chair set we carried up the stairs ourselves. We had a bit of an adventure getting the furniture using a zipcar. We ended up getting the Honda Element, which was big enough to fit 92% of the couch inside, and the smallest bit was hanging out. It was secured using old telephone wires around the end, guaranteeing that sucker didn't move at all during the drive from Cambridge to Brighton. It's comfortable and will be warm in the winter, so come test it out.

Wait, I have a blog?

2008-07-20T09:27:00.004-04:00

Oops. I guess I jumped into the real shallow end (see above) and I just haven't remembered to post on here. Well, you know, it happens to all of us. Things start happening in your life and suddenly you forget about something. If you think this delay is bad, you should see my fantasy baseball league. I don't think I've checked that since May, just because there's been too much going on with moving. I bet I still have Curt Schilling as a starting pitcher.

Lindy and I are in Boston, getting nicely settled. We've got the basics covered: bed, couch, tv, bookshelves. We're looking for a desk for the computer still; as I type now it's balanced on top of two boxes that have clothes in them in order to stay weighed down.

Oh, and jobs. Jobs would be nice. Should know by tomorrow about one I applied for. Expect another blog about that, and I'm sure my general tone should be able to clue you in on what the results were.

Off to another humid Sunday morning.

Day 5: Cleveland to Hamden

2008-07-07T21:38:00.001-04:00

After ten days, two weddings and more family members than I can count, we left Cleveland. The drive was a little different than we were used to, splitting up into two vehicles and transporting the new bride and groom back to New York. Lindy rented a van in Cleveland to transport her goods since my car was already full of my stuff.

Pennsylvania is long. Not as long as Kansas, but it felt pretty similar. There was also a 10 minute down pour and a giant dead bear on the side of the road. We also saw the winner of the best town name I've seen on the trip: Buttzville, New Jersey.

This picture sums up what it's like to drive through Pennsylvania.

And those two pictures are for the Office fans who are reading along. Mifflinville, PA is not too far from the junction you take to get to Scranton, so I'm sure someone who works on the show is both entirely clever and knows how to read a map of central Pennsylvania.

Here's what we did today:

The Real Space Mountain

2008-07-03T10:28:00.000-04:00

While driving in Utah last week we passed a rock formation that instantly looked familiar to me.

Take a look for yourself:

Aside from the spikes on the top, it looks pretty similar. It even has some ridge lines down the base. Of course there was no 45 minute wait to get on this mountain, but it still made me happy.

Get Smart

2008-07-02T09:22:00.000-04:00

Get Smart could have been a funny movie if not for the majority of the scenes that I laughed at being revealed in the trailer. The remaining funny scenes were scarce and there was just something about Anne Hathaway that didn't seem to fit with the rest of the movie. The movie only ran 1 hour and 50 minutes but it felt a lot longer, and that's not a good thing.

I do like Steve Carell. He's one of the main reasons that I went to see the movie, but even I as one of his fans has to admit that his schtick is growing a little stale. I suppose it's smart to stick with what brought you success, but he needs to branch out a little. The Will Ferrell sport-comedy was funny with Talladega Nights, but each movie there after (Blades of Glory, Semi Pro) was a lot less funny and made less money. I'm happy to see Carell signed on for three more seasons of the Office, maybe he'll get more time to sort through the movie projects.

I'm likely not going to see another movie until Dark Knight.

Feeling Old

2008-07-01T15:35:00.000-04:00

I was chatting with a few of Lindy's cousins and one of their family friends, all of whom were younger than I when the subject of conversation changed to our cell phones. All of them already had better cell phones than I did, which I had no problem with. When we discussed what our ringtones were, one of them said it was Taylor Swift, the other said something I hadn't heard of. When I told them my default ringtone was the opening theme song from Perfect Strangers all of them looked at me with a blank expression.

It was the oldest I've felt since I was a camp counselor; and those kids were seven.

Live from Cleveland: Updates

2008-06-30T16:06:00.001-04:00

Just updated the first three entries of the trip with some stories and more pictures. Should have time to work on the other days when there is more down time over here. Just wanted to give it the appropriate bump to direct your attention that way.

We've been in Cleveland about four days already and most of that time has been spent helping to get things ready for the wedding. Cutting and folding programs, tying ribbons, punching holes, making signs, moving boxes, you name it... we've done it. It's been fun, but very stressful as you can imagine.

There was a wedding of a family friend on Sunday, so that night everyone was able to get out of the house and have some fun. Nothing relieves the stress like a few hours on the dance floor and an open bar. It was a good dry run, but the real deal on Thursday will be very different, since it will be so many more familiar people (to me at least, I'm sure the Kramers knew everyone there).

A few more days in Cleveland. Hoping to see the Christmas Story house, but it's only open from Thursday to Sunday, which could pose a problem. All in all it's been a pleasant visit thus far, we're just all crossing our fingers for the rain to stay away on Thursday.

Day 4: Chicago to Cleveland

2008-06-27T16:13:00.000-04:00

We made it to Cleveland. Now there's ten days where I don't have to wake up early and get in the car for a lengthy trip. Of course, there are two weddings and lots of family stuff with the Kramers, but as long as I don't have to drive, I'm totally game.

Here's what we did today:While driving through Indiana we had to stop for a bathroom break and somehow, we ended up in Michigan. Apparently we were straddling the state border for the entire trip, and the slight left turn we made off the highway exit put us over the line. The hotel we stopped at in Sturgis, Michigan is literally right on the line. The woman at the front desk told us that the parking lot was technically in Indiana while the actual hotel was in Michigan. Good to know.

When you travel across the country there are a good number of bugs that meet their demise at 70 miles per hour against the front of your windshield, hood, headlights and license plate. Here's a quick look at some of the highlights of this little discussed aspect of the trip.My once white license plate now has a speckled look.

Nacho get up close and personal with a formerly huge bug.

Day 3: St. Louis to Chicago

2008-06-26T18:38:00.001-04:00

Made it to Chicago. Nice to get a short drive for once, but of course we had a time constraint that caused us to get up wicked early again to get on the road. Here's what we did today:
Here are some more pictures along the way and of the final destination:

Finally a town named after a character from the office.

The famous Chicago skyline.

Doing my best "Chicago Superfan" impression.

Personally I'd pay more attention to a bear running around the stands and be a little too distracted to look out for foul balls.

This guy got beer real fast every time he put his sign up.

We made it just in time for the second inning of the game and were able to catch all ELEVEN runs that the Orioles were able to score. That's right - the Baltimore Orioles came in an wiped the floor with the National League leading Cubs. You know it's a rough game when Kevin Millar picks up an RBI on a bases loaded walk. Result aside, this was a great place to watch a game. The atmosphere was similar to Fenway in that the streets were packed leading towards the field and the noise level was very high during the entire game. You could hear people chattering about everything as the innings progressed. Even with the score so out of hand, people were cheering every Cub player (aside from Jason Marquis, the starting pitcher).

After the game we had some down time in Lindy's apartment where packed up the last of her stuff and threw out other things. We met some friends at the Chicago Diner for some vegetarian chow where I learned just how much fake meat is too much. The fake meat, forgive me if I forget the actual terminology for it, was very spongy in consistency. One of our fellow diners was quick to compare it to a piece of white bread that is traditionally served at the bottom of a Texas barbecue in order to sponge up the remaining flavor and sauce.

Day 2: Denver to St. Louis

2008-06-26T00:04:00.000-04:00

Made it to St. Louis. The mountainous surroundings disappeared into an eternity of flat plains. It was so boring in Kansas that I made up a haiku. Then I was informed we were still in eastern Colorado and hadn't even made it to Kansas yet. Highlight of the night was impromtu meeting of Kansas City (KS) Pizza Club with Joe and Megan. Here's what we did today:

Here are some pictures from the first meeting of the KC Pizza Club.

This leg of the ride wasn't so bad, comparatively to yesterdays mammoth drive to Denver. The differences were immediately noticeable as all of the mountains disappeared in exchange for nothing but ridiculous flat fields. The true MVP's of this leg were Michael Winfield and Kelly Davis, two of my best friends from Los Angeles. They presented us with a gigantic book of Mad Libs for the ride. I'm sure without this book we would have been a lot more bored than we actually let on. The only problem with doing a Mad Lib while driving through Kansas, is that a lot of the nouns turn out to be what you happen to look at. Truck. Corn. Field. Car. Cloud. Trust me, there were a few rounds that were as the surroundings.
This picture illustrates just how Lindy reacted to my usage of "grass" as a noun in a Mad Lib for the 47th time in a row. We had lots of in car activities and snacks to keep us going, which is mostly Lindy's doing. If not for her, I surely would have starved. In a round of dueling i-pods (who ever is driving gets to choose music) we decided to play the top 25 most played song lists from our respective pods. It was funny because Lindy has a lot of the same music and my pod had really eclectic shit from all over the place. Of course, this was just from the pod which I only used sparingly in the last year or so. Most of my music has been played off my work computer, but I guess you can gauge my musical taste from 2006-2007 from this list. Trust me, a lot of these songs shocked me by making my top 25 as much as they will you. Here's the results:

LINDY:

Dog on Wheels - Belle & Sebastian
It could have been a brillant career - Belle & Sebastian
Sleep The Clock Around - Belle & Sebastian
Is it Wicked not to Care? - Belle & Sebastian
Ease Your Feet in the Sea - Belle & Sebastian
A Summer Westling - Belle & Sebastian
Seymour Stein - Belle & Sebastian
Dirty Dream Number Two - Belle & Sebastian
Race to the City - The Cinematics
Chase - The Cinematics
Rise & Fall - The Cinematics
Ocean of Noise - The Arcade Fire
Concerning the UFO Sightings Near Highland, Illinois - Sufjan Stevens
The Black Hawk War - Sufjan Stevens
Come on! Feel the Illinois - Sufjan Stevens
John Wayne Gacy, Jr. - Sufjan Stevens
Jacksonville - Sufjan Stevens
A Short Reprise for Mary Todd - Sufjan Stevens
Decatur - Sufjan Stevens
One Last Woo-hoo - Sufjan Stevens
Chicago - Sufjan Stevens
Casimir Pulaski Day - Sufjan Stevens
To the Workers of the Rock River Valley Region
If You Don't Know By Now - Office
Be Good - Tokyo Police Club

PAUL:

Heat of the Moment - Asia
The Pharmacist - Hot Rod Circuit
Mutt - Blink 182
Any Way You Want It - Journey
Scars - Papa Roach
Pain - Jimmy Eat World
Gold Digger - Kanye West
Dreaming of You - The Coral
Danny's Song - Loggin's and Messina
Hold On/Luka - The Dan Band
Question - Old 97's
Dance Dance - Fall Out Boy
Love is Alright Tonite - Rick Springfield
Poison - Bell Biv DeVoe
Boston - Augustana
Waiting for my Real Life to Begin - Colin Hay
Take on Me - Reel Big Fish
Jane - Jefferson Starship
Crazy - Gnarls Barkley
Separate Ways - Journey
Tessie - Dropkick Murphys
Here it Goes Again - Ok Go
Kingdom Come - Coldplay
Hands Down - Dashboard Confessional
So I Say - The Shins

Day 1: Los Angeles to Denver

2008-06-25T02:02:00.000-04:00

Made it to Denver. Don't underestimate this drive. It's a very ambitious drive which turned from scenic to vast emptiness to fun to an uphill struggle (mentally and physically) to the finish line. Here's what we did today:

Here are the first couple of pictures from the road:

Plenty of pictures and other details will be added later on.

Updated (6/30/08)

The morning of the trip started out on an unusual note. The night before Lindy and I were both super tired having gone for a ridiculously quick trip to Disneyland, another long post office visit, the first attempt of loading the car and a trip to the bar to see some friends. By the time we got home there was little chivalry left and we were both pretty agitated. Agitated to the point where we could not figure out a way to leave the house in the morning. In order to leave, I had to get in the car, pull it out of the garage, shut the garage, run around the front and leave the keys and the garage opener on the table, then run back out to start the journey. In theory this would have worked just fine, but I completely forgot about the gate that was blocking us from the street. Now, we were gated in with no clicker and couldn't go back into the apartment because I had already put the keys inside. Of course this left two options: sit and wait for the next early riser to swing around and open the gate for the two of us, or call my roommate Alicia... at 5:10 in the morning.
Fortunately for us, my lovely and brilliant former roommate of four years was great enough to click the door open and send us on our way. The above picture was NOT taken at 5:00 am.

We hit the road on the 101, which we ditched soon for the 134. I'll always remember that merger because off to the south you can see Universal Studios Hollywood perched on it's hill side, overlooking the valley like an out of place castle. The 134 gave way to the 210 around the Pasadena area with an early morning clear view of the Rose Bowl. We made our first stop around Barstow for a bathroom break and happened to see the worlds largest thermometer.

As you can see (or might not be able to see...) it was already 90 degrees at about 8:15 am. We continued on to Interstate 15 through Las Vegas where we hit our very first batch of traffic. All the traffic that we hit on the entire trip was due to road construction. Once we were out of L.A. a lot of cities relied on 2 lane highways. These roads were often turned into a one lane slow poke ride when construction was brought into the picture.

As you can see, our trip mascot, Lil' Nacho Libre was enjoying the slow moving ride on the dashboard. If he had been left out there much longer, he would have probably melted. Another good thing about Nevada is that there are casino's everywhere, even in a Denny's:

The trip got more beautiful along the way. Utah took freakin' forever. The previously mentioned last leg was really horrible. We were at an altitude of 10,000 feet, still going uphill on a forest road that had no lights. There were a few reflectors but all in all it was very dark. I saw two large deer hanging out in the median and a third one taking a long, quiet nap on the side of the road. This was enough reason for me to go slower than normal. We pulled into Melissa's place after 11:00 pm and did not last long before crashing on the futon. Another super long day ahead of us. In hindsight in was brilliant to get the longest drive out of the way the first day, but at the time it seemed like way too much.

Leaving Los Angeles

2008-06-19T14:59:00.000-04:00

Growing up on the east coast, Los Angeles is seen as this gigantic fantasy land where people ship off to pursue their dreams. Movies are made, stars are larger than life and nobody walks anywhere. It's warm all year round and people spend all their blonde, tan free time at the beach. Then when you actually get here, you find out that it’s not so far off.

I drove out here with no expectations of what L.A. would be like in January 2004. Me and my buddy Justin got in my Toyota and drove from ocean to ocean. It’s a strange feeling moving to any new place without having any bearing of what’s what. It’s even stranger when your first place of residence is the Oakwood Apartments, an unusual borderline Hollywood complex overrun with wannabe child stars, touring bands and college interns.

The thing is, once you manage to get past all the big bright lights and find your grove, L.A. is just like any other place. You’ll find your circle of friends, a couple of places you like to hang out and realize that it’s not such a scary place after all. Now that I’m packing up and heading back to the east coast, I thought I’d share some of my favorite memories of my time in the city of angels.

Lingo - February 2006

It’s a pretty good day when you call in sick from work to compete on a game show with one of your good friends and leave $5,000 richer. My friend Matt Green agreed to come in and be my partner when I saw the ad on Craigslist one afternoon. We were the last team to try out and we got up there and got all the answers right. They called us in for the last show of the season, which in fact was a science fiction themed episode. We made shirts with space shapes on them and they painted our faces like aliens, which looked stupid, but it didn’t matter. After sitting in the waiting room for several hours, we were taken on the stage and proceeded to wipe the floor with our two trekkie opponents. For some reason it was science fiction week on the show. The make up ladies drew atoms on our foreheads matching the ones on our shirts, despite our asking them not to. It was still better than wearing full Star Trek uniforms (that they brought from home) and getting your butt kicked. We were one ball away from walking away with $17,000 but it was not to be. I'd feel bad if I didn't thank Chuck Woolery for the cash, his eerie orange tan and his incredibly awkward banter with co-host Shandi.

Minnie’s Moonlit Madness - May 2006 & 2007

This event was catered to me. For those who don’t know, it’s a late night scavenger hunt through Disneyland where entrants had to rely on their puzzle solving abilities and knowledge of Disney trivia. The best (or worst) part is that the four members of the team are tethered together with a rope and clips. Alicia, Becca, and myself teamed along with Disney employee Heather for two of the most fun and well organized eventsthat I've ever taken part in. It was great to see what people would do to prepare for the event. A lot of people came in costume, and as you can see, we had our matching red t-shirt. It was never totally about the competition; the prep nights were always fun. I enjoyed making the shirts with the girls. Even the prep night for year #2 was alright, despite having to watching High School Musical (the nights theme) to know trivia answers. Through a lot of team work and some dragging people by a rope, we finished in the top 10% of over 300 teams both years, setting a high mark for Heathers work department.

Kickball - January 2007 to Present

There really are no words to describe the impact on my life that this silly kid’s game has made. I walked into the North Hollywood division last February as a nervous loner. At the end of the championship game only a few days ago, I walked off the field surrounded by my closest friends, fighting back the sadness of knowing that was my last game. I can’t recall any group of people that was so warm and welcoming of a newcomer, a group of people that shared so many similar interests and ideas, a group of people that quickly became like family. Sure, they have plenty of kickball divisions in Massachusetts, but I doubt any of them will compare to the fun, silliness and good times I’ve had during my tenure in my beloved Studio Division (and my lesser loved but equally fun Junction Division).

The Office at Paleyfest - March 2007

The MTR Paleyfest was one of the biggest debacles of my time out here. The way it was handled before the show was the most outrageous situation I’ve ever been a part of. Tickets were issues and then taken back, there was a never ending chain of e-mails that finally resulted in two tickets in my name. All of the agony of attempting to get into the show was instantly erased once it began. My friend Orli, one of the biggest Office fans I know flew in from Florida and we were so excited to be there. Just getting in the door felt like such a triumph, but winning a trivia contest was the icing on the cake. For those interested, the question was "What did Dwight give Michael for his birthday?" And the answer was "a hockey jersey that said "From Dwight" on the back where the player name usually goes. I ended up with a pretty awesome swag bag, including Season 1 and 2 on DVD, a hat and a computer mouse that had a built in snow globe. After the show ended, the rabid-fans bum rushed the stage (us included) in hopes to get a picture or autograph with the cast. When we told B.J. Novak that Orli had come all the way from Florida, he said in a confused voice "for this?" Every cast member was there except for John Krasinski, who was filming Leatherheads (unforgivable, especially after seeing the movie).

Foo Fighters at the Forum - March 2008

The best concert I’ve ever been to in my life, thanks to my friend Becca who had an extra ticket the day before the show. I saw lots of great shows in a lot of famous venues while out here in Los Angeles, but it will take a truly amazing show to unseat this performance from the top of my list. I don't know that I've been to any other hugh arena rock shows like that, aside from the Aerosmith show at Hollywood Bowl. Here the building was literally shaking because it was so loud. Grohl worked the crowd all night up and down the runway and from the smaller stage at the end. I even liked Serj Tankien as the opener, and I've had mixed feelings about his music for a while. Seeing him in person, he was quite the showman. The Foo Fighters are a great band that knows exactly what to do during a live show to make it supremely memorable.

Muddy Buddy Race - November 2007

The Muddy Buddy was a 7 mile race in five alternating legs of biking and running. Between each leg is an obstacle like a balance beam or a cargo net. The last obstacle was a 30 yard mud pit that you had to crawl through. There was so much mud that almost everyone had to throws out their shoes and socks afterwards, if you even made it out of the pit still wearing them. In retrospect, we probably didn't have the right kind of bike for that kind of off-road, outdoors hilly turrain. My roommate Alicia lent me her bike which was likely designed for traveling on the smooth sidewalks of a city and not through the dirt of a park. Ernest and I knew about the race for months and as the date crept closer and closer we both knew we should have probably been training more than we did. I rode the bike occasionally, but rarely ran. Ernest said he ran but had not been on a bicycle in a couple of years. We eventually ran out of prep time and just bit the bullet and went to the race. It was a real fun environment, lots of people in costumes, raffles, free stuff and a bunch of people ready to get muddy. I'd like to mention that almost every time Ernest had the bike there seemed to be a nice paved road for him during part of his leg, including a smooth downhill road, where I had to take the bike over a beach through the water and down steep hills. I'm not complaining; I wouldn't trade the experience for anything in the world. It truly showed me that I could accomplish a lot more than I thought I could.

Reno 911 (Feb. 2007) & Tenacious D (Nov. 2006)

The small town kid in me came out in full force for these two movie premieres. I had been to advance screenings before, but I never knew that in Hollywood they gave out extra tickets to the actual premieres at the famous Groman's Chinese Theater. Sure, I may have shown up over cautiously early just to guarantee I got in, but I did and was able to sneak in my camera. I took the camera out of my pocket and held it in my hands with my keys as they wanded my pocket area which was horribly stupid and brilliant at the same time. One of the strangest aspects might have been that the stars were intersperced among the regular ticket holders. There were special reserved sections for the movie, but nothing was to stop you from being at the urinal next to Seth Rogen or waiting for popcorn along side John C. Reilly. A lot of them even hung around after to take pictures and even to just talk with the fans. At the time of these events I would consider myself a true resident of L.A. Celebrity sightings would rarely phase me, I would see a lot of famous people at work visiting the park, or sometimes just randomly out at the store. It's just a part of living in southern California. Everyone who comes to L.A. has the same first celebrity sighting: Dennis "Mr Belding" Haskins at Dimples Karaoke in Burbank.

Sidebar: Top 5 Random Celebrity Sightings

Neil Flynn (Janitor on Scrubs) at Dennys, reading the newspaper
Norm McDonald at the Sunset 5, seeing Broken Flowers
Andre Benjamin from Outkast at LAX, waiting to go to Atlanta
Jessica Alba at Costco, buying baby supplies
Mike Tyson at Studio Yogurt, eating only toppings

‘The State’ Live Reunion Show - March 2008

Quite possibly one of the hardest things to get into that I actually ended up being barely able to get in. I heard about the show after it was already sold out, which wasn't hard, because the small theater apparently sold out in under 30 minutes. When I heard there was going to be a small amount of people let in on a stand by list I knew I would go there incredibly early in order to try and be one of the lucky few. I ended up getting lucky, barely. We were standing along the side of the aisle near the back of the theater, but it didn't matter. We were in for the second show added due to demand. The rumors were that these shows were in preparation for a special they are making for comedy central this fall. It focused on an interesting view of United States history. The show was very funny, and getting to see such a rare show is something that could have only happened in L.A. I even made friends with the people in line based on our common interests, so the long outside rainy wait was worth it. It was also a big event in terms of my quest to have every member of the State sign their book. I’m now only missing Michael Showalter, who I hope will be easier to get now that I’ll be living on the east coast.

Red Sox vs. Angels ALDS Game 3 - October 2007

I saw games in all six west-coast baseball stadiums (including Seattle), but this one stood out among great experiences at a visiting park. It was one of many Red Sox games I’ve seen from the visitor stadium in the past four years – and only a tiny bit better than the L.A. Coliseum exhibition game against the Dodgers. It was great to drive down with all my Boston guys. The stadium and surrounding areas were overrun with Red Sox fans for this deciding game 3 of the series. Even the bar around the corner from the park was crowded with Boston fans watching the Patriots game at 10:00 am. Things started looking good as from the beginning - as we walked in, the Pats scored a touchdown and the building erupted with cheers. One lonely Anaheim fan yelled "Boston Sucks" but was instantly drowned out by boo's in his own town. In the game, the Sox prevailed 9-1 on a brilliant pitching day from Schilling and back to back homers from Papi and Manny. Aside from the game working out in our favor, we made friends with the other Sox fans in our row and even saw other people we knew who had driven down for the game.

There were a lot of other great things that I’ll always remember. Hiking up to the Hollywood sign, building a house for habitat for humanity after Hurricane Katrina, being on the last ever ride for Back to the Future, working out of a talk show green room, and many others. I will always remember being able to take advantage of living in close proximity to Disneyland (as my facebook albums will attest to) and can't understand why other people don't go as much as I did. Working at a theme park gave me super human park navigation skills which I often put to use with people who had never seen them before.

The people out here have made such a difference in my life. I know that the ones who matter the most are also the ones who I'll never lose touch with. It will take some adjustment but I'm very excited for this change and know it's the best thing for me right now. Living in the city I love with the woman I love, closer to my family and being able to experience seasons changing once again are all things that let me believe that this is going to be great.

I'm excited to leave but I'm sad to go. Los Angeles, you've been great to me. I'll truly miss you.

Gino Time

2008-06-18T12:11:00.000-04:00

The Celtics clinched the NBA title last night, culminating the season of the "Big Three" with a championship. Everyone was well aware of the Big Three, but I think I was most impressed this season with Rajon Rondo. Being the young, unknown point guard on a star studded team like this could have caused any player to buckle under the pressure, but he held strong the whole season and put up an impressive stat line last night. It was great to see Ray Allen, my favorite player since middle school, finally win the big one. For all the talk of his slumping during the playoffs, he ended up shooting 7-9 from three point range during last nights game. I lost count of how many wide open shots he was given last night. The answer: too many.

As happy as I was, nobody is happier to have that trophy than Glen "Big Baby" Davis:

I'm sure there are people who are happier, but nobody has a funnier picture with the trophy. Davis has been a great player to watch, always giving the biggest hustle whenever he is put in, despite not looking the part. He often reminds me of the Mike Myers SNL character who isn't allowed to have chocolate because when he eats it he can dislodge the entire jungle gym and pull it down a city street. Glen Davis is a little kid who can summon super human strength when the time comes, and if he's given a snickers bar.

There you have it. Your 2008 NBA Champion Boston Celtics.

New Beginnings

2008-06-17T10:58:00.000-04:00

I've had several attempts at blogging in the past. Most of my previous entries came on myspace, and having googled my name, I came up with a few other ones, including these gems:

http://pluriela.blogspot.com/ and http://pluriethoughts.blogspot.com/

Since I'm debating getting rid of myspace, I thought it would be worth it to set up a new one that I might actually update on a frequent basis. And it's not just because I forgot the log in passwords and e-mail addresses that I used to set up those two. Well, partly because of that.

This year is all about new beginnings, and not just on the blog front. I'm packing up the car and moving back east to Boston, MA. My girlfriend Lindy and I have a nice apartment in Brighton and neither of us have jobs. It should be an adventure.

I just got a new (used) camera for the road trip. I have four days of work left and seven days left in Los Angeles total. It's funny to think about all the things you try and cram in to the last couple of days that you spend at a place. In four and a half years I've had plenty of time to do everything that I wanted, but now that time is winding down, it's just a little more urgent.

I guess I'm trying to fit in more people than places, but it's not a big deal. I know I'll be back.