Future's Last Ride

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.

Hotel Bathroom Capacity

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 Potter Lottery

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

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

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...

Which one is Zack?

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

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

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/

Tank Top Currency

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.

Beacon of Hope

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.

Corey's Personal Escort

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.

My Hourly Soundtrack

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.