Black Coffee and Green Tea

That Was It: On Uncertainty and Unfinished Posts

2014-08-17T16:26:00.000-07:00

Now that I've resuscitated this blog and discovered that it actually has - or, at least, once had - an audience, I've been doing a little behind-the-scenes housekeeping: adjusting the layout, fixing dead links, rereading drafts of posts I started but never got around to finishing. Most of those unfinished posts are little more than a sentence or two: an idea I once had but never elaborated on or maybe a link to something I'd found interesting (but, apparently, not interesting enough). So you can imagine my surprise when I came across a lengthy, unpublished and nearly-complete post I'd forgotten I'd written in 2011, on the night before my road trip.

Considering what an effort it can be for me to write, it's rare I'll take the time to pen an entire post and not publish it but that's exactly what happened. Reading it now from the safe vantage point of the future, I can see why I chose not to share it. It's deeply personal and its tone is a departure from the purposeful bravado of the confident-sounding posts that would've surrounded it. I mean, if you read my blog the way it originally ended, I seem pretty fearless:

Hey, I finished my book!
Hey, I got a job on cruise ship!
Hey, I sold all my crap and am hitting the road! Found a song about it, like ta hear it? Here it goes! (THANKYOUVERYMUCH.)

It was so convincing that I acted without hesitation, I eventually ended up believing it myself. But, as you will soon read, the truth was a different story.

In reality, I was terrified that I may have just wasted 4 years of my life and that I might now be rushing in to waste the next few. On top of that, I'd just gone through a bad breakup - my first in an era of social networking - and wasn't handling it well. In an world of Twitter and Foursquare, it's a lot harder to just throw some memories in a shoe box and move on. (It's also a lot harder to be honest in a blog when one's ex might still be reading.) I was so full of doubt and sadness that I felt compelled to write about it but just didn't have the courage to publish it. Until now.

What follows is the original, unaltered post: Kenny Loggins' video and all. If you're going through struggles in your life, I hope it helps to know that you're not alone and, as I now deal with trying to be a writer/performer in Los Angeles, I'm grateful to be reminded that I've survived uncertainty before.

This Is It

(originally written 7/2/11)

Chikkita pa, chikkita pa...

Here it is, the night before my big road trip. I'm hoping to leave first thing in the morning and I'm about as packed as I'm going to be.

Had my pre-employment physical for Carnival this morning. It went well, I guess. Here's hoping that they didn't forget anything and that my being on a Paleo-style diet the past few months hasn't made my blood one step above bacon fat, rendering me incapable of working on a ship. ("Rendering"! "Fat"! I made a funny.) Last thing I want to do a few days into my cross-country drive is turn around for more testing.

Went to REI after the physical and got my National Parks Pass. Really looking forward to spending some time deep in nature and away from a cell phone signal.

Packing went alright, I guess. I somehow managed to sell all the major items (bed, bike, bookcases, other things that don't begin with B) but, when my attempt on Wednesday to pack the rest of my belongings in the car ended up not being the resounding success I'd hoped it would be, I had to give a lot of stuff away. Luckily, I've got a job waiting for me on the other side of the country so that helps ease the loss. A bit.

The fact that I'm actually done the evening before my departure and not packing straight through 'til dawn is pretty amazing for me. The last time I had a panic-fueled "oh-shit-I-have-to-fit-all-of-my-stuff-into-HOW-much-space-and-by-WHEN??" packing session was in Japan at the end of 2006. I packed the entire night, had to ship several boxes at great expense and then, not only did the poor taxi driver have to wait a half-hour for me to come downstairs but, on the way to the airport, I made him stop by Tsutaya (think Japan's version of Blockbuster) so I could drop off some DVDs I'd forgotten to return. It's always been a source of great embarrassment to me how poorly I'd left Japan and I promised I would never leave a place so terribly again.

Thankfully, my getting ready for this trip - while incredibly stressful - went a lot better than my leaving Japan did. Of course, like so many things in my life now, I wish I were handling it better but, in the grand scheme of things, I guess I've done OK.

I'm thankful for all the extra time afforded to me by the Carnival audition and a gracious landlord (who continues to thank me for speaking English and for not being a drug dealer, which should tell you something about my neighbors) but this last week or so has felt less like waiting in anticipation for my Next Big Step™ and more like dwelling; moping around as I watched the life I built the last 4 years get stripped away one Craigslisted or hastily donated item at a time. And it doesn't help that my longest and most intimate relationship to date – one which had ended in a sad yet rather amicable and adult way a month ago - had a delayed-action fuse that detonated spectacularly in a booth at a restaurant a few hours after I got the news that Carnival had hired me.

May as well be honest, handling all this at the same time has been damn tough. The bare walls of my nearly-empty apartment have acted like an echo-chamber, amplifying the stresses in my life. Too much time alone, too much time having to let go of things I'm not ready to be without. And seriously, after my 4 years in Seattle, you'd think I'd have more of a support structure out here to get me through all this but, you'd only think that if you haven't lived in Seattle. It truly is a terrible, terrible place to meet people.

Seattle's always been a mixed bag for me. Hell, it was only supposed to be a stopover! Sure, it's a great city but the winters are too dark and the summer days much too long for this Florida boy. Seattle's full of open-minded, fashionable, liberal-minded people who don't want to make eye contact with you, much less build a friendship. I've spent the last four years trying to earn an exit pass out of the Emerald City and, now that I've got it, this melancholy little town is not letting go without a fight.

Don't get me wrong, I will miss Seattle. I'll miss Alki Beach. I'll miss my favorite coffee shops (including the one where my now ex-girlfriend did the very un-Seattle-like act of introducing herself to me). I'll miss the concerts and the book signings. I'll miss jogging around Green Lake and through Discovery Park. I'll miss the hell out of having my brother Ken living just up the road. I'll miss those few weeks of perfect weather in the summertime that make everyone forget the months of gloom. I'll miss being Molecular Matt and being that B&N bookseller that none of my co-workers could figure out why was so happy all the time despite working retail in his 30's. I'll miss those days that Mount Rainier makes a surprise cameo appearance. And I'll miss a city built around a Space Needle and framed with snow-capped mountains. Part of me is confident that I'll be back here in some capacity one day but, I'm also fully aware that it'll never be the same. It's time to move on.

For some people it's easy. They can just let go and embrace whatever's next without a second thought (or at least give a damn good impression that's what they're doing). I swear to god I don't know how they do it.

Then, there's me... silly, emotional sap I am. My extreme emotions make me nice, fuel my writing, give me creativity, make my highs really high and my lows crazy low (usually at the same time) and they make it tough as hell for me to just. Let. Go.

But I'm doing my best.

Before I close, big thanks to Ken for always being there for me and for letting me use his truck; to Casey and Tracy for the support, the drinks and the hangover; to Kelly for his humor and genuine enthusiasm; to Kate for the jazz and the ego-boost; to Sean for being so flexible with my apartment; to Lisa for her remarkable ear and passionate concern; to all my coworkers for putting up with my damn chipperness all the time; to my neighbor for unwittingly letting me us his internet connection right now; to Rachel for the mixed blessing of so many great memories and to Seattle for giving me the honor of calling it "home" for a while. Thank you.

Anyway, time for sleep.

I've got a new life to start tomorrow.

The Power of Blogging

2014-08-12T15:35:00.000-07:00

'I HAVE THE BLOGGGGGGGER!"

Two days into 2014, in the midst of very busy final week of Grinchmas at Universal Studios Hollywood, I got a Facebook "friend request" from some guy in Seattle named Victor.
Hmm... Victor. Do I know any Victors?
I clicked through to his profile. I didn't recognize the face. We didn't have any mutual friends. We didn't work at any of the same places.
"Babe, we know anyone from Seattle named Victor?"
The name didn't ring any bells with my girlfriend either.
"Hmm. Spam, I guess."
[Delete.]

CUT TO: 2 months later.

I notice I have a message in the "Other" part of my Facebook messages. Now, for those of you who don't know - which, I'm guessing, is pretty much 98% of the population - there is an "Other" tab in your Facebook messages where any correspondence from a non-Facebook friend gets buried... erm, "filtered".

Seriously. Go look. I'll wait.

Surprise! Can you believe that's been there all along?

David Pogue from the New York Times did a blog post about the "Other" folder last year and a lot of his readers replied to say that, thanks to his post, they'd found long lost friends and wallets or, sadly, discovered they'd missed a job opportunity or, worse, a funeral.

Anyway, the message in my "Other" folder was from that Victor guy. It read:

Hi there big fan here. I'm not sure how but I stumbled across your blog somehow awhile back out of nowhere and read it in its entirety. It sounded like one big adventure.

Holy cow! Somebody actually read my blog!!

I repeat: SOMEBODY READ MY BLOG!!

And not just parts of it, no... THE ENTIRE FLIBBITY FLAGGITY BLOG!!

I immediately replied to his message to confirm that:

he was a living, breathing person.
he wasn't a "Nigerian Prince" informing me about some "unclaimed funds".
he was actually talking about THIS "Black Coffee and Green Tea" and not a similarly named yet far more entertaining blog that somehow managed to be updated in the past 3 years.

He was, he wasn't and he was.

This was huge! I couldn't wrap my head around it. While I'd enjoyed doing this blog, the main reason I didn't even attempt to maintain it once I left Seattle was because I didn't think anybody was reading it.

Worse, since I'd started this blog to find "my audience" only to discover they were more elusive than Facebook's "Other Messages" folder, I'd considered the whole endeavor a failure; not the "I shouldn't have wasted my time" kind of failure but the "learning from our mistakes" kind. I concluded that my blog had been about too broad a range of topics ("Back to the Future"! Japan! Caffeine!) to ever build a core audience. No wonder nobody ever read it.

And then some guy named "Victor" messaged to say that, yes, somebody HAD been reading. And he was a fan! Of my writing. That's like dedicating your life to looking for yetis, finding no evidence, giving up, and then randomly getting an email from Bigfoot.

"Hey Matt, love your work."

Hoping to show some gratitude as well as gain a little insight, I replied:

Thank you again, Victor! I'm genuinely flattered! You are, quite possibly, the only non-family member to read my entire blog! (Oh, who am I kidding? I don't even think they read it...) I really enjoyed doing that blog but I guess it just wasn't specific enough to really attract an audience. If you don't mind me asking, is there anything you specifically really enjoyed about it? I'm just curious. It's, unfortunately, very rare I get a chance to get feedback about my writing!

I seriously didn't expect much of a response, if any. But here's his reply:

I think our similarities and your whole outlook on life portrayed through your writings of your adventures is what sucked me in. I am obsessed with coffee, Back to the Future, all things 80's and a lot of other similar things which is how I think I first stumbled upon your blog. I like your spontaneity, your openness and your whole sense of adventure and doing what you want and not conforming to social norms because you chose to live your life how you want. It was a very good read and it is good to know that there are others out there like me. I randomly moved to Seattle from NY in 2004. By 2009, I wasn't happy with my life and felt pigeonholed into living a stereotypical life that didn't seem to be going anywhere. There were always things I had wanted to do but never did for one reason or another. In January of 2009, I discovered your blog and was truly inspired by your carefree adventurer attitude. I was inspired to make positive changes and live life how I wanted. So with that, I quit my job, quit my cover band I had been playing with 2-4 times a week since 2004, dumped my negative girlfriend of five years, threw away literally all of my stuff, moved from a large house into a 400sq ft studio in downtown Seattle and started over completely. It was the best choice I have ever made. I made great new friends, lost 60lbs and got in amazing shape, went on random adventures, got a new job that I truly loved and most importantly, met an amazing woman who is now my wife. So for all of that I thank you.

Wow.

You're welcome, Victor. And thank YOU.

In other news, I HAVE AN AUDIENCE!! (Hi, Victor!)

Back to the Future: The "Eastwood" Timeline

2014-07-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

Because you didn't know you needed this until now:

Meanwhile, Three Years Later...

2014-07-03T18:00:00.001-07:00

2011 Matt: No! It can't be! I just finished this blog!

2014 Matt: I know. You DID finish this blog, but I'm back. I'm back to the blogging.

2011 Matt: Great Scott! [faints]

Well lookie what we have here...

S'up, everybody! It's Matt! Didn't think you'd ever see another post from me, huh?

Oh, who am I kidding, me neither.

Seriously! When I wrote that "Time to Smile" post 3 years ago today (crikey!) and hit "Publish", that was supposed to be it. Done. Finished. Thanks for playing.

(The Barnes & Noble post was a bit of an anomaly. Non-canonical but necessary.)

I mean, what else was I supposed to write about here? Read the tagline: "Living in Seattle. Writing about Japan." and I'd officially just stopped doing both. If you recall, when we last left our hero(ld), the first draft of my book about Japan was complete and I was using that as the perfect excuse to finally leave the Pacific Northwest.

It was time for my Great American Road Trip™!
I was east-coast-bound!
A cruise ship docked on the horizon!

Well, I'm happy to report that my cross-country drive ended up being amazing.

My time on cruise ships, not so much.

[If you're curious, I successfully completed two contracts with Carnival. The first was to see if I was cut out for ship life, the second was to confirm that I wasn't. I'm sure I'll delve deeper into the waking nightmare that was working as an entertainment host but, until then, the following video pretty much sums it up.]

And now, here it is, precisely 3 years later (fittingly, on the 29th anniversary of the opening of "Back to the Future") and I'm back sitting in a coffee shop - right leg jittery from too much caffeine - spending way too much time composing a blog post. The view out the window, however, is quite different. I've traded the claustrophobic gloom of Seattle for the Instagram-filter-like haze of Los Angeles, my new home. Crazy, right?? But there's still some familiar territory:

I'm back at Mad Science.
I'm back in theme parks.
I'm even back capital-W-writing so it only seems fitting that I be back here too.

Sadly no, that doesn't mean I've started revising my book (hopefully soon GAWD DON'T PRESSURE ME) but I have started working on a screenplay - it's required within the first 6 months of residency in LA - and it seems to have awoken the somewhat atrophied part of my brain that liked blogging.

So weird, I thought writing on this thing was just a huge distraction but it inadvertently ended up producing a ton of actual content, some of it pretty decent. I also didn't think anyone was reading this stuff. Turns out I was wrong. (More on that soon.)

As for the blog's somewhat outdated "theme", I'm sure I'll figure something out. My brother once commented that "Black Coffee and Green Tea" was more than a blog title, it was a way of life, an apt description of me. I still take my coffee black, I still love my green tea, I still drink too much caffeine.

So, here I am! Not sure how frequently I'll be posting. Or for how long. Or if I'll even ever post again but I'm back. (To that same ol' place that I laughed about...)

Welcome back, welcome back, welcome baaaaack everyone! Missed you.

B&End

2011-12-31T15:02:00.000-08:00

To all my friends at the soon-to-be-closed U-Village Barnes and Noble,

Hey gang! It's your old pal, former bookseller and recovering nookspert, Matt! Wow, last day, huh? You guys doing OK?

Man, I can't believe this is actually it! It kills me that I'll never be able to pop in to our store next time I'm in Seattle for a chat and a black coffee (with no room) nor will I ever get the chance to do an author event on your Spotlight Stage. I can only imagine how hard it must be to you all still on the front lines.

But, despite all that, let me also say how excited I am for all of you! Seriously. I used my leaving B&N as a catalyst to start taking my life in a whole new direction. It was part of the collective kick-in-the-ass I needed to finally start taking some chances again. And, since then, I've driven cross-country twice, got a job on a cruise ship, traversed the Panama Canal and now, here I am, ringing in the New Year off the coast of Mexico. Just imagine what you can do.

Don't miss this chance, you guys. (Or, at the very least, tell your last few customers where they can stick their Kindles.)

Please, keep in touch and keep me updated on your adventures.

All the best!

- Matt

Time to Smile

2011-07-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

Every now and again, a song so perfectly captures what's going on in a person's life that it feels like it was tailor-made for just that occasion.

Well, as I now leave the seemingly endless Seattle winter to embark on my next big adventure, here's a song that, while not word-for-word exactly what's happening, it's awfully damn close:

"Well I'm packing things in my bag today,

Heading south to my country again.

Summer is coming, it's time to smile.

See worry and change it has spun me around,

My big old heart has been ripped right out.

Summer is coming, it's time to smile.

Woah, its time to smile.

Step out of the whirlpool of lies and deceit,

Heading for still waters and pure honesty.

Summer is coming, it's time to smile.

Woah, it's time to smile.

There's been more rain this year

and the country is going strong.

And with my feet in the dust

I know now I was meant to return.

My young hearts are two thousand miles away,

Must focus my strength, told them this way.

Summer is coming, it's time to smile.

Time to smile, Time to smile,

Time to smile, Time to smile.

See I'm packing things in my bag today,

And I'm, heading south to my country again.

Summer is coming, it's time to smile.

See now worry and change it has spun me around,

My big old heart has been ripped right out.

Summer is coming, it's time to smile.

Said woah, it's time to smile

It's time to smile."

Thank you, Xavier. I couldn't have said it better.

Let's do this trip.

Guess Where I'm Gonna to Be?

2011-06-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

On a boat! That's right everybody,

I GOT THE JOB WITH

CARNIVAL CRUISES!!

Here's the email I got yesterday morning:

Thank you for your recent attendance at the Carnival Cruise Line information session and interviews for Entertainment Staff.

We are delighted to offer you a position as Entertainment Staff with Carnival!

Rest assured, the delightedness is mutual!

So, now what?

Well, I'm currently in the process of trying to arrange and pass the epic (and surprisingly costly) pre-maritime-employment medical examination before my little road trip back to Florida at the end of the month. Yes, I'm still going to Florida; not because I have to but because, with a large chunk of my family there, it'll be a good place to use as a base of operations. (Plus, it means my car will be close if I need it. Also, dude... my parents have an attic. I'm not gonna pay for storage.)

At the interview, they said the earliest they'd need anybody to start training would be August 8th. That means I should have at least a month for my cross-country drive, more than enough time to visit some friends and do some camping. Carnival's contracts are 6 months at a time, after which I can take a few weeks of vacation before starting a new contract. Won't know until after training which boat I'll be on but, like the representative from Carnival said at the audition,

"It really doesn't matter. They're all big, white and go someplace warm."

Love it.

As for how it's actually going to be on the ship - aside from the description of the job I shared with you in my last post - I know as much about it as you do.

But I do have a few ideas:

Artist's Rendition

One thing's for sure, it'll be an adventure. I'll keep you updated.

Until then, I've got some packing to do...

Pausing Mid-Leap

2011-06-18T09:29:00.001-07:00

HELLO EVERYBODY!

It's now just over two weeks into what's supposed to be my epic, slow-paced, vagabondingesque traversal of these grand United States and I'm quite certain you're just DYING to know what I've been up to! So, where am I?

Camping at Yellowstone?
Blogging from what's left of the top of Mount St. Helens?
Tweeting from the edge of the Grand Canyon?

Nope.

I'm in Seattle. (Sad trombone.)

"Seattle," you're thinking, mouth agape, "But Matt! Why are you still there?? It seemed like you had finally achieved the necessary escape velocity! What happened? What about leaping?? You were supposed leap!!"

OK, yeah... I know. But, here's the deal:

As my departure time of "early morning, June 1st" quickly approached, everything was going according to plan.

Final Mad Science shows were performed.
Last day at work was completed.
Goodbye party was thrown (see above photo).
Moving sales were endured.

And, aside from my complete inability to sell my bed (which, by the way, is still available!), things were moving along quite swimmingly. Sure, it would have been nice to have some more time to reduce by 2/3rds the amount of crap I was attempting to shove into my car but, come hell or high water or other cliché, I was going to be out of Seattle and barreling headfirst into My Next Big Step™ (whatever the hell that would be) on schedule.

Then, on Memorial Day, literally TWO days before I was supposed to leave, I awoke much too early in a panic at all I had left to do. Before attempting to squeeze in an hour or so more of sleep before another day of packing and filling my vehicle, I figured I'd check my phone to see if I had gotten any e-mail. What was sitting in inbox that morning ruined not only any chance I'd have of falling back to sleep, but would guarantee that I wouldn't be leaving Seattle when I'd planned.

Flashback! January 2011!

It's the dead of winter and yours truly is battling Seasonal Affective Disorder and a severe case of depression over having to endure yet another miserable Seattle winter.

To feel like I was at least doing something to eventually get me out of this city were I to ever get this book finished, I searched the Internet for job opportunities. My expectations were kinda low: it had to in some way use my performing background and it had to be somewhere warm. That's when I came across the Carnival Entertainment website. One of the positions they had listed was:

Entertainment Staff

Become part the award-winning entertainment staff aboard Carnival’s “Fun Ships.” Carnival is looking for fun-loving, energetic individuals to be part of our team and help our guests create a lifetime of vacation memories by hosting activities, shows and special events. Full training is given but a strong theater background and some microphone technique are essential. The primary role of a entertainment staff or hostess is to assist the cruise director daily to create a fun and entertaining environment for the guests, as well as help cruise director and assistant cruise director in the overall management of the entertainment department. Entertainment staff are charge of running majority of the activities that happen around the ship and are often called upon by both guests and crew to answer questions involving all facets of the ship, including schedules, safety, concessions and ports of call. As such, prospective entertainment staff must possess interpersonal skills and must be organized and motivated. Essentially, middle management in the entertainment department, entertainment staff are often responsible for ensuring information and e-mails are properly communicated, essential paperwork is complete and meetings and drills are attended by all members of the department.

Totally what I was looking for, right?

Besides, I'd always been interested in working on a cruise ship but never seriously considered it because I could neither sing nor dance. But here was a position that required neither!

Carnival was also the only cruise line was that accepted video auditions via the internet so I fired up the ol' Sony Vegas and edited together the following:

Not bad, huh? I gotta say, I surprised even myself with how well it turned out. Plus, after feeling out of my element for so long, it was good to be reminded that I'm actually qualified to do more than sell books and entertain small children.

I submitted the video to Carnival on February 13th and, less than a month later, I received the following e-mail from them:

Dear Matt,

Your job application for Entertainment Staff was reviewed and one of our Supervisors will be in contact with you for the interview.

Sincerely,
Carnival Entertainment

SWEET!

Goodbye short days and gloomy weather!

Hello cloudless skies and crystal blue water!

This was going to be great. Plus, don't worry, I wasn't going to put all my eggs in one basket (he said while putting all his eggs into this convenient wicker carrying case).

Then, I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

As the weeks passed, my enthusiasm waned. It seemed this would be yet another in a series of disappointing "could have beens" that started the minute I decided to be an actor.

Since I'd put so much work into editing the video, I went ahead and posted it over on my Vimeo page and got a lot of great feedback. It really encouraged me to look more into other cruise ship and performing opportunities. I needed to get moving again. I needed to get in front of larger audiences.

And hey, if Carnival wouldn't call me, maybe I should go to them! Since they're based out of Miami, I'd found yet another reason to head back to Florida. Now, while I didn't want to move back for good, that goofy little peninsula has always been a great jumping off point for me. Plus, a lot of people I care about are there (along with a lot of my old stuff). Also, my former employer, Universal, is still there but, more importantly, so are all the cruise lines.

I needed to get back.

So, I finished the first draft of my book and starting planning my road trip. I also prepared resumes and applications for all the different cruise companies. My plan was to submit everything right before I left Seattle and, that way, instead of me sitting around and waiting for a response, I'd be doing something really fun, something for me. No rush guys, I'll just be over here road-tripping.

This was gonna work.

Cut back to Memorial Day and I'm checking the e-mail on my phone when I find a message from someone named Eric from Cast-a-way Casting. He was wondering if I could make myself available for an interview...

For Carnival...

In min-June...

In SEATTLE.

DUDE. I was overwhelmed with the cautious joy of a nerdy teen who's just realized he'd have to miss that Lord of the Ring marathon he's been anxiously waiting for because he just might actually have to go to the prom. With the girl he thought had rejected him, no less!

Obviously, I was thrilled they'd responded but I now had to change all of my plans at the last minute. Thankfully, my studio apartment hadn't been filled yet so my landlord was more than happy to get another month's worth of rent out of me. Plus, my friends at Mad Science said they'd do their best to keep me busy. And remarkably, it seemed I now actually had the extra time I'd wanted to get rid of some more stuff and (dare I say it?) enjoy Seattle.

My phone interview with Eric was last Monday (June 6th) and it went well enough for me to get an official invitation to the interviews, which were Wednesday. I don't have time at the moment to get into too much detail but let's just say it went extremely well. I'm still planning on leaving Seattle at the end of the month but there's a pretty good chance that, when I eventually get to Florida, I might actually have a job waiting for me.

Hot damn.

Look Out Below

2011-05-28T07:11:00.000-07:00

Since I've already tweeted about it - and despite the fact that I'm still tinkering with it - I may as well go ahead and make The Official Announcement (drum roll):

After nearly 4 years of writing, I have finished the first draft of my book.

Mind you, the whole thing is still a giant, near-unreadable, steaming pile of mediocrity which reads like the diary of a high school girl (which is only OK if it's about sparkly vampires) but, dammit...

THE FIRST DRAFT IS DONE.

Unbelievable, I know. I'm still coming to grips with it being finished. I keep thinking I've got more to work on but, short of starting over from the beginning and editing it down into a second draft, I'm done.

Nearly 4 years of thinking about this thing literally every damn day and now? Nothing.

So weird.

Anyway, if you're a normal, rational person, you're probably thinking to yourself, "Four years writing a book? WTF, man? That's longer than you were in Japan in the first place! What took you so long?"

Well, couple'a things:

First of all, I've never written a book before.

Turns out that's a lot bigger problem than I thought it would be. (A lot, a lot.) Trying to write a first book with no real outside help is frustrating, confusing and, at times, pretty damn scary. Thankfully, there are hundreds of books (and, by god, I've read them all) dedicated to reminding the aspiring author that he/she is not crazy and that's it's perfectly normal to blow several years of one's life on something that may never be finished - much less read by a audience of non-family members - and that the terror one feels when staring at a flashing cursor at the top of a blank screen is just the thrill of being a writer and not your body's survival instinct kicking in to tell you you're attempting something wholly unnatural.

So, hooray for self-help books.

Second, when I first started writing my little "book o' amusing Japan stories" when I got back to the U.S. at the end of 2006, I thought I was writing a book about my entire 3½ year stay in Japan. (I also thought the book would only take a month or two to write, a prospect so hilarious to me now that I'll be over here, curled up in the corner sobbing happy tears.)

Since I had helpfully narrowed my topic down to "every single thing that happened to me when I was in Japan for 43 months", I now had to deal with the epic process of sorting all the notes and journals and photos from my time overseas and then outline and start writing the book. (It may sound like I had a clear direction when I started but I didn't. Was totally winging it.) It also meant I had to start a blog. And a twitter account. And "build a platform". And all these other things that seemed really important at the time but were, in fact, not writing.

Still, every now and again, I'd actually find the motivation to write something. Unfortunately, the more I wrote, the more I realized I needed to put in there. If I wanted to tell this story, I'd need some back story. And if I wanted to include this anecdote, I'd need to explain some cultural differences between Japan and America. And if I wanted the reader to enjoy this part here, I'd need to give some history not only of Universal Studios Japan but the company Universal itself. It was really turning into an awful lot of work.

Sadly, it would take nearly 2 years and several tens of thousands of words before it finally dawned on me that, if I wanted to cover everything I'd hoped to write about, the resulting book would be so mind-bogglingly gargantuan that I feared people would be unable to lift it much less read it by the pool. It was an important discovery to make but one that posed a lot more problems for me. What to keep?

For a while, I considered turning the book into just a collection of short stories highlighting all the really funny events that happened during my time in Japan but I felt like I would just have to sacrifice too much of what I really wanted to share with the audience. Gone would be all of those little moments which, while not strong enough to support a story on their own, really made my experience in Japan what it was. I simply HAD to tell the whole story, just maybe not all at once. Alas, the giant book I'd already outlined and had written a large chunk of, became four. One book per contract.

I also decided that, if I wanted to get on with my life anytime soon, I should just focus on the first book, starting the story in the year or two before I went to Japan and ending around the conclusion of my first contract. My rationale was that, IF the first book actually gets printed and IF people actually read it and IF a handful of those people actually liked it enough to want more, THEN I'd write the next book. Or the next three. (Do you hear that potential agents and editors?? THREE SEQUELS! Already outlined and partially written! Ka-ching!)

And, if the book ultimately failed, fine. At least I'll have saved me a few years of my life and a large part of what's left of my sanity by not writing the sequels. Plus hey, I can say I wrote a book. Neat.

Well, having a narrower time frame to write about made things a lot easier. Things slowly started to fall into place. One day, I settled on a title:

Happy! Fun! Doc Brown Life!

While that title might not make a ton of sense to people who don't know a lot about Japanese pop culture, I think it's perfect. (Though, I'm always open to suggestions.) I'm still working on the subtitle but I'm sure it'll be something along the lines of "My First Year Working in a Movie Theme Park in Japan". (Not sure how Universal Studios would feel about being in the title.)

Oooh, but I DO have a great tagline for the top of the back cover. Get this:

Playing characters he looked nothing like

In a language he didn't speak

In a country he couldn't understand.

Goosebumps, huh?? Oh man, it even makes ME want to read the damn thing!

Anyway, more time passed. More stalling but, ever so occasionally, more writing. Then, one sunny afternoon in spring while going for a walk, I found the perfect ending. (Which you'll just have to wait until the book comes out to read.)

I immediately ran home and typed it up. Now that I knew where the book was going to end, a lot more things started to fall into place.

Progress slowed when the realities of living in the same city for a lot longer than originally planned started to intrude. Suddenly there were part-time jobs to deal with, new apartments to move into, a serious relationship to maintain. But I kept writing. Anything I could think of putting in the book, I shoved in there. I'd worry about making it funny and pretty in the second draft. (Like Gandhi said, "throw some shit at the wall and see what sticks." Or was that Mother Theresa? Whatever.)

Even more time passed. More stalling, more writing.

Then, about 2 months ago and just shy of my 37th birthday (April 9th, if you guys want to get me a gift next year), I finally admitted to myself that, as noble as writing a book was, I couldn't continue working 2 jobs to stay in a cost-prohibative city like Seattle to pursue a pipe dream that's already cost me so much time, energy and money. I either needed to finish this damn book and take a much-needed break from it or just say I tried, close the laptop and get on with my life.

Well, I couldn't quit and I couldn't promise to stay in Seattle until I was finished so, instead, I simply set a deadline of being out of Seattle by May 31st, completed 1st draft or not. Whether I left in triumph or defeat would depend on how hard I worked over the next few weeks.

I went and bought a wireless headset mic to use with my Dragon NaturallySpeaking and got up every morning before sunrise and either typed or transcibed until I had to go to work. On some days, I even had the energy to write after work.

And then, not that long ago, it finally happened. My writing caught up with the ending I'd written 2 years before. That was it.

It was done.

And it's fairly freakin' massive, too. I don't have the exact page count because the initial file became so large and unwieldy that I had to break it down into several smaller sections lest my copy of Microsoft Word would creek like an old rocking chair every time it tried to open it but, as for a word count? Well, let's see... it has... a grand total of... carry the one, subtract the glossary and... oh god... no, that can't be right. Hold on... oh my GOD...

257,858 words.

Ho. Lee. Crap.

Uh, to give you an idea how massive this is, take a look at this list showing the word counts of popular books. Out of all of those books listed, only FOUR of them are longer than my first draft: two Ayn Rand books, "Middlemarch" and "War and (friggin') Peace".

Oh man, this second draft is gonna be some work...

But, that can wait! Right? The important thing is: the first draft is done. Right? Right?? (Please say yes.)

So! What's next? Well, I've decided I'm going to take the advice of seasoned writing vet (and fellow crafter of hernia-inducing manuscripts) Stephen King who once wrote:

"You can have a couple of loads of double-ought buck up your cockadoodie bumhole if you don't get out of here!"

Oh wait, wrong book.

Actually, in his fantastic book On Writing, he wrote the following:

If you write a novel, spend weeks and then months catching it word by word, you owe it both to the book and to yourself to lean back (or take a long walk) when you’ve finished and ask yourself why you bothered—why you spent all that time, why it seemed so important. In other words, what’s it all about, Alfie?

When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest. Not every book has to be loaded with symbolism, irony, or musical language (they call it prose for a reason, y’know), but it seems to me that every book—at least every one worth reading—is about something. Your job during or just after the first draft is to decide what something or somethings yours is about. Your job in the second draft—one of them, anyway—is to make that something even more clear. This may necessitate some big changes and revisions.

Now let’s say you’ve finished your first draft. Congratulations! Good job! Have a glass of champagne, send out for pizza, do whatever it is you do when you’ve got something to celebrate.

[...]

You’ve done a lot of work and you need a period of time (how much or how little depends on the individual writer) to rest. Your mind and imagination—two things which are related, but not really the same—have to recycle themselves, at least in regard to this one particular work. My advice is that you take a couple of days off—go fishing, go kayaking, do a jigsaw puzzle—and then go to work on something else. Something shorter, preferably, and something that’s a complete change of direction and pace from your newly finished book. (I wrote some pretty good novellas, “The Body” and “Apt Pupil” among them, between drafts of longer works like The Dead Zone and The Dark Half.)

How long you let your book rest—sort of like bread dough between kneadings—is entirely up to you, but I think it should be a minimum of six weeks. During this time your manuscript will be safely shut away in a desk drawer, aging and (one hopes) mellowing. Your thoughts will turn to it frequently, and you’ll likely be tempted a dozen times or more to take it out, if only to re-read some passage that seems particularly fine in your memory, something you’d like to go back to so you can re-experience what a really excellent writer you are.

Resist temptation. If you don’t, you’ll very likely decide you didn’t do as well on that passage as you thought and you’d better retool it on the spot. This is bad. The only thing worse would be for you to decide the passage is even better than you remembered—why not drop everything and read the whole book over right then? Get back to work on it! Hell, you’re ready! You’re fuckin Shakespeare! You’re not, though, and you’re not ready to go back to the old project until you’ve gotten so involved in a new one (or re-involved in your day-to-day life) that you’ve almost forgotten the unreal estate that took up three hours of your every morning or afternoon for a period of three or five or seven months.

Or, (ahem) 4 years.

So, I'm taking his advice.

In other words, I've quit both my jobs and am in the process of selling most of my stuff so that, in 4 or 5 days, I can start a time-constraint-free, cross-country, multi-hyphenated drive across the U.S. of A. towards my old stomping grounds of Florida. I don't know how long this drive is going to take or if any of my job leads will still be valid by the time I get there or even if my 13-year-old car will make it but, you know what? I don't care. I've earned this trip. I NEED this break. And I can't wait.

In her book The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron wrote "Leap, and the net will appear."

I've spent too long standing a safe distance from the edge.

Here's me leaping.

Happy Birthday, Christopher Lloyd!

2010-10-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

Happy 72nd birthday to the greatest Doc Brown of all time!

Thank you, Mr. Lloyd, for unintentionally becoming such a huge part of my life.

For those of you out there who didn't catch him on stage the other night with Michael J. Fox at the 2010 Scream Awards, here's a clip:

That man looks GREAT for his age.

And, if you haven't pre-ordered the Blu-ray Back to the Future: 25th Anniversary Trilogy Box Set (with a digital copy for Pete's sake!), what are you waiting for?? Do it now!

ROBOT Hello Kitty

2010-08-31T10:20:00.000-07:00

During my last trip to Japan, I had the unfortunate luck of trying to find a hotel room in Osaka during a holiday weekend. When I did finally find a place, it was totally inconvenient to where I wanted to be and cost a whole lot more than I wanted to pay. It was in a business hotel and - since business hotels are mainly for businessmen - my room was tiny, sparse and reeked of smoke, desperation and briefcases.

As I sat on the scale model of a single bed and lamented my current situation, I flipped through the information packet showing local attractions as well as how to escape a fire, earthquake or Godzilla attack.

That's when I found the following piece of paper:

That’s right. It’s an advertisement for a "Hello Kitty" robot.

A $3500 "Hello Kitty" robot.

For sale in a business hotel. For men.

Suddenly, this expensive little detour started to seem worth it.

I flipped the brochure over:

As you can see, Robo Kitty-chan can use her twin video camera/laser beam eyes to function in a variety of everyday situations. I’ll do my best to translate but my Japanese is a little rusty so bear with me:

“You call that a salute?? Bow before me, mortal!”
“All hail Hello Kitty Overlord!”

“I made you some tea, Robo Kitty-chan.”

“For this, you shall die.”

“Not enough PINK in this room! You have earned my wrath.”
“Forgive me, Robo Kitty-chan. Forgivvvve…”

“Uh-oh, Robo Hello Kitty looks hun-gry…”

“Indeed! Which of your children shall I eat to-day? La la la!”

Awesome.

My three favorite things: robots, pointless Japanese pop-culture and desperately lonely old people.

Best. Coffeeshop. Ever.

2010-08-29T13:07:00.000-07:00

DeLorean time machine in the window?
Original Ghostbusters poster?
MOCHA PUFFS???

Sorry Seattle, Chicago's got us beat.

Read the full story about The Wormhole here: http://bit.ly/dbt2iO Or visit them here:

The Wormhole
1462 N. Milwaukee
Chicago IL
http://thewormholecoffee.com

And if you've been or ever get the chance to check it out, let me know all about it in the comments!

(Thanks, Ken!)

The Return of an Old Friend

2010-08-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

The Saga Begins
I got my first real camera back in the mid-1990s. I'd actually had a camera for a few years before that – a little plastic windy-upy job that captured my last year of middle school as well as two trips to the Philmont Boy Scout ranch in New Mexico – but it wasn't until right before I went to Australia as an exchange student in 1995 that I bought an actual camera: an Olympus Stylus Infinity.

It was probably the nicest thing I owned at the time. It was black, compact, had a shiny silver button and a sleek clamshell shape that just felt like it was meant to fit into my hand. The lens was behind a cover that would slide to the right with a satisfying click. The lens would then pop out slightly with a pleasant little mechanical buzz.

Even putting film in it was a treat. (Remember putting film in a camera??) Just pop open the back, slip the film canister in one side and thread the start of the film into the other. Close the door and the camera would whirr to life, doing the rest of the work.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, it was actually a really good camera, too. It had a f/3.5 lens which took some remarkably clear pictures. While the camera didn't zoom, it had a semi-wide angle lens which meant I could fit an awful lot into a photo for such a little camera. I realize now that it was my time with that lens and my 4 years of high school art class that really shaped how I currently frame a shot. Also, the camera's slowest shutter speed was only 1/15th of a second meaning I could turn the flash off and still do a lot in dim light without the shutter being open for too long. Here are three of the nicer pictures of the handful I have scanned onto my hard drive:

Rainbow in the Blue Mountains


The Olgas

Ayers Rock at Dusk

Down Under
As you can see, that camera made the trip to Australia with me. It ended up documenting so much: my first plane flight, my apartment, me getting an Akubra-style hat, a surprise birthday party two Australian friends threw for me, my bathing suit and boxer shorts lying on a rock during my first nude beach experience, me standing in front of a "No Standing" sign. So many great memories and my camera was there for all for them.

A few months later, shortly after I arranged to extend my time in Australia another semester, my best friend Mike came to visit from Scotland and he helped me blow the next 6-months worth of rent on a backpacking trip around the country.

So young! So thin!

My Olympus Stylus went with us. And barely survived.

I can't tell you the number of times I dropped it or it fell out of my backpack. But, in a testament to the quality of its Japanese design, I only had to pick it up, slide the lens cover to the right and it would buzz me a little "Hello! Let's take some pictures!". So durable, that little camera.

We did have one particularly close call where, after taking a few hero shots among Kangaroo Island's Remarkable Rocks (below), I dropped the camera and Mike and I watched in slow-mo terror as it tumbled down a series of large boulders before sliding to a rest mere inches from a sheer cliff overlooking an Indian Ocean being violently churned by an approaching cyclone.

I probably shouldn't have risked my life retrieving it but it was my camera, dammit! Thankfully, that little guy survived the rest of the trip and did really well my last few months in Australia, right up until I accidentally killed it.

Sex on the Beach
I'd had a few more stops left on a bus pass from Mike's and my earlier backpacking trip so, before I went back to America, I used it to go up to the Gold Coast. One evening, for some dumb reason, I decided to take my camera with me to a night club. (Do they even call them "night clubs" anymore?) It was there I drank a lot, danced like an idiot and met an attractive British girl with a nose ring.

Miraculously, she found me attractive. Maybe it was my accent, or perhaps my ponytail (or she was just really, really drunk), but we ended up spending several hours making out on the moonlit sandy beaches of Surfers' Paradise. The very, very sandy beaches. Just the two of us.

With my camera in my back pocket.

I awoke at the youth hostel sometime the next afternoon and, when I went to slide the lens cover to the right, it didn't budge. Odd. I tried it again with a bit more force and the grinding noise it made still gives me shivers. The normally cheerful lens didn't so much "buzz" as "wheeze". Sand was all over the lens and in every available gap and crevice. When I tried to slide the door closed, the lens wouldn't retract. And then it just died on me, right there in my arms, forcing me to use disposable cameras for my last few weeks in Australia.

Cut to Tampa a few months later. I've returned from Australia and am now finishing college, battling post-travel depression and lamenting to a new roommate about my beloved and very broken camera.

"And then it just died on me, right there in my arms. Man, I loved that camera."
"Do you still have it?"
"You mean 'its carcass'? Yeah."
"Do you still have the receipt and the original box?"
"Of course." (If you know me, this is not a surprise.)

He thought for a second then said:

"Clear as much sand out of is as you can, wipe it down, make it look brand-new and I'll take care of it."

I did as he suggested and, a few days later, we found ourselves at a branch of the same store I'd bought it from the year before. As we stood a few feet from the Customer Service desk, he asked me for my clean and repackaged camera. He also asked for the receipt that he'd had me trim to remove the date.

"Be right back."

It was then that my very large, very imposing and somewhat Italian-looking/somewhat Middle-Eastern-looking roommate played both parts of "Good Cop, Bad Cop" with this poor Customer Service rep.

Because of my non-confrontational nature, I couldn't bare to watch so I stood mostly out of earshot, trying not to look. I did, however, catch bits of him explaining how "it just stopped working" and how "extremely dissatisfied" he was. He didn't even miss a beat when she pointed out that this "recently bought" camera now came in a different-looking box.

"I didn't buy it HERE. I bought it in New York."

Whatever else he said must have worked because, a few minutes later, he walked away from the desk with a brand-new Olympus Stylus camera for me. While this guy would end up becoming a huge pain in my ass a few short months later, at that moment, he was a hero to me.

I took a lot better care of that replacement camera over the next few years. I may have used it a lot less, but I also dropped it less and can happily say that I never fooled around on a beach with it in my back pocket again. Sadly, that camera would end up dying an even worse death than the last.

Crash Test
As the 2002 holiday season drew to a close, so did my time playing the Grinch at Universal Studios.

A very handsome Grinch

It was a particularly melancholy time for me because I knew there was a very good chance I wouldn't be playing the Grinch ever again. In just under 2 months, I'd be going to Japan to work and I planned to make my time there last as long as possible.

I used my camera to document my last day playing the Mean Green One. I got a bunch of pictures on set as well as some great behind-the-scene shots: Grinches ripping their faces off, Candy Cane Who kissing Cheerleader Who, Max the dog posing like he was going to pee. All classic stuff.

Anyway, late one evening, right after my final (and very long) Grinchmas shift, I went to a local bar to meet up with some Whos and fellow Grinches to celebrate not having to wear prosthetics again for another year. We drank and shared memories and I captured it all with my trusty ol' camera.

After I'd had a beer or four, Shane, the last of the Grinches, showed up.

"Shane! You're here! You know that CD I made for us to listen to in the makeup room?"
"Yeah?"
"Hilarious, right? Well, I made you a copy! It's in my car! Let's go get it!"

I snapped a quick picture of him, slipped my camera into my coat pocket and ran out the door and across the parking lot to go get the CD. Shane came out as well but stayed by his car parked right in front of the bar. While I was walking back towards him, CD in hand, two guys holding motorcycle helmets were leaving the bar. Just as they were about to pass me, one of them gave me a menacing look.

"What's up, STUPID?"

They both laughed and high-fived.

Clearly this was a joke, right? Two grown men taunting me at a 3rd grade level? Really?? Maybe they knew me already and I just didn't recognize them. Maybe they knew I was one of the Grinches and they were just playing along.

But no, it turns out they were just two drunk biker assholes with limited vocabulary, low self-esteem and small penises.

Now, normally, I would have just let something like this pass. Like I said before, I'm not confrontational and, honestly, I'm really not much in the muscles department.

But this was different.

You could blame it on my being tired and a little drunk. Or blame it my being emotional about all of the changes about to happen in my life. Also, remember, I didn't really think they were insulting me. But, if I had to choose why I did what I did, I'd say it was mainly due to the fact that I'd just spent the last two months getting paid to make fun of people.

Whatever the reason, before I even had a chance to think twice, my inner Grinch took the controls.

"Hey-ey…'Stupid'! GOOD one, man! You really should consider doing stand-up. 'Stupid'. Wow."

I shook my head as I continued to walk.

"I'll bet you both just can't wait for middle school."

As I approached Shane's car, I continued being suicidal.

"Hey Shane, is this your car? It's hard for me to tell, you know, because I'm so 'stoooopid'."

I made a little "der-dee-doo" kind of noise and started walking funny to emphasize just how stupid I was but stopped as soon as I got close enough to see Shane's clearly terrified face. That's when it dawned on me what was about to happen. I didn't even have to look over my shoulder. When I handed Shane the CD, I asked him in a low voice:

"They're coming back this way, aren't they?"
"Yep," he squeaked.
"Awwwww, shit."

I turned around with the desperate hope of trying to talk my way out of it but my inner Grinch wouldn't let that happen.

"I'm sorry, pal. Did I offend your girlfriend?"

Shane visibly flinched at this, then took a few steps back. That's when I saw that the guy who I was making fun of had a crazed look on his face and was holding his motorcycle helmet like a weapon.

If he hits me with that thing, I'm dead.

I put my hands up in a "Whoa, hey, this has all been a big misunderstanding" kind of way, hoping it would protect me from his helmet. I was so preoccupied with that damn helmet that I didn't even notice his other hand until it connected with my eye.

You know how they always draw stars when someone in a cartoon gets hit in the head?

There's a reason for that.

The stinging on the side of my face sobered me right up. And pissed me off. I'd never been punched by a man before. (Yes, I had been punched by a woman before but that's another story.) I'd also never been in a real fight before - certainly not a bar brawl - so I had no idea what kind of fighter I'd be. Sure, I had taken some martial arts lessons as a kid but it was from the "Christian Karate Association".

Let that name sink in and you'll get an idea of how effective of a street fighter I am.

Thankfully, my dad once gave me some very sound advice:

"If you ever get into a fight with someone bigger than you, act crazy."

Well, here I was potentially fighting two people bigger than me so, instead taking a fighting stance and breaking out into an intricate kata, I screamed like a pre-pubescent warrior and ran head first into the guy who punched me. As I flailed my arms and rammed him with my head, I kept yelling stuff like:

"You want some of THIS?? HUH?? C'MON!! I'm CRAZY, muthafukahs!! CRAZY!!! What? BOTH of you, huh? You girls are gonna NEED it! BRING it, bitches!! BRING IT!!!"

I think I may have even referred to myself as "The Matt". It was all bluster but it must have been pretty effective because, instead of the two of them leisurely taking turns kicking my ass, one of them spent all of his time just trying to pull me off of the other. I really don't think they expected me to fight back.

Who am I kidding? I didn't expect me to fight back.

At one point, the second guy grabbed me by the shoulders and nearly had me off of his friend when I wiggled out of my coat and dove right back on. In fact, I didn't even stop until I heard the other guy ask me something.

"And what do we have here?"

I turned. In one hand, he was holding my coat. In the other, my camera.

"Yours?" He tilted it towards me.
"No. Don't."
"GO GET IT!"

He wound up like a pitcher and then launched my beloved Olympus Stylus up and across the parking lot. It arched high, soaring through the night sky. We couldn't see it – I imagined it slowly turning once or twice mid-flight, its neck strap trailing behind like the tail of a kite - but we all followed the parabolic route we assumed it would take. I caught a brief flash of it when some light from a streetlamp reflected off of its sleek, black clamshell exterior in the instant before it hit the concrete. Then it shattered like a Lego explosion, destroying my camera as well as the roll of undeveloped pictures of my last day of Grinchmas.

"...my camera..."

I now no longer had to act being crazy.

I went to tackle the guy who threw my camera while, at the same time, trying to kick the other guy in the face. I would have kept fighting too had some of the other Grinchmas cast members not come out of the bar to see what all the commotion was. It took 2 or 3 of them to pull me off.

As my friends held me back, I kept shouting cliched stuff like "Let me at 'em!" and "This isn't over!" as the two guys walked to their bikes and loudly drove away. I tried to run after them but nobody would let me. Eventually, my friends got me to sit down on a bench and calm down a bit.

I'm sure I didn't do any real damage to the 2 motorcycle guys but - and here's the amazing thing - aside from my throbbing, sucker-punched eye (and my poor camera), they hadn't done any real damage to me. God knows it wasn't pretty, but I had defended myself.

At some point, I went and gathered the remains of my camera and returned to the bench. As I sat there cursing to myself over what happened, a co-worker looked at my face then whistled through his teeth.

"How's it look? Bad?"
"Yeah. You're going to have a shiner."
"Dammit. And I'm just about to go on vacation, too. 'Hi grandma! Oh this? Just a little something I picked up in a bar fight. Who's hungry?'"

The vacation still ended up going well. I visited lots of family and friends and got to see a nice chunk of the U.S. before my trip to Japan. But all of the pictures I took on that trip were done with a disposable camera and, in every photo of me, I had a giant, shiny black eye.

Bidding War
Thanks to my little bar brawl, I would also have to use disposable cameras for my first few months in Japan.

Welcome to (dark and grainy) Japan!

Every time I snapped a picture with a cheap cardboard camera and had to wind its crappy little plastic dial, I would silently curse the 2 motorcycle guys. Every time I thought of that roll of pictures they destroyed, I would wish the worst of motorcycle accidents on them. I kept having to remind myself that I was the one who was out traveling the world and getting paid to act, not them. They would probably be spending the rest of their (statistically shorter) lives stuck in Central Florida.

Eventually, I bought my first digital camera and I felt a lot better about the whole situation.

My first digital camera!

Look, waterproof!

Nice haircut, huh?

A few years later, I bought my first digital SLR camera. I love both of my cameras dearly and have captured a ton of new memories with them, but I always missed having my first real camera.

Then, about two weeks ago, I started reworking the chapter of my book about my time just before Japan. I wanted to mention the brand of my camera, a shout out to my twice-fallen friend. Seeing as I hadn't had the camera for over 7 years, I couldn't remember the brand name or model type but it's amazing what powers of the internet (and an overwhelming desire not to work on my book) can do.

After a few Google searches, I found this entry in Camerapedia.org for the Olympus µ[mju:] (the Japanese and British version of the camera) and, there in the right-hand corner of the page, was a picture of what had been my brand of camera. Now that I had this information, I did a more specific search and I actually found a few used ones on eBay. One still had the box and everything!

Current bid: $1.05 (plus shipping and handling).

Now, I don't really get eBay. I've bought stuff with the whole "Buy It Now" feature but I've never really understood the whole bidding thing. If I say I'm willing to pay $20 but no one bids above $5, do I have to pay $20 or $5? I could never figure it out because, the one or two times I've tried bidding in the past, I would be the highest bidder for most of the auction but I'd still end up getting an email saying I'd been outbid at the last second.

Besides, I don't NEED a new camera, much less a film camera. But it's only a dollar (plus shipping and handling), right? Wouldn't hurt to try. Might be kind of neat. So I bid $2.

Five days passed and I remained the highest bidder. A few people tried but nobody seemed willing to offer more than $2. I wondered if I should raise my bid, just in case. So I kicked it up to $3. On the last day of the auction, I got home from work early and saw that there were about 2 hours left of bidding time. I kept eBay open in a tab and occasionally checked to see if I was still on top. No big deal.

But, as time ticked away, I started thinking about how much I ~~wanted~~ needed this camera. I just KNEW somebody was going to try to take this away from me. I pictured the two bikers, somewhere in the Midwest, huddled around a computer, waiting to outbid me at the last second.

Sure enough, with around 15 seconds remaining, someone outbid me. I panicked, put in a bid for way more than I needed to and clicked it.

And I got it. For $5.50 (plus shipping and handling).

Two days ago, it arrived.

Here's the box:

And here's the camera:

Beautiful, isn't it?

Holding its shape in my hands brought back such a stream of memories that I would eventually have to write this blog post. I popped the back of my new toy open to remind myself what the inside of a film camera looks like. When I clicked it shut, it gave a healthy whirr. Whoever sent it had been nice enough to put a fresh battery in it for me. I slid the front cover to the right and the lens extended slightly. It buzzed me a "Hello, Matt! Been a while, huh?"

Yes, old friend… it has.

Now if I could just find a place that sells film.

Chimpanzee! On a Segway!

2010-08-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

Everything I love about Japan crammed into one delightful, little clip:

Interesting fact: This was actually the original premise for Doc Brown's Fifth Element Show.

Related Posts:
Monkey! In a Subway!
Monkey! In a Subway! Again!

UPDATE: Someone totally made a song about this.

I love you, Internet.

Spaworld Creepiness

2010-08-21T14:33:00.000-07:00

I used to love going to SpaWorld.

Of course, that was before they introduced their new mascot, "Super Poo Man".

Um, scary.

And it doesn't help that all the women who go there turn into Sekai no Nabeatsu.

No. Not so omoro.

(Hat tip to JapanProbe)

UPDATE: Oh, my bad. It's "Spa Poo Man".

That's SO much better.

When This Thread Count Gets Up To 88 Threads Per Inch...

2010-08-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

You're going to see some serious stitch.

A hand-beaded DeLorean sitting outside the Twin Pines mall:

Who says sewing isn't awesome?

(via The Lone Beader)

I Figured Out Who I Want to Draw My Book Cover

2010-08-15T09:50:00.000-07:00

Drew Struzan.

And who is Drew Struzan, you ask?

Only the greatest movie poster artist... ever.

Here's a piece of his you might have seen before:

Speaking of which, the fine folks over at /Film (who seem to love Back to the Future almost as much as I do) have pointed out that there's a preview of a documentary about Drew over on Starwars.com. (Yeah, he did the Star Wars posters as well.) Click through below to see the video:

How good does that look?? Now I just have to figure out a way to become famous enough by the time my book is done so I can afford to have Drew draw the cover. (At the rate I'm going, that shouldn't be a problem.)

Anyway, here are a few pictures of some Back to the Future Concept Art that I had on my hard drive.

From the first film:

And from the second:

Genius.

Universal is Really Trying to Get Me to Buy a Blu-Ray Player

2010-07-14T11:42:00.000-07:00

Digital copies!!

Universal adds Digital Copies to upcoming Blu-ray & DVD releases (via BackTalk):

"Universal Studios Home Entertainment has just notified BTTF.com that they will be adding digital copies of all three films to both the Blu-ray Disc and DVD releases of the 25th Anniversary box sets being released October 26, 2010."

Can you just imagine being able to watch "Back to the Future" on your iPhone whenever you wanted??

I love technology.

Hey! You! Guys!! - Goonies 25th Anniversary Road Trip (Part II)

2010-07-10T13:19:00.000-07:00

As promised, I'm (finally!) picking up where I left off in my earlier "Goonies Road Trip" post:

So, once everybody was done milling about at Mikey's house and exploring every corner of a childhood fantasy, it was time to get back on the bus. As the last of the group boarded, the tour guide announced that we'd be going to Andy's practice field next.

On the way there, the bus slowed so we could snap pictures of a house whose chimney had a Goonies mural on it. The tour guide explained that the previous owner made sure that - no matter whether the house was sold and remodeled - the chimney could never be torn down.

We all thought this seemed perfectly sensible.

Partial glimpse of a Goonies-themed chimney

We also passed the school they used for the film "Kindergarten Cop":


It's not a tumor! It's a playground.

It's not a tumor! It's a school.

(Later in the tour, we would also pass the house that was used as Penelope Ann Miller's house in the same film.)

It's not a tumor! It's Penelope Ann Miller's house.

(I can do this all day, people.)

It didn't take us long to get to the high school. I can't say that anybody was really thrilled about it. I mean, we had just been in Mikey's house! In his attic, no less! And now we were going to see some playing field that got a few milliseconds of screen time? But, like good little Goonies, we all filed out of the bus and stood on the edge of a deserted Warren Field.

It didn't look like much but, had we had a screen capture (like the one below) or had Apple had the foresight to make Goonies available to download on the iPhone (and you know I totally checked), we would have noticed that, except for the lack of purple and gold paint, the bleachers look pretty much the same as they did in the film.

A glimpse of the bleachers behind sexy, sexy Andy

And there's Andy. Oh man, did I have a crush on Andy.

You can kiss me with my braces any day.

Who's your Goonie, huh? Who's your GOONIE??

That's right, I am.

I'm sorry... Where were we?

Oh yeah, playing field.

Here's another screen cap, this one showing the sweet flower Andy getting ready to wrangle a group of high school girls into a pyramid:

Standard School Attire Policy: No two students may wear the same color sweatpants.

Standing on the sidelines, I fought the urge to run out to the middle of the empty field so my brother could get a photo but I didn't want to look like an idiot (said the 36-year-old at a Goonies anniversary celebration). It didn't take long for some of the others in the group to decide that, if they had come all this way to see Andy's field, they may as well make a human pyramid.

And we thought WE were dorks.

It took them a few tries but eventually they got their pyramid.

And our respect.

Put your arms up and smile...

You got it!

Our next stop: Mouth's House. As our bus driver expertly drove us up the steep, narrow streets, the tour guide explained that the higher we went up the hill, the newer the houses became. Back when Astoria was just a fur-trading fort (and the first permanent U.S. settlement on the Pacific coast), people built their homes closer to the shoreline. The hillside may have had spectacular views but, without cars, it was much too inconvenient of a place to live.

A bit later, at the end of a long, straight stretch of road, our bus pulled up in front of an inconspicuous brick and wood house with two garage doors. Our guide reminded us that we would, once again, be entering somebody's home and, not only should we be grateful for their allowing such a motley crew of awkwardness to stream through their home all weekend (I'm paraphrasing) but we should show our respect as well.

A beared gentleman came out of the house. He looked like a college professor. He boarded the bus and was handed the mic for the loudspeaker. He cleared his throat like a man ready to give a lecture, and then he got to talking.

He first welcomed us, occasionally stopping to take some meaningful pauses.

He then talked about how great it was that the movie connected with so many people.

He then explained that they'd only bought the house a few years ago so they weren't there for the filming.

He then talked about some of the remodeling they've done since then. "But we're still using the same dishwasher. It works. No need to replace it."

I think he then cracked a joke about his wife never doing the dishes but, by this point, everyone's attention was straying towards the inside of the house. It wasn't that he wasn't interesting. It's just that keeping a load of Goonies fans trapped in a bus sitting outside of Mouth's house could be considered "cruel and unusual" in some states.

Eventually, he got to talking about his house's part in Goonies. "So, why THIS house?" he asked aloud. "Well, as you'll be able to see once you're up in the kitchen, the window next to the sink has a view of a long stretch of road. This is the road the police chased the Fratellis down at the beginning of the movie."

Here's a screen cap of that scene:

He then talked a bit more about the scene in which Mouth jumps up on the counter next to the sink and, when he looks into the drain, gets sprayed with water. "We were also going to try to have some water spurting out of the sink but, in the end, we decided not to. For two very important reasons. First, logistically, it was no easy feat. Have you ever tried to rig a drain to spray water? It's not easy. And second, and more importantly, it was dangerous. They last thing we'd want is for one of you guys to slip on our wet kitchen floor."

Comedy!

We were all pretty antsy by the time he finally got to talking about us actually going inside. "OK, so we'll be heading in soon. For your convenience, we've got the scene from the movie playing on a loop inside. We want you to have a chance to make that connection. This whole thing will mean a lot more to you if you can see it on the screen," he held up his hands like a director and then swung the lens toward the house, "...and then see it in person. Make that connection. The connection between the movie and the house."

"All right!" he said with some finality, giving his hands a clap. My brother and I started to gather our stuff.

"Any questions?"

My brother and I put our stuff back down.

After the Q&A, he proposed a question to us. "Just a little something for you to ponder while you're inside. Were Mouth and his father fixing their own sink? OR... were they on the job at somebody else's house? Something to think about."

And with that, we gave him some applause and started to unload. "To make sure you all get a chance to really see the kitchen," he added, "we'll only be allowing groups of 10 or less in at a time." Naturally, Ken and I were in the first group. "Don't forget to sign the guest book!" he reminded us as we walked up the brick steps into his home.

Once inside, we thanked his wife for all of the hospitality and we paused to watch the scene which was playing on a loop in the living room.

Here's the famous sink and, just above it, the view that got this house cast in the movie:

And here's Corey Feldman (so young! so innocent!) and his on-screen dad in the very house we were standing in:

"Turn that TV off, son. I can't hear myself think!"

Here's Ken standing between the famous view and the famous sink:

He's beaming, I tells ya!

Ken and I both had a chance to enjoy the view and, dare I say, make "the connection". (And, I won't lie, having the video playing on a loop really made it special.) Once we left the house, we immediately got back on the bus to tweet and Facebook about our experiences thus far. Blogging would come later.

Much later.

As soon as everyone was back on board with us, the owners of the house came out to bid us farewell (and to breathe a sigh of relief that the "Goonies 25th Anniversary" was finally over). Here's a picture of the house as it is now:

"Thank God THAT's over!"

And here's a screen cap of the same house in the Goonies movie:

You'll also notice that there's a plumbing van parked in the driveway which lends credence to his theory that this was NOT Mouth's house, but just a plumbing stop.

Hey, you learn something new every day.

Our drive back to the seaside took us on another series of precarious streets across and back down the hillside. Each twist and turn of the road presented another view of the Astoria-Megler bridge:

Near the bottom of the hill, the tour guide pointed out a cluster of homes. "Annnnd, just inside there... that is where the home from Short Circuit is." The following blurry shot is the best we could get from the moving bus:

Thankfully, the house was no disassembled. (Ouch.)

From there, we went to the Lower Columbia Bowling Alley, better know as the place where Chunk smeared pizza and milkshake all over the window:

"Oh wow! A police chase!"

Before we arrived, the tour guide shared with us a rumor about the purpose of the "milkshake and pizza" scene. "You'll see when you get inside the bowling alley that there's a McDonald's across the street. Well, Goonies had arranged a promotional deal with Burger King. And, needless to say, Burger King didn't want a McDonald's in their movie. So, rumor has it that they had Chunk hold up his pizza to hide the McDonalds."

Sure enough, if you look at the first screen cap below (click to make it bigger), you'll see the Golden Arches just between the bar in the middle and Chunk's left hand, and in the second picture, you won't:

Now you see it!

Now, you don't!

Here's the window as it is now from the outside:

The dirtiest window in Astoria

And here it is from the inside, along with a screen cap (and clever marketing opportunity):

The sign included the following warning (which I'm guessing was written by some fed-up janitor):

"Please do not recreate the milkshake spilling scene!"

Ken got himself a milkshake and posed for a picture:

As did a few others:

And, of course, the original:

The Money Shot

From here, the tour was pretty much over. We now had the option of taking the bus back to the Goon Docks or we could walk to the nearby county jail and the Flavel house, two more Goonies landmarks which, while we had passed them before, we would be able to explore on our own. We opted to walk.

Here's the Flavel House Museum as it is now:

They were having a "History of Astoria" retropactum.

"Retrospective".

That's what I said.

And here it is as the Astoria Museum (and workplace of Mikey's dad) in the Goonies Movie.

And, literally, right across the street, is the former Clatsop County Jail.

Here it is in the film (with a dapper looking Joey Pants):

And here it is now, painted blue and converted to (fittingly) the Oregon Film Museum:

And what's that parked out front, you ask? Is that a 4-wheel deal with a real neat ORV??

Yes. Yes, it is.

Not only that, but check out what's inside:

Mama Fratelli's crackers!

Gas containers!

A Chunk-autographed dashboard!

Why, there's only one thing that could make this ORV cooler...

Buh-buh-BULLET HOLES!!!

From the movie

In person

Obligatory bullet holes shot.

At this time of day, there were only a few other people in the parking lot, three of which I recognized from the human pyramid back on Andy's field. One of them offered to snap a picture of my brother and me in front of the bullet-holed vehicle.

Turns out that the 3 of them had also come from Seattle together but, unlike Ken and myself, they'd left at 5 in the morning to catch the Meet & Greet with Jeff "Chunk" Cohen, Corey "Mouth" Feldman and Joe "Hey, weren't you in the Matrix, too?" Pantoliano.

Sadly, it's didn't go well.

"None of the actors showed up!"
"Yeah, the whole thing would have been a total bust if Curtis Hanson hadn't shown up."
"Troy's dad. Great guy."

Troy's dad? Really? Here he is in the movie (on the right):

"Is your mommy home?"

Mr. Hansen must have really made an impression because they couldn't stop raving about him.
"Totally professional. A real stand-up guy."
They all nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, I want to watch the movie again but with a new respect for Troy's dad."
"Absolutely! You know... I WANT him to get his balls out." (A movie reference that only a true Goonies could appreciate.)

"We take it all back, Troy's dad!"

They handed us our cameras back and we headed back to Ken's truck, ready for the long drive back to Seattle.

The Hero Shot

Thank you, Astoria.

See you next year for the 25th Anniversary of Short Circuit...

GREAT SCOTT!!

2010-07-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

Check out my blog traffic for the week:

I wish EVERYday could be the 25th anniversary of Back to the Future!

UPDATE: I don't know how everybody found my site but nearly all of them seemed to be going to this post about the Back to the Future iPhone app.

UPDATE II: Think I figured it out. If you do a Google search for "back to the future time circuits", the picture from my post is in the top three. Interesting!

Take Your Stinking Paws Off Of My Photoshop

2010-07-04T17:16:00.000-07:00

A recent ad for the local beerfest:

Now WHY does that look so familiar?

Oh, now I remember.

Anyway, Happy 4th of July, gang!

Happy 25th Anniversary, Back to the Future!

2010-07-03T23:34:00.000-07:00

It was 25 years ago today that "Back to the Future" was released, giving my 11-year-old self the thrill of his life and my 29-year-old-self a job in Japan.

Great Scott! Back to the Future Was Released 25 Years Ago Today (from /Film):

"Robert Zemeckis‘ Back to the Future was released 25 years ago today, on July 3rd 1985. The movie is not just a classic but, as you know, my favorite movie of all time.

After the jump I’ve included a bunch of behind the scenes videos and old trailers. Please leave your memories of the first film in the comments below!"

Big thanks to everyone who brought this trilogy to life.

Back Blu-Ray Future! (OK, it's a stretch)

2010-06-28T21:19:00.000-07:00

Universal Announces Back to the Future Trilogy Blu-Ray (from /Film):

"After many years of waiting (and one convincing headfake back in January), Universal has finally confirmed in a press release that the Back to the Future Trilogy will be released on Blu-Ray on October 26, 2010. It will be sold as the “25th Anniversary Trilogy” and will also be available on DVD. Details about the box set after the break."

Man, I was really hoping I wouldn't have to buy a Blu-Ray player any time soon.

Hey! You! Guys!! - Goonies 25th Anniversary Road Trip (Part I)

2010-06-13T09:15:00.000-07:00

WARNING: If you have no interest in The Goonies, dear God, don't read this post. Seriously. It'll take, like, a week to wash the smell of geek off of you.

It was the most amazing thing I ever saw!

Last weekend marked the 25th anniversary of the release of The Goonies, a Richard Donner film about a group of kids in Astoria who find a treasure map in an attic and then embark on an adventure to go find "the rich stuff" so they can prevent their neighborhood from being turned into a golf course.

I was 11 when this movie came out and, I'll be honest, I wasn't sure I wanted to go see it. It actually looked pretty scary.

They only person I knew who had seen it was my aunt. One day I overheard her discussing it with my mom.

"I didn't like it," she told her, "It was too violent and there were too many skeletons and violence. And the mouths on those kids! So much cussing!"

Well, now I HAD to see it.

So I did. And I loved it. It wasn't scary at all. The kids in the movie were only a few years older than me and it was so rare to see kids acting the way my friends and I usually would when there were no adults around: laughing, cussing, going on adventures.

Cut to 25 years later and it's time for another adventure. Somehow, miraculously, my brother and I both ended up with a Sunday off at the same time so we planned to head down to Astoria for the 25th Anniversary Celebration.

I awoke early that morning to the sound of pouring rain. This wasn't a surprise - it's the Pacific Northwest - but it was a bit of a bummer. I tried to convince myself it would add to the atmosphere of all the pictures I would take. Still, the day before had been so nice...

Anyway, my brother Ken picked me up in his truck at around 7:30 a.m. First stop: Starbucks. As we waited for our coffees to be Clover-brewed, the barista made idle chit chat. I was much too excited to keep our trip a secret.

"We're off to Astoria today for the 25th anniversary of Goonies!"
"You are?" she asked. "Is that this weekend?"
"Yep!"
She thought about if for a second and then, in awed reverence, she said, "Man, that's awesome. You guys are so lucky!"
"I know, right?"
She handed me my coffee then shook her head. "Man. My boyfriend is going to be so jealous."
"As he should be!"

Once Ken had his coffee, he went to grab some napkins and sugar. As I waited, I overheard the barista go over and tell the other baristas what our plans were for they day. They all reacted in much the same way, agreeing that Ken and I were the luckiest people on earth. I turned around and raised my coffee to them as a toast.
"We're off!"
"Have fun!" they all replied.
"We'll get you guys some tee-shirts!"
They all laughed and waved good-bye.
As we walked across the parking lot, Ken half-asked, half-stated, "We're not going to buy them tee-shirts, are we?"
"God, no. I just paid 3 bucks for a coffee."

Once we were settled back in the truck, I pulled out my iPhone and connected it to his stereo.
"I've got some music to get us started."
I tapped play on "The Goonies 25th Anniversary Soundtrack" (Limited Edition!) and we pulled out of the parking lot to the sounds of Dave Grusin's "Fratelli Chase".

You can sample its awesomeness here:

The rain lasted the entire 3+ hour drive but Ken and I did a lot of catching up and - between my Goonies songs and his 80s playlist - we had some great music to keep us company.

Caution: Wet Roads and Sparkly Vampires

We arrived in Astoria around 11. And the rain... had stopped. (Score!)

Welcome to Downtown Astoria!

Even lucked out on a parking spot close to "The Goon Docks", the official headquarters of the Goonies weekend.

Good thing Troy's dad didn't tear this thing down.

Catchphrases and pictures of the Goonies kids adorned the windows. A line of people boarded a school bus for the tour. Ken and I walked into the creaky, wooden building to find ourselves surrounded by our brethren. Dorks and geeks of every age milled about, snapping pictures and quoting scenes.

Along the walls were all the entries for the Goonies 25th Anniversary Art Contest. My two personal favorites:

Mmm... Truffly Shuffly.

Subtle, and awesome.

We needed to get our bus tickets and, more importantly, tee-shirts. A long line snaked its way out from the souvenir stand so we opted to get our Goonies gear first but, as we passed by the stand selling the event tickets, we heard those 2 dreadful words: "sold out". Ken and I gave each other a panicked look.
"Are you guys all sold out of the bus tours?" I asked.
"All but the last one at 4 o'clock."
"We'll take two!"

Got 'em!

Once we had our tickets, we got in line for souvenirs. There was a handwritten sign that listed the remaining items and shirt sizes. Thankfully, they still had event tee-shirts in my size. Remarkably, they were even selling tee-shirts for the 5K Truffle Shuffle which wouldn't be happening until the next morning. Ken and I had debated on the drive out as to whether or not we should stay the night in Astoria (and, ahem, call in sick for work the next day) so we could run the 5K race with the Best. Name. Ever. Wanting to be responsible adults, we decided it would all depend on how cool the tee-shirt looked.

And there it was: cool-looking AND available without having to get a hotel room. Best of all, no running required. Chunk would have been proud.

Been there, done that...

I bought 2 shirts and 2 pint glasses (one for my girlfriend who, unfortunately, had to work that day) and then Ken and I put all of our gear in the truck and set out to explore Astoria. It was a Sunday so they had their street fair going on.

As Ken and I browsed, we contemplated whether Astorians loved or hated their Goonies legacy. We imagined it was probably some sort of reluctant acceptance. It may have been annoying to keep hearing the same quotes over and over again as well as seeing the same kinds of people every year but, hey, tourist money is tourist money.

So do we!

We then explored the riverfront. It seemed that everywhere we turned offered us a view of the iconic Astoria-Megler Bridge as well as the crumbling remains of an old pier.

Astoria: a Scandinavian word for "place where there are a bunch of rotting docks".

The rest of our afternoon was spent chatting and exploring while we killed time until our tour. We strolled along the trolley tracks and then grabbed some lunch at the Wet Dog Cafe.

Wave to the friendly trolley driver!

I also used our free time as a chance to Tweet and use Facebook (now that I actually had something exciting to Tweet and Facebook about). Reactions ranged from "I am so jealous right now. You have no idea." to "I AM SO JEALOUS!!!"

Either we're in 1985... or heaven.

Eventually, we started hanging out near the Goon Docks at around 3:30 to wait for our tour to start. The bus pulled up right at 4. Couldn't remember the last time I was on a school bus. Once we were all aboard, the tour guide introduced himself and the bus driver then welcomed us to the final tour of the Goonies 25th Anniversary weekend.

The bus driver and the tour guide (both who seem to have been in more movies than me).

As the bus pulled away from the Goon Docks, the tour guide said that, not only would we be visiting some major landmarks from the movie but we would actually get to go inside a few of them. Ken and I looked at each other an beamed like little kids.

Ken, me and what appears to be a serial killer on the Goonies bus tour.

The tour started off with a bang. We were heading to ultimate Goonies landmark: Mikey's house. Along the way, the tour guide asked questions ranging from the obvious - What was Mouth's dad's job? (Plumber), What is Mikey's last name? (Walsh) - to the increasingly obscure - What was the name of the local paper? (The Astoria Ledger), What was the headline? ("Fratellis At It Again"), What was Mouth's real first name? (Clark). Every question was answered correctly by at least 2 or more people on the bus.

We finally arrived at Mikey's house. Strange to have instant recognition of a place I'd never been to before. Here's how it looked in the movie:

And here's how it looks now:

As you can see, they've painted it, remodeled the entry to the porch and removed the mailboxes as well as the Rube Goldberg-esque door opener. But still... Mikey's House!

We grabbed a few quick pictures before going inside. Once we were all gathered in the strangely familiar living room, the owner explained that she had bought the home recently when it was in foreclosure. The house had been empty for several months before that and had fallen into disrepair. In fact, when they moved in, there was a hole in the roof that allowed birds to keep flying through the house.

We made our way upstairs and she showed us some of the more famous rooms.

Here's a movie still showing Brand's room from Mikey's room:

Here's Brand's room now:

The weight set has been replace with a large cross. And a teddy bear.

And here's Mikey's room now:

Looking back towards Data's house.

Here's a movie still of Data using a zip line to get to Mikey's house:

The screen door! Oh no!

The owner then showed the entrance to the famous Walsh attic (which contained One-Eyed Willie's treasure map and the information about the famous missing Chester Copperpot but, despite what Mouth said, did not contain Mr. Walsh's sexual torture devices).

She explained that the attic that was used in the film was actually a movie set but, if we'd like, we'd be allowed to go up into the attic a few people at a time.

"IF we'd like", says the lady.

That look on my face? Pure joy.

Not a lot of room up in the attic, as you can see, but quite a view:

Ken, geeking out in Mikey's attic.

Since Ken and I were part of one of the first groups to go up into the attic, we rushed out and grabbed a few pictures of and on Mikey's patio while everyone was still inside.

Here's the patio then:

And now:

You know what would be great here? A golf course.

Hero shot:


Me and my socks on Mikey's patio.

I include this movie still because Brand's outfit makes my socks look sensible.

The view:

The view of Astoria from Mikey's attic.

Astoria and Data using his zip line.

As we left Mikey's house to head back to the bus, Ken caught a picture of me revealing my 11-year-old self.

And the tour had only just begun.

COMING SOON: Goonies Post - Part II!! Starring:

Andy's Football Field!!
Mouth's Sink!! (Or IS IT??)
Chunk's Window!!!

Until next time, fellow Goonies...

Happy Birthday, Michael J. Fox!

2010-06-09T08:36:00.000-07:00

Marty is 49 today!

Amazing. He looks better than the 47-year-old version of himself in Back to the Future II. Gotta love Michael J. Fox.

Oh, and he's got a new book out, too!

You should totally buy it!