Scraps of Literacy

The Soon-to-Be Second-Time Guest Blogger Watches Where He Puts His Feet

2012-02-13T01:49:00.000-08:00

For the past two days, besides more research and preparing for a phone interview that I'll write about after it happens, I've been answering a set of interview questions and writing a guest post for G, who occasionally comments on this blog. After writing a guest post for Janie Junebug's private blog (Janie's given me permission to repost my entry on my own blog, so I'll do that once I'm done writing everything I want about Henderson, since it falls after coming back from there), I read that G was looking for guest bloggers. I went back and forth on it for a few minutes, wanting to write one, then asking myself if I really wanted to commit time to someone else's blog. Then I thought I should because how else is my blog to become more widely known, as I want it to be while I'm writing Mayday! Mayday!: The Making of the Airport Movies so potential agents and publishers can see that I've not sat back and let time pass since my first book was published. Then yes, I should. What's a few days of making sure that my writing is readable for others?

When I first wrote reviews for Film Threat, I was careful and very cautious. I wanted to make sure every thought was expressed clearly, that there weren't any sentences that sounded like they were written in a rush, that there was enough attention to grammar and punctuation that I didn't sound like I had a half-formed brain. Therefore, my early reviews expressed what I wanted to say, but they were stiff, more concerned with looking good than being lively. It's a reasonable reaction to being in a new position like that one, and as I wrote more and more reviews and months with Film Threat became years, I loosened up. I had fun with some of my reviews. I enjoyed writing interviews because most of it was a copy-and-paste job, straight Q&As except for the introduction, which was easy to write.

I spent three days writing my guest post for Janie Junebug. One day was for the writing, and the other two days were making sure I wrote well everything I wanted to say, and that every word and punctuation mark was in the right place. Reaction to my guest post on Janie's blog shows that my writing didn't read like I was nervous, but I was a bit nervous. With Film Threat, I knew who read the site: Movie buffs, independent filmmakers looking for reviews of their movies and short films, people who love independent film, people who hate independent film, and people just curious about what independent filmmakers have produced. In short, everyone who read the site was there for the reviews and the columns offered. That never changed.

With guest posts, I'm reaching different readers every time. I don't know who will be there. I hope they'll like me. But I have to make a decent impression every time because I'm there behind those words. I'm giving myself to those different sets of readers every time, telling them to see all of me right here. I'm letting it all out.

I'm not done yet with my guest post for G's blog. I haven't even gotten to the crux of it yet. Many more paragraphs to go. But even as I begin to feel for the end of my post, I keep scrolling up to the top of my Word file, reading my answers to G's interview questions. Does this read well? Have I said what I wanted to say in this answer? Can I leave this answer as it is or is there some word that has to be added to the third sentence? Letting go of these answers and this guest post is a little more difficult than letting go of this entry because this is my blog. I can put my feet up wherever I want. I do read other blogs, but I don't know the layout all that well. I have to be polite, make sure my hair is combed, and don't act like I can just put my feet up on the coffee table on top of the magazines.

It doesn't stifle my writing. Janie can attest to that. But I do admit that I put a little more effort into those guest posts because I'm in someone else's house.

You'd think I'd be nervous about the phone interview I have at 11 this morning. But I don't get starstruck. Reviewing movies since I was 15, up until I was 25, and having lived in Southern California for eight years, actors have jobs to do just like I have my job to do whenever I'm a substitute campus supervisor. We do the work and we get paid.

The interview is for Mayday! Mayday: The Making of the Airport Movies, and this actress was an extra on the fateful Trans Global flight, the interior 707 set on stage 12 at Universal. It meant five weeks of solid work for the actors chosen. You might be surprised about who it is, considering her place in television history, but that's all I'll say until the interview is done.

And G, I promise not to put my feet up where they don't belong.

My Biggest Regret in Eight Years of a Southern California Existence

2012-02-07T23:33:00.000-08:00

In early April 2009, my family and I went to San Juan Capistrano for the day, where I would either live or retire if I loved Southern California, which will never happen. And I would have to be wealthier than I am now for that to happen. A lot.

I was so smitten with the everlasting peace of the area, a sense of history that will never fade, that I wrote an amteurish poem about my feelings. I looked up that poem today to make sure I had exact what I saw in San Juan Capistrano before I sent a message to author Kate Buford on her website about a few things dealing with Burt Lancaster that I'm seeking for my book.

Mom, Dad, Meridith and I walked around that downtown area, next to railroad tracks, passing what looked like many historical houses. Then we walked through Antique Row, which bears many antique shops, and we stopped at what looked like the largest one there.

I love antique stores. I don't collect them, but it's that deep, abiding respect for history in those stores that I feel so strongly in my own work, that'll keep me in nonfiction for years to come, continuing to explore the history of various things. At that antique store, I went into a small room off the main floor at the front of the store which held old issues of Time and Life magazines, along with other magazines that I don't remember because there weren't as many of them as those two. On a small table in front of me was a carefully wrapped set of envelopes for $12. I went back and forth on whether I wanted them, because in the upper right-hand corner, "Burt Lancaster" was stamped in blue. I e-mailed Buford because I thought that the envelopes were stamped "Burt Lancaster Productions," but he started Hecht-Lancaster, one of the first production companies run by an actor, and one of the very few to last in that time period, which then became Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, and after that ended, he started Norlan Productions (A combination of his wife's name, Norma, and his surname), but nothing in Buford's biography indicated in later years that he started a production company called "Burt Lancaster Productions." I think those envelopes indeed said "Burt Lancaster," but I wanted to make absolutely sure with Buford that that was probably the case.

I didn't buy those envelopes. And sitting on the couch today, finishing Buford's biography, I thought about those envelopes. I don't know if Burt Lancaster ever touched them or even saw them, but surely he had to have ordered them. I didn't need that kind of proof, but I think I just wanted a piece of the history of an actor who figured so largely in my teenage years by being in the first Airport movies, minor as that history might have been.

There is one thing that sort of makes up for it. At the Academy library in Beverly Hills, you're given the option of requesting photocopies of pages of documents you're poring over, whatever you need. You pay 50 cents a page, plus a mailing charge, and you receive the documents within a few weeks after your visit.

I requested that 10 pages be photocopied, and with a 75-cent mailing charge, that came out to $5.75. My visit to the library was on January 10, and I received a gray catalog envelope containing my photocopies on January 25. A few pages pertain to special effects production for Airport, especially about snow effects. But the document that made my heart flutter were call sheets for The Concorde: Airport '79, detailing the production schedule for Tuesday, January 30, 1979, the sets to be used, the actors required along with times for them to be in makeup and then on set (George Kennedy, Alain Delon, and David Warner weren't needed that day because the Concorde flight deck set wasn't being used), and call times for various crew members, including the cameraman and the camera operator, air conditioning on stage 12, and a dialogue coach. On the first page, there's a "special note" that states: "Cold weather gear for the Utah shoot will be handed out today. See Lambert Marks." That was for the crash sequence at the end of the movie. Utah stood in for Patscherkofel in Austria.

I've still got so much to do for this book that'll give me many thrills, but the biggest thrill thus far was getting the photocopies of these call sheets. All the years I watched the Airport movies, and I have part of its history. I could never imagine such a thing when I first watched these movies over and over on videotape. I noticed the effort that had gone into them with actors and special effects and all that, but not to this extent, not to pull apart each movie and see what's inside. I've kept these photocopies in their original envelope and I'm keeping it safe. I may want to use the call sheets as photos to be included in my book, but those are rights to seek much later, once I'm well into writing it.

I wish I had those envelopes, and I think it'll always remain my biggest regret of these eight years. Which goes to show that if you find something that relates to a major part of your life, grab it. Don't think about it. Just grab it.

Returning to the Love of the Work

2012-02-06T19:22:00.001-08:00

Today I returned to my research full force. I'm nearly done with Burt Lancaster: An American Life by Kate Buford, and though I'm still questioning if I need to read all the pages of all the books I bought for research, I'm beginning to see the value in certain circumstances, such as it is with lead roles, like Lancaster's in Airport.

I decided to read the entire book not because of the research, but because I wrote an essay about the 1968 masterpiece The Swimmer for a collective Online Film Critics Society book that never happened. That was my first time doing research for anything of mine that was going to be put into print, even though it didn't happen, so being completely new to researching for a purpose way beyond getting a good grade in a history class, I overresearched. I tried to watch all of Lancaster's movies, and read all of John Cheever's works. I checked out a collection of Cheever's letters, and also watched every other film directed by Frank Perry, who directed The Swimmer. I had no idea what I was doing, but I thought this was the way to do it. I ended up framing the essay as a memory of when I first saw the movie in 2002 on Turner Classic Movies not long before I graduated high school, and how it affected me so, looking at a life so clearly squandered when I was just getting ready to figure out what I wanted to do with mine.

Having seen a lot of Lancaster's movies for that essay (which I still have and am deciding what to do with it, either find another outlet for it or post it all here), I wanted to see what Buford had written about them, because when I first checked this out from the library, I only went into the section about The Swimmer, nothing else. Ironic, considering what I had done for research, but this was only an essay.

The keyword that comes to mind a lot for Mayday! Mayday!: The Making of the Airport Movies is "context." I can't just say that Ross Hunter bought the rights to Arthur Hailey's novel, then hired George Seaton, hired the actors, hired the crew, and then they made the movie. I have to know what interested Hunter enough to turn Airport into a movie. I have to know what made him want to hire George Seaton to adapt the novel and direct it. I have to know why these particular actors were cast and if there was anyone else considered for Lancaster's role of Mel Bakersfeld, Dean Martin's role of Vernon Demerest, Jacqueline Bisset's role as Gwen Meighen, and so on. Moreso, why did Dean Martin, Burt Lancaster, Jacqueline Bisset, and all the others want to do it? To give just a little bit, I found out on my research visit to the Margaret Herrick Library that Bisset was under contract to Fox at the time and was loaned out to Universal for this. From the Q&A transcript of the screening that the Academy had in 2006 as part of its "Great to be Nominated" series, I also learned that Bisset doesn't remember much about the production. Actors' lives are indeed very busy.

In Buford's biography, I found out that the cinematographer of Airport had worked with Lancaster on two previous movies, one his directorial debut, The Kentuckian, and the other a six-week stint for Judgment at Nuremberg, though it doesn't sound like Lancaster had spearheaded that project as he did with The Kentuckian. He was fulfilling an obligation. So I wondered: Was that cinematographer suggested by Lancaster for Airport, or was that producer Ross Hunter's decision? Furthermore, Hunter wanted to have the major actors wrapped in three weeks' time, so perhaps Hunter was the one who had decided on Laszlo. Lancaster didn't sound all that involved, particularly because he didn't like the movie, calling it "the biggest piece of junk ever made." And yet, Hunter's power at Universal had severely dwindled because of costly failures like Sweet Charity that found Universal spiraling toward bankruptcy. So either he had decided on Laszlo and had to seek the approval of higher-up executives, or one of those executives thought of Laszlo, though that seems doubtful. But wouldn't you know it, Airport became the biggest hit of 1970 and saved Universal from ruin.

Then there's Whit Bissell, who worked with Lancaster on Brute Force, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and The Birdman of Alcatraz, who was in the Airport cast, yet didn't work with Lancaster. He was the passenger seated next to Helen Hayes' Ada Quonsett on the fateful Trans Global Flight 2. Was Bissell put forth by Lancaster or was this Hunter again? I'm inclined to believe this was Hunter because Buford gives barely three paragraphs over to Airport, and if Lancaster had been slightly more involved, I think Buford would have found it because this is a very thorough, meticulous, detailed biography of Lancaster.

Reading a healthy chunk of Buford's biography wasn't all I did today. I spent some time in happy disbelief of what I was doing. David Warner played flight engineer Peter O'Neill in The Concorde: Airport '79, so I contacted the L.A.-based management company that oversees him, requesting an interview, figuring also that he might be surprised to find someone not interested in talking about Titanic, as it might very well be for him when the 3D rerelease comes out in April, being that he played Billy Zane's henchman.

I also contacted The Gage Group, which handles Stefanie Zimbalist's career, to confirm that she received my phone number as was requested. I need to interview her father, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., about his role as Captain Stacy in Airport 1975, so I thought it best to contact that agency and seek her out, since her father has no contact information online.

Then came one of the biggest steps I will ever take for my book, one of the two most crucial: I contacted the publicist at Hal Leonard who oversaw the release of Trust Me, George Kennedy's memoir, requesting an extensive interview with Kennedy. I need an extensive interview since he was in all four movies and I have a lot I want to cover, especially about producer Ross Hunter and director George Seaton since they're long gone, as well as director Jack Smight of Airport 1975 (Tomorrow I'll contact the company that manages director Alec Smight, his son, but many perspectives are always interesting), and countless others. He's as important to me as Monica Lewis, who's the widow of the late Universal executive Jennings Lang, who shepherded the three Airport sequels, and I learned while skimming the pertinent parts of Lewis's memoir that Lang was thinking about a made-for-cable-TV Airport sequel, but that never panned out. I have to know if he left behind any records that indicated what that would have been about. I think that would be as much a revelation to me as it was to read the ultimately rejected Airport 1976 script at the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library. I also really really need to compliment Monica Lewis on her performances in Airport '77 and The Concorde: Airport '79. It didn't matter that her husband was the executive producer on '77 and the producer on '79. She fashioned two completely different roles, one as the caring flight attendant and the other as a well-known jazz singer going back to Moscow for a homecoming concert, acting opposite Jimmie Walker. She's been a singer since the 1940s, so she knew how to make that voice float, brief as her singing was in that one.

I've still got so many more people to contact, including Erik Estrada and Walker, who I found out has a website, so that'll make it easier. And there's the Vizcaya in Miami, which served as the exterior of the Stevens' mansion at the beginning of Airport '77, that I have to contact to see if they have any historical records of that particular shoot, and I've also got to contact the American Airlines C.R. Smith Museum in Fort Worth, Texas because I didn't get an answer from them via e-mail about whether they have historical records of Charlton Heston and Jack Lemmon training on the 747 simulators for their roles in '75 and '77, respectively. I know that both of them did it (Heston talked about it in his published journals, and Lemmon talked about it in a featurette made to promote '77 at the time of its release, the script of which I read at the Herrick Library), but I'm hoping to find more details. Oh, and Boeing too! I've got to contact them because producer William Frye went to them before '75 and '77 went into production, asking for advice and insight. They told him, before production on '75, that the mid-air transfer was crazy, but Frye, Smight, and company did it. He went back to them before '77, and they asked him, "What are you doing this time?," prefacing that by saying, "I'm not sure Boeing is always happy with me."

That I have to contact the manufacturer of the 747, my favorite plane, is a huge honor and one that still stuns me, which is probably why I haven't done it yet, also because I've got other calls to make first. I was reminded constantly today of why I want to write this book, why I'm doing all this research. It's pure love of the work, of delving more deeply into what still fascinates me after all these years. And to think that this all started from renting the first Airport on videotape (Yes, VIDEOTAPE, young ones) from a Blockbuster in Coral Springs on a rainy night when I was 11, which led to owning all four in a four-tape set with its own box to house all of them. This just makes the movies even better for me.

A Potential Addiction Grows

2012-02-04T23:34:00.001-08:00

It started with my desire to find a few mystery novel series that I could relate to. I bought a few last year, including The Case of the Missing Books, a Mobile Library Mystery series by Ian Sansom; Dog On It by Spencer Quinn, first in a series about a boozy private detective and his faithful dog, the story told by the dog; and Everywhere That Mary Went by Lisa Scottoline, the first in her "Rosato & Associates" series, which, despite my most fervent love for her books of essays, didn't click with me. Meridith won a paperback copy of The Ritual Bath, the first in the Decker/Lazarus series by Faye Kellerman, but I still haven't read any of those, save for Scottoline's.

I'm not likely to read Michael Connelly or anything in that mainstream vein. I've been looking for mystery novel series that have something I can latch on to, that I could think of as being my series, one or more that I would go back to over and over as new installments are published. I have many favorite books I can go back to for the deep connections I enjoy (I've got a yen to reread Angelina's Bachelors by Brian O'Reilly just to absorb the gentleness of his prose again), but I want characters who last through many books, and as I saw when I began searching, there's a lot of mystery novel series. Whatever interests you, you can probably find it as a mystery novel.

So far, I've found one series, which is Julie Hyzy's White House Chef Mystery series. The White House aspect grabbed me right away, and I know a bit about the history of White House chefs (Not as much, and probably never as much, as Hyzy), so I naturally started with her first one, State of the Onion, which I had bought much earlier last year, but which sat in a stack in my room for months. I pulled it out because I wanted something different, something related to one of my passions in life.

I read State of the Onion in one day. Same with Hail to the Chef, the second installment. Eggsecutive Orders took a day and a half because we were out on errands that particular day, though I did bring it into the Golden Valley Target with me and read some of it while we were sitting at the Starbucks there.

I love this series because Hyzy introduces Ollie Paras as the assistant White House chef, in line to become the new Executive Chef upon the retirement of Henry, a really good man. Ollie knows the importance of serving the First Family, tending to whatever they need, and she doesn't lust after the power that comes with such a huge promotion. I relate to her because she works hard at what she does and is dedicated to it, and treats others equitably, no matter what transpires, such as President Campbell hiring the stuck-up, conceited, nasty Peter Everett Sargeant III as the White House Sensitivity Director. She gets frustrated with that one, but doesn't let it show, nor justified anger, which doesn't happen with her. The job is the highest priority and it must be done with excellent professionalism, which she exudes at all times.

Today in the mail, I received Affairs of Steak, the fifth book in the series and the newest one to be published. I'm still waiting for Buffalo West Wing, which is where I need to continue, and I won't read this series out of order.

As I read Hail to the Chef, I found out that Hyzy has been writing another series, about Marshfield Manor, a stately home turned into a museum, and the main character, Grace Wheaton starts out as an assistant curator, just like Ollie was the assistant chef in the first book. I have great respect for people who reach high positions, yet retain the kindness that they've always exhibited. That's how it is with Ollie, and that's how it sounds with Grace, though I've not yet really gotten into the first novel, Grace Under Pressure, save for the sample pages I read on Amazon which made me order it because it reminded me of the calmness and tranquility of the Nixon Library, Hearst Castle, the Getty Center, and other museums I've been to. Plus, Hyzy is obviously doing something right in her writing since I read her novels in one day.

Lately, I've read Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke, the first in her Hannah Swensen Mysteries series, the center being Hannah's shop, The Cookie Jar, which sells all kinds of cookies, made from some inspired recipes. Fluke's writing is considerably weaker than what Hyzy offers, with some slow-going character development, but I decided to order Strawberry Shortcake Murder, the second novel in the series, after reading Hannah conspiratorially joking with the maid of the society matron of Lake Eden, Minnesota. I get along with anyone, no matter who they are, no matter what their job is. I relate to this completely. I'll try Strawberry Shortcake Murder and see how it goes, whether I want to read the other books in the series. Maybe the writing will get better. I think I was spoiled by State of the Onion being so strong right from the first page.

It appears that Berkley Prime Crime is the chief supplier of my new interest. Fluke's books are published by Kensington, but Hyzy's books are published by Berkley. Plus, there's another series I decided to try by Avery Aames, a Cheese Shop Mystery series, with The Long Quiche Goodbye the first of three books so far. The latest, Clobbered by Camembert, is being released this Tuesday.

On the Prime Crime website, the novels they offer are divided into numerous categories, including "Culinary," "Hobbies," "Private Eye," and "Cozy." Through this, I've found that there's a Fresh-Baked Mystery series by Livia J. Washburn (I read the first page, and the writing doesn't suit me), a Memphis BBQ Mystery series by Riley Adams (Possible, based on the first few pages, but not one I'm going to dive for right away), a Farmer's Market Mystery series by Paige Shelton (I've never been to an honest-to-Organic farmer's market yet, but I want to, in a search for real blackberry jam, so this series interests me), and a Haunted Souvenir series by Christy Fifield, which begins on March 6 with Murder Buys a T-Shirt. This one interests me because it's about a woman who has "inherited her uncle's Florida souvenir shop," according to the copy on the website, and I still have many soft spots for my native state. I'm not sure yet if I'll pre-order it on Amazon, but I want to try out that one.

And there's also the Country Cooking School Mystery series also by Paige Shelton, and two book-themed mystery series: Cat in the Stacks by Miranda James, and Library Lover's Mystery by Jenn McKinlay.

It's fortunate that not all the books listed on the Prime Crime website interest me, though I'm also curious about private eyes, and that opens up another list. It's a near certainty that over the next few months, I will be a resident of Henderson, so, armed with Henderson and Clark County library cards, exploring all these mystery series will be a lot easier on my bank account. Just as I've been writing this entry, I found a series called Maternal Instincts by Diana Orgain, the first novel called Bundle of Trouble. It's about a first-time mother who becomes a private investigator, and I couldn't let that one sit, so I ordered it. That's all I'm going to do right now for this newfound interest until I read the latest two novels in Hyzy's White House Chef Mystery series and her Grace Under Pressure, start on The Long Quiche Goodbye, which I bought last week, and try out Dog On It and The Case of the Missing Books. I don't have any desire to write any type of mystery series (I'm not that brave, and I've got seven nonfiction books to write after I'm done with Mayday! Mayday!: The Making of the Airport Movies), but this is a lot of fun. I'm just hoping there's more enjoyable writing to be found through many of these authors.

Back to Work After Wriggling Out of Work

2012-02-03T23:54:00.001-08:00

After reading Monday Mornings, Dr. Sanjay Gupta's first novel (Very good, and I hope TNT picks up the David E. Kelley pilot titled "Chelsea General," which is based on Monday Mornings, as long as Kelley keeps to what makes the novel satisfying in Gupta's clear-eyed descriptions of his characters, which show off how CNN might have influenced him, since those descriptions could very well have been written by a talented reporter), which capped off a slew of non-work-related reading, I finally got back to doing research for Mayday! Mayday!: The Making of the Airport Movies.

What took me so long to return to the work? I did eight hours of research at the Margaret Herrick Library on January 10, transcribed my notes almost a week later on the 16th, and then nothing. No continuing City of Dreams: The Making and Remaking of Universal Pictures by Bernard F. Dick, no searching for, and contacting, actors and production crew involved with all four movies (Or at least the families of those, in the case of Airport, some of Airport 1975, and less and less with the last two), no thinking of more questions to ask them if they agree to an interview. I have to contact the Gage Group again to let them know to let Stephanie Zimbalist know that she can contact me whenever she's able, so that I can interview her father, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., who played Captain Stacy in Airport 1975, who was blinded by the mid-air collision.

It's not that I don't want to write this book. I want to be the one to write it, what with how obsessed I was with all four movies when I was in my teen. I have months more research to do before I even write a paragraph. I've written what sounds like the first sentence for my first chapter, but that's all I can do right now. I need to see what information I can get and form my chapters around that, the stories I unearth as I go along. I want them all to be as interesting as learning from George Kennedy's memoir Trust Me that he got to taxi the Concorde that Universal rented for $40,000 an hour for Airport '79. That's the exact story that made me want to write this book.

I shouldn't be screwing around with time like this for two reasons: Once March 21 hits, my deadline of being published again by the time I'm 30 begins. I'll be 28 and have two years left. The second reason is that I have at least seven more nonfiction books I want to write after this, and one novel. This is the only life I have as a writer and I don't want to waste it.

I don't think I really squandered January, though. Ok, in the sense of getting more work done on my book, I did, save for that research visit to the Margaret Herrick Library. But writers and all other artists need inspiration from elsewhere. I've been reading other books, I've been blogging, I came up with ideas for that Walt Disney World-related book and a novel that I think will work out better than the first idea I had for a novel (At least right now, since I have to read the source material that the first idea would be based on), so it hasn't been all in vain. Oh, and there were those two days in Henderson, which were necessary to get to know my new home and get used to continually being happy where I live, so those two days were good training in order to refamiliarize myself with that feeling.

I have to return to self-discipline, though. I finished reading City of Dreams: The Making of and Remaking of Universal Pictures yesterday, I transcribed the notes two hours ago, and I have a yen to read Burt Lancaster: An American Life by Kate Buford not only for the tidbits it has about Airport, but for all of his career, since I read a good deal of it back when there was the possibility of a book of essays from members of the Online Film Critics Society, and I wrote an essay about The Swimmer, starring Burt Lancaster, which made necessary not only reading Buford's book, but also watching a great many of Lancaster's movies. When I did the research for my essay in 2006, I over-researched. I didn't need to watch all his movies; I only needed to know what his career was like in the decades previous to The Swimmer. I did too much for what eventually became 1,477 words. Also, I didn't just read John Cheever's short story on which the movie was based. I tried to read everything he ever wrote, as if something would be revealed that would make it all so easy to see. I was so obviously a neophyte.

When Phil Hall offered me a co-author credit for What If They Lived? and I accepted, I had to throw myself into research right away because at the time, I had a little less than a year to pull everything together and write the essays. The quiet stress of that was horrible, like being back at The Signal as the interim editor of the weekend Escape section. I liked the experience because I could put whatever I wanted in that section, but I couldn't stand that time crunch. It's why I won't go back to journalism, also because I'd be poorer in pocket than I am now. Because of that, I vowed that for my next book, if there was a next book (I didn't have any ideas after I was done with What If They Lived?), I wouldn't let myself be pulled and crushed and tangled up like that. I would work steadily through the research, write the book, and that would be it.

Well, here I am. Second book. Where's the steady workload? I don't see it yet beyond those solid eight hours at the Herrick Library, but I know I should go easier on myself. I had a few necessary and good distractions in January and it's because of this book and the books I want to write in the future that I get out of bed every morning, read, and blog. I want to keep myself limber and enjoy what I'm doing and I'm meeting my personal requirements for both. So I missed a couple weeks last month. The puzzle pieces are still spread out, and just like with my essays on Brad Renfro, Aaliyah, and Heath Ledger for What If They Lived?, I've got to put the puzzle together, which is also what made me want to write this book because I loved having to put the puzzle together for those three essays. I loved gathering information from various sources, and that there wasn't any one solid source from which to draw the information, as there was mostly for my essays on James Dean, Judy Garland, and Marilyn Monroe. I get the chance again to do all that for this book, and, looking at my future book list, for my next seven books.

This is why I'm here. This is what I do. So it's time to continue doing it. An occasional break is fine, but much shorter than what I gave myself in January. That won't happen again. After all, it takes time to put together puzzles like these, and that time is best spent finding the pieces.

The So-Far Unattainable Peanut Butter Leads to an Attainable Idea

2012-02-01T23:23:00.000-08:00

Growing up for a few years as a tyke at Walt Disney World, Mom, Dad and I sometimes went there during the week just for dinner, in addition to going every weekend. Occasionally, we'd have dinner at The Land Pavilion in EPCOT, where I'd add another Mickey-as-the-Sorcerer's-Apprentice figurine to my collection from the kids' meal they offered, which was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and whatever else they offered. I've long forgotten what else was included, because I'm obsessed with finding that peanut butter and making that exact sandwich. (I will also search for that jelly (or jam), but it's a minor consideration at the moment.)

Many years later, whenever Dad and I walked the back end of our Coral Springs neighborhood some nights, passing J.P. Taravella High School, there was a small wooden walkway in place of actual sidewalk in one section, and as we'd walk over it, I'd smell a hint of cigarette smoke from someone who was either there right before us, or even the day before us. Cigarette smoke seemed to linger in that area. Not heavily, but you knew it was there. And whenever I smelled it, it took me right back to Walt Disney World when I was in a stroller and people still smoked throughout the park. It never spurred me on to take up the habit, and I never will, but that peanut butter and jelly sandwich is just like that for me, though far more safer for my health.

I tried asking on the MiceChat Walt Disney World message board, but no luck. Only a few vague answers (Not secretive, but those people were trying to conjure up an answer that wasn't there), the suggestion of Skippy peanut butter being used, and the revelation that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at The Land are now Smuckers Uncrustables. I'm disappointed at that last part because those sandwiches were really special to me. The peanut butter did not taste anything like what we'd buy from Publix or Winn-Dixie. At that age, I just liked those sandwiches, but now, thinking about it in my attempt to search for it, I almost think it was made especially for Walt Disney World, like this kind of peanut butter could not be found anywhere else. It wasn't crunchy peanut butter, I remember that, but even as the smooth kind, it didn't have a hint of sugar. It was straight peanuts made into peanut butter, and it had a certainty about it, a determined taste, like it knew what it was there for and it would not disappoint you. Not that it had any emotional investment in a person's satisfaction with it, but it just seemed that way to me.

There's one thing I plan to try. For the past three years, a blogger named A.J. has run The Disney Food Blog. I've checked for posts about peanut butter and while there has been some mention of peanut butter sandwiches, it's just been listings of kids' menus at certain places that have it, but nothing in detail about peanut butter. Over the next few days (whenever I pull myself away from my book research), I'm going to e-mail A.J. to see if she knows anything about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at Walt Disney World in the late '80s/early '90s based on her own work, or knows of any other Disney foodies who know. I've got to know. I want that taste again.

Because of this quest, I've come up with an idea for yet another book. It won't be about this, but it will be Walt Disney World-related. That's all I'm going to say about it right now because I wouldn't be surprised if this book is already being written by someone else. Every day I visit some website related to the Disney parks, and it's obvious I still have a deep love for all things Disney, which would have to remain since I was born into this.

But without Walt Disney World, I would not have had my first book published last year. I would not be writing entries in this blog. I would not be a writer. Having started reading when I was two years old had something to do with it, but Walt Disney World expanded my imagination, demonstrating that dreams exist side-by-side with reality all the time. I lost count of how many times I went on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority just to sit there, watch the scenery around and below me, and just dream. I watch videos of it on YouTube, going back into that same frame of mind. I use it as inspiration whenever I need it. Sometimes I just watch those videos and mull over my book, thinking of what interview questions to ask those I need as part of my book, thinking of how to frame the chapters, thinking of other details about the making of the Airport movies that would be good for the book.

I need to thank Walt Disney World for what it did for me, for giving me a path to follow in my life, one that has made me very happy, even with all the sometimes-difficult work involved. I get up every morning, I think about the work still to be done for Mayday! Mayday!: The Making of the Airport Movies, and the books I want to write in the future, and I'm excited to get started on another day of work.

I think this book will clearly and passionately express that, though it won't be the love letter you might expect it to be. It'll be squarely about one of my very favorite attractions there, the creation of it, the changes made over the years, and I think if some of the creative team involved in those changes are still around, there'll be some very interesting stories to unearth. My undying love for my former home (essentially it was, with every weekend spent there) will be found throughout this book by the story I want to tell. I'm thinking of making this my third book, despite the Las Vegas history that I had planned to be my third book. I want to be back at Walt Disney World, and though I can't be there physically right now, this is the other best way to do it.

Movie Dream

2012-01-31T23:10:00.001-08:00

I found myself in the lobby of a massive movie theater last night, holding the leash of a fluffy white cat, who seemed content with my company.

I walked into one of the auditoriums, which was equally massive. The screen seemed to stretch the length of a football field, and it wasn't like the old CinemaScope screens. No curves. Completely straight from left to right.

The rows were the same length. I sat in the second row, the cat next to me, and watched what looked like another Simpsons movie. In fact, if the production team of The Simpsons Movie decides to make another one, Another Simpsons Movie would be a perfect title in keeping with their brand of humor.

In another theater, without the cat, I saw The Avengers, which is being released on May 4. My only thought throughout it was, "Doesn't Joss Whedon know how to shut up?" He wrote and directed the movie and it was like his dialogue never let up. It doesn't seem like that'll be the case with the actual release, but I was pretty teed off at having to sit there for what might have been three hours, watching a bunch of superheroes explore more of their emotional minefields than was absolutely necessary for a feature film. It felt like it.

That wasn't even the half of it. Before these movie theater dreams, I had another dream in which I met the cast of The Big Bang Theory, lost a shoe, and watched as Kaley Cuoco unsuccessfully tried to start her junk heap of a car. Jim Parsons seemed put off by all of it (Not possible in real life since he's fascinating to watch in interviews), though Simon Helberg was genial toward me. I have no idea where Kunal Nayyar was, or Johnny Galecki for that matter. So not the entire cast, since Melissa Rauch and Mayim Bialik also weren't there, but I consider Jim Parsons the power center of the show, so it worked out for me.

But this was nothing compared to the dream I had the night before these ones, in which I raved to Wesley Snipes about how awesome he was in Demolition Man and how he seemed to have so much fun doing it. He said to me, "I wouldn't have taken the role otherwise."

In dreams, my head is a fun hangout spot. I've heard about lucid dreaming, controlling your dreams, and it might work, but it's not for me. I spend enough time during the day in control of my reading and my writing, doing what I want to do in both, and what I need to do in order to make progress on my second book. I prefer to give myself over to whatever my dreams have in store, letting my unconscious do the work for a while so I can take a break. With dreams like these, and the ones I described in previous entries, why would I want to control them?

The Grad Nite Distinction

2012-01-30T21:54:00.000-08:00

I ordered The Queen for my DVD binder collection, and received it last week. After putting the DVD into one of the remaining sleeves in my second DVD binder, I noticed a paper insert with the chapter titles and a list of the bonus features, and on the other side, ads for Deja Vu, starring Denzel Washington ("Now On DVD"), and Venus, starring Peter O'Toole ("Coming Soon To DVD").

It reminded me of a distinction I'm proud to have: I attended my Grad Nite at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in 2002, and I chaperoned Meridith's Grad Nite at Disneyland on June 7, 2007 (I still have the original ticket). But Meridith got the better Grad Nite, though no complaints from me because I got a better Grad Nite through her Grad Nite.

Since I had essentially grown up at Walt Disney World for many years, the one thing I was excited about was bringing along the movies to to be shown during the drive there. In 6th grade, on the end-of-the-year trip to then-Disney-MGM Studios, someone brought Tom & Huck and Cool Runnings. I remember those two, since they came one after the other from 5:30 in the morning until we got to Orlando a little past 9, but I think that The Sandlot was also shown, possibly on the way back. I just remember that every long school trip seemed to include The Sandlot, though that didn't seem to be the case on the 8th grade end-of-the-year trip to the Magic Kingdom, with Men in Black and Mousehunt shown on the way back. But again, I think The Sandlot was part of that, because surely something had to be shown in the morning, and that might have been it.

This time, I was in charge. I brought The Emperor's New Groove, because it's criminally underappreciated, and Toy Story and Toy Story 2. The Emperor's New Groove got some good reaction, though not many of my classmates were paying attention to it, but I did like that I heard one of them laugh loudly after the spider ate the fly and the fly, screeching for help beforehand, said, "Too late."

After putting Toy Story in the VCR and fast-forwarding through the previews, I had to use the bathroom at the back of the bus and while in there, I heard the entire bus sing along to "You've Got a Friend in Me." A great Disney movie (Disney-Pixar in this case) turns us all into kids again, which, to me, is the best way to explore life.

Stopping at Fort Drum for a long break to eat and stretch, I remember that there was a Revenge from Mars pinball machine from which I won a free game, and it was as if the rest stop was prepping me for disappointment. Once at the Magic Kingdom and back in Tomorrowland, my favorite part of the park, I found that the Tomorrowland Transit Authority was closed, because they probably didn't want rowdy teens throwing things down from up high, and Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress was closed, because they probably didn't want rowdy teens damaging the Audio-Animatronics that would be exposed to them. To make it worse for me, the CD jukebox that I loved hearing my favorite songs from throughout the Tomorrowland Light & Power Arcade during a visit in 2000 was shut off. Space Mountain, my favorite ride, was open, but it was a 75-minute wait, so I only got to ride it once. Plus, I had no idea then that that would be my final time at the Magic Kingdom, at Walt Disney World entirely. Our last visit was on July 9, 2003, in Downtown Disney, the day Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl opened in theaters, which I remember very well because Mom and Dad dropped Meridith and I off at AMC Pleasure Island 24 as soon as we got there from South Florida. Dad was presenting at a business education conference, and this was all the time we had. I wanted to see The Curse of the Black Pearl there because it was being digitally projected, and I wanted to know what digital projection was all about. It was in its infancy then, blurry at times, but they were getting there.

We didn't go to the Magic Kingdom on that final visit. No time. I may go back to Florida, to Walt Disney World in the years to come. I know it's changed (I keep up on the latest news out of Walt Disney World), but I want to make up for that utter disappointment. Because of predicted idiots (and there's always a few in every crowd), I lost out on two of my most favorite attractions in Tomorrowland. I hope they're still around whenever I return, though I intend to bring an mp3 player with me, with the Tomorrowland Transit Authority soundtrack I remember, because the current one is garbage, giving nothing but advertisements for all the attractions the average visitor already knows about when they walk into Tomorrowland.

I became a chaperone for Meridith's Grad Nite when I went to Valencia High with her one morning to talk to the teacher in charge of it. It was the one rare time I got up early since I was long done with classes at College of the Canyons, and I hadn't yet reached that long stretch at The Signal, where I eventually became interim editor of the Escape section after the eminent John Boston left after 30 years of service to the paper. I had a lot of time on my hands.

The teacher was fine with me being a chaperone. I asked in April, so I had until June to wait. When it came, that one night, that glorious Thursday night, was everything I had hoped for, and even with the strict rules given about not screwing around, making sure to be back at the bus by 4:30 a.m., and coming to us chaperones if there were any problems, I felt this immense freedom around me, like the earth had sagged in total relaxation, encouraging the same in others. Mom and Dad dropped off Meridith and I at the school, and while Meridith waited for friends, I hung out in the office of the PE teachers with the other chaperones, idly listening to the conversations going on, appreciating how beneficial it is to just be an observer. This was going to be a good crowd. A few looked like veterans of Grad Nite, and knew exactly what they were doing. This would be my first and last Grad Nite as a chaperone because after Meridith, what reason would there be to do this again? I wouldn't have the connection I did by her being in the school, and it wouldn't make much sense otherwise. Besides, it only mattered to me that I got to do this for her Grad Nite.

Someone hung up big signs against a cargo container sitting nearby, with letters to show where each student should line up to get their Grad Nite ticket. A-C last names lined up at the far left and so on. I passed out Grad Nite tickets and joked with the chaperone next to me, who had actually seen Airplane II: The Sequel! I thought I was the only one, and more than that, he liked it too! So we were trading quotes as we passed out the tickets.

Once we got to Disneyland and parked in the lot reserved for the buses, we found that they weren't using the trams to get people to the entrance. We had to walk. It took a good 10 minutes, and I joked around with Meridith and her friends, an easy rapport. And once in the park, we were on our own. Chaperones could be as vigilant as they wished or just check in occasionally at the Plaza Inn, where there was a buffet of cheese cubes, crackers, cookies and brownies for them, as well as the option for either dinner or breakfast from the counter service, and the soda machines were available too. This was where I found most of the chaperones, obviously veterans. They'd done this for years. No need to change what's worked all this time.

Already, I was making up for my crappy Grad Nite just by the amenities alone. But being a Disney nut, I couldn't stay at the Plaza Inn all night. I went on the Haunted Mansion, my favorite ride at Disneyland, once, then went to Tomorrowland, where the theater for Honey, I Shrunk the Audience had only me and about 10 other people in it. They still ran the film.

I liked Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, mainly because of Eric Idle as Dr. Nigel Channing. It was becoming disturbingly dated before Captain EO returned, and I doubt it'll be back after Disneyland feels it has had enough of Captain EO, but it was an excellent respite from the crowds inside the park.

After 2 a.m., I went back to Plaza Inn to get breakfast, a scrambled egg-and-sausage platter that was pretty good. Minute Maid orange juice was in one of the spigots of the drink dispensers, and it's the worst orange juice I've ever tasted, severely watered down and an affront to the oranges used to make it. But that's a minor quibble compared to the complete relaxation I felt. There were no problems from any of the kids, none had reported to the First Aid station, and the night was good.

The reason that paper insert in the DVD case for The Queen reminded me of my distinction is because we chaperones received an additional flyer that detailed the amenities available to us, such as the food, and, in the Main Street Opera House, a caricaturist drawing Disney characters for us (You had to write your name on a sign-up sheet there), and showings of Deja Vu and The Queen. Both had been released on DVD earlier in April, and both were released by Disney, so what better movies for the adults?

In the Opera House, I was disappointed to find that the sign-up sheet for the caricaturist was already completely filled up. No room for me. However, the conversation I had with a couple who were both teachers, who had been chaperoning Grad Nite for many years, made up for that. Inhibitions always lower as time drags on and people become more tired. What I liked most about this couple was honesty you don't readily find in Southern California. The wife told me about past Grad Nites they had chaperoned and entertaining incidents, as well as where she and her husband were teachers. It was one of those conversations where the atmosphere and the company matter more than the details. For a little while, you're connected as a few people in the same position, in the same place, just passing the time enjoyably.

I think I still have that chaperone paper somewhere. All I found on my nightstand today was the guide map, which also listed where the dance areas were, as well as the times for the "Grad Nite Explosion!" fireworks. I don't remember what time they started Deja Vu, but The Queen was being shown at 4:15, which I tried to stay for, waiting inside the theater as the end credits for Deja Vu rolled. But all of us belonging to Valencia High were expected back at the buses before 5 a.m., and I had to do my part in shepherding out the students who I knew to be part of our crowd. Plus, the main souvenir store on Main Street was so dense with people that waiting to pay for anything was nearly impossible. Meridith couldn't get what she wanted to get because of it, because we had to get going. In hindsight, I wish we had stayed and waited because this was Meridith's one chance to do this, at this time, in this instance.

Whereas I had been on an air-conditioned charter bus with TV monitors in the ceiling and a VCR attached for my Grad Nite, Meridith's Grad Nite went with regular school buses. So getting back on board to go back to Valencia High, there was no movie; just the silence of the deadly tired.

These four and a half years later, I still think about that night. There's a play in there somewhere that I'm gradually drawing out. I want to write about that electric feeling throughout the park, so I've been thinking of what situations would make the best drama. Perhaps loaded conversations of some kind. After all, at Grad Nite, the future isn't far behind, graduation from high school and all that; a seismic shift into a world hitherto unimagined while in school.

And I also still think about the chaperones. I was a chaperone just that one time. I'm sure many of the people I saw, perhaps even the couple I talked to, are still doing it, still screwing up their body clocks for that one night. It's only once a year, but it's still a lot to do for just once a year. I remember seeing chaperones also sprawled on the floor in the lobby of the Opera House, sleeping. Those are undoubtedly the ones who have done it before. They've seen it all, and there's nothing new about it.

It's the kind of night I want to replicate somewhere in my writing, that utterly wonderful freedom (yes, despite the rules in place) where I felt like I could wear the Mickey Mouse costume if I asked earnestly enough. I could have skipped past Splash Mountain if I wanted to, counted all the big globe lights lining the walking paths (I lost count), subtly listened in on snatches of conversations around me, which I did while having breakfast outside at the Plaza Inn, though it was so damn cold by then. At 2 in the morning, the air bites at you.

I like to live in between fantasy and reality, taking in each as I see fit. Reality is for the paychecks I receive, the research that is to be done for my next book, and eventually the writing of that book. Fantasy is for the ideas that are still in my head, such as that new novel I want to write one day. I hadn't spent so much time in my head in years as I did today, working out the preliminaries in my head of how I want to tell this story. It's a lot of fun in there, so much space I have to walk around and see the sights as they come, such as that main character for this novel right in front of me. I don't know him well enough yet, but I hope we'll get along easily.

Meridith's Grad Nite doesn't rank as somewhere I like to hang out in my mind, but for just a whiff of inspiration when I need it, it's perfect. It brings me back to growing up for a time at Walt Disney World, where my writing life started before I even knew that I was going to be a writer. It seems that everything in one's life creates such strong roots and vines that things are connected that you never imagined could be. I just go with it, much like I did that night, carried along by sheer joy. It's living at its finest.

Profitable Dreams?

2012-01-29T21:59:00.000-08:00

Every night, settling into bed, I don't know where I'll be. I could be at yet another variation of Walt Disney World, making sure I don't forget to ride Space Mountain (as I did many times many years ago), or at another school campus, deciding I could miss math class without consequence, or climbing opulent marble staircases to the roof of those campuses to get such an expansive view of the city around the campus. In the past few months, I've gotten back a dream where I'm walking the streets of a very shiny-looking town, easygoing atmosphere, with some stores bearing bead curtains as entrances. The big square of this town has many brick buildings surrounding it, and though I haven't seen what's in those stores yet, I'm just happy to be amidst such peace, and such a big town to explore. I don't even remember seeing any cars driving by.

Lately, my dreams have been giving me creative injections to put toward my projects, whether or not I'm currently working on them. I had a dream last week that I was interviewing George Kennedy extensively for Mayday! Mayday!: The Making of the Airport Movies, and I came up with questions I didn't even think of while I was awake. Then last night, I had a dream involving a time-travel idea. I can't say whether it's a unique time-travel idea because I don't know. It may have been on the level of that time-jump device thing that's used in the upcoming Men in Black III, which I don't like. It seems like merely a screenwriting device just to get Will Smith to the late 1960s, rather than anything remotely imaginative. I know that my dream didn't have anything as creative as the DeLorean or the TARDIS, but I know that the guy I saw in this dream had time traveled somehow, but very low-key.

I don't want to write a screenplay for this because I've been near enough to Hollywood for eight years, and been to 20th Century Fox in Century City, to know that I do not want to ever get involved in that merciless muck. I'm thinking of a novel, but I don't want to get fouled up by what's come before me. That's not to say I won't read what's come before as inspiration, but I have to remember that it is inspiration, and I can try this however I want. I'm not going to work on it right away, since other books have priority (Not just the Airport book, but the ones I want to write after), but I'm going to start reading time-travel novels to learn what's been explored. And yes, I've read The Time Machine. I don't think I could call myself an avid reader without it.

None of this compares to a dream I had that still haunts me. In it, I had an idea for a fully-fleshed out novel, characters and all. I knew how to write it, where it was going to go, and as soon as I woke up, it faded before I could write anything down, as if the Fates were telling me, "No, no, you do your own work." I know I could have had a first draft in a couple of weeks. But in the year that followed that dream, I realized that I was being told that I could do this; I could write more books. And that's exactly what I'm working on right now, and why I have ideas for six other nonfiction books after this one, why the number of novels I want to write has risen to two, why I've got a few ideas for plays that I want to attempt.

There are some dreams where I'm at a Six Flags-like park, but it's much larger than the average Six Flags and sometimes, I'm walking right next to a rollercoaster. I always look closely at the color of the coaster, the mechanics, the ride vehicles, marveling at how I'm right there, right where I want to be, my imagination never letting up. I'm in the right line of work, right where I want to be, and I hope dreams like these will pay off in the years to come. I'm going to try.

Cooking Lesson #1: One Potholder is Too Few. 20 Potholders are Just Right.

2012-01-27T21:37:00.001-08:00

Even just grocery shopping to restore what I always eat during the week, Santa Clarita is still Santa Clarita. Yet, on a Friday evening, it becomes pleasant, like it's stopped pushing and shoving and is just there, the universe completely aligned right behind it. We stopped at the bank to deposit some checks (Mine from my work with the freelance writing newsletter whose listings I compile every Sunday-Thursday evening for the next day), and I got out of the car and looked out at the scenery around me, the empty lots, the apartment complexes nearby, and it felt so peaceful. Not that there's any new promise to this valley come Monday or any other Monday, but it gives a glimpse of perhaps what it once was with less people or what it once hoped to be, maybe an oasis from L.A. living: Calm to be found from a distance.

Sprouts and Pavilions had everything I needed, from yogurt to bagged spinach to shredded carrots to frozen TV dinners for during the week. I'm so grateful to have spinach and shredded carrots again because I was tired of the heavy gas I had from dinner the past few nights without it. Bananas only help so much. And blueberries and blackberries were $5 each in one-pound containers, so it's a relief to have those back. They're otherwise priced out of reach. And yes, sadly, $5 for that size is cheap.

We got home, put everything away, and Mom showed Meridith photos of the new apartment complex she found for us in Henderson. The other one that we thought would be The One has turned out not to be so desirable, not least because it looks smaller than in photos, like in order to reach the living room from the dining room, you have to press yourself against the wall and slowly edge your way toward the couch, but not making any movements beyond that. Accidentally lashing one leg out to the left can possibly cause dishes to fall off the table, or the walls to vibrate. It's not as constricted as some New York City apartments, but Mom wants something more comfortable, more welcoming. So do the rest of us, for that matter.

This new apartment complex has great possibilities. For one, the apartment space is much roomier. The outdoor surroundings are most welcoming, and since it's a pet-friendly complex, there's a lot of grass, which is exactly what we're looking for because we don't want Tigger and Kitty to have to navigate rocks and pebbles in order to squat. Tigger did that when we first went to Las Vegas and stayed at America's Best Value Inn on Tropicana Avenue, off the Strip, next to Hooters Casino Hotel. He did his business on rocks and pebbles, but hated it. He won't have to go through that ever again.

The complex is called The Summit at Sunridge Apartments. I've always wondered who comes up with the names for these complexes, whether it's just one person reporting to one boss, or whether it's a creative committee. I like that name. The Summit says to me that this is where life meets good living. And Sunridge sounds nice, like standing on that ridge puts you squarely in a bath of sunlight.

While Mom described the property to Meridith and showed her what The Summit was surrounded by on Bing Maps, I grew impatient. It was already a few minutes past nine and I wanted to eat. I barely cook anything in our household, leaving that to Dad and Meridith for meals that require more than just pushing buttons on the microwave. The last time I made anything substantial was a few years ago when Meridith had a home cooking project to do for one of her classes at College of the Canyons, and the only thing I remember from that is a Hawaiian macaroni salad I mixed.

So, with Meridith an excellent cook/chef/master of all things food, and me reading food writing occasionally from being influenced by her, what's the best way to eat faster? Make it myself. Or at least attempt to because I don't know much about how to check that something's done, at least in the oven. That's easy to do with the microwave. Oh to be a rank amateur again. And here's my chance!

I took out nonstick foil from the cabinet, put a sheet into a baking pan and initially placed 30 mini corn dogs side by side, before dumping the other 10 on top of those after asking Meridith if I should put them all into the pan (I was wondering if I should use another pan because there were so many). Meridith pushed the other 10 into the crowd and the rest of the mini corn dogs seemed to just easily spread out to make room for the new arrivals.

Before this, I pressed the "bake" button on the oven, which beeped with "350 degrees" appearing on the readout and 10 minutes to pre-heat. After the mini corn dog placement on the nonstick sheet, there were 5 minutes left before the oven beeped again to show how proud it was to reach full heating capacity.

Putting pans in the oven even with full heat as you open the oven door is easy because the pan's cool and therefore the potholder is easier to put to one of the sides. Now, I realize this isn't actual cooking with kneading dough or whisking eggs or boiling or anything like that, but it's big enough that I decided to do this on my own because I'm usually content just to read about food and cooking, not to actually participate in it. If I'm hungry enough and it's beginning to get late in the evening, I become someone I never imagined.

Oven beeps, mini corn dogs go in, and I have 10 minutes to wait, according to the instructions on the back of the box which indicate that much cooking time for thawed, and 15 minutes for frozen.

10 minutes pass, open the oven door, take the pan out with the potholder and see if the mini corn dogs are hot enough. Meridith just places her hand on the corn dogs because she's used to heat, to burns, having spent so much time in kitchens already. She's developed a kind of immunity to what mere mortals like me would be burned by. Oh yes, more on that in just a second.

They're not quite hot enough, so back in the oven they go for five minutes. I thought they were already thawed enough to merit the 10-minute cooking time, what with having left the box out after we got home and put groceries away, since those were what Meridith and I were having for dinner, and then 10 minutes for the oven to pre-heat, and then baking pan placement, but apparently not.

Here's where it went horribly, horribly wrong. Five minutes were up, oven door open, Meridith checked the mini corn dogs again and they were hot enough. This oven was at 350 degrees and the pan was at that temperature too. I still had one potholder with me and I tried to take out the pan with just that potholder, forgetting that a pan cannot be held on just one side, especially not a long pan. The pan should be sideways, or, at best, held on one side with two hands.

It would have been smart to take out another potholder before the five minutes are up, but being a rank amateur, there I was, holding onto the pan with one potholder, the pan tipping, me trying to right it, and burning myself brightly on it at least three times while trying to get it up to the stovetop. My right hand was directly on burning metal. Struggling mightily with this pan, I finally shoved it onto the stovetop, the mini corn dogs sliding to the back end of the pan, and got a frozen flower-shaped ice pack from the freezer to put on my fingers.

There was only a natural wild panic in my body while it happened, my brain obviously screaming that it was too hot and the nerves in my fingers reacting in kind. I wanted to get the pan off at supersonic speed, but I wasn't panicked. It was just the wrong way to do it. And then Meridith showed me that with a pan like this, she holds the end with two potholders, one for each hand. Or I could have turned the pan sideways in the oven and taken it out with one potholder on each side.

This doesn't put me off of cooking, despite two jutting white skin bubbles on my ring finger and my pinkie on my right hand, my ring finger sporting the biggest one. Looking it up on Google just now, I've found that these are blisters. They don't put me off of cooking, but I know for sure that I could never do what Meridith does. She's used to such things. She's cooked for many years. Whatever she touches turns into something you crave right after you eat it. So she knows about these blisters, she's had them, and she's not afraid of them because she knows that sometimes they'll happen.

I'm not afraid of them either. They're not pleasant to look at, but they teach me to be more careful the next time I take something out of the oven. I'm sure there will be a next time, and before there is, I'm stitching 20 potholders together because that sounds like the right number for safety. I know that I actually want to make something next time, and though I'm not yet sure what it will be (I'm thinking of maybe a peach cobbler or one of my other favorite foods), but this blog isn't going to turn into a chronicle of an attempt at an insane number of recipes like Julie Powell did with what turned into Julie & Julia. I'm influenced by my sister and the food writing I've read in the past and the recipes I've pored over within that food writing, but I'm inspired by no one. I've just never cooked extensively, and I think it's time to learn a few things about it, just so that if I'm hungry and it's getting late, but no one else is ready yet but I know I want to eat before it gets too late in the evening, I know what to do. And even though the microwave is good for convenience, it becomes too convenient. I want to mix and scrape and measure and pour and cut and mash and crack and toss and everything else that cooks do. I was in a cooking class in 11th or 12th grade, but it was one or two dishes a week, hardly enough to really get the feel of a kitchen atmosphere and where you stand in it. I want to learn just enough to become proficient. Being burned by the pan is not an ideal start, but it's a good start to show that there will be accidents, but to be vigilant enough to minimize them.

I'm ready for this. It could be a lot of fun.

Finding Weekend Reading from One Book

2012-01-27T15:43:00.000-08:00

I got to page 256 of The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth by Alexandra Robbins before I quit. I liked Robbins' strong storytelling, but couldn't stand how she beats the reader over the head with the same facts already discussed 50 times in previous chapters. I guess she, or her publisher, must be of the mindset that the denser the arguments, the more important they must be. It didn't help this book.

Because it's Friday, I decided to pick my next book at random. Except for my stacks of presidential books in the living room, and my Las Vegas and bedside stacks in my room (The latter full of books I want to read right away, with "right away" always a relative term, but as long as they're there, always reminding me of that, then there's a chance I'll get to them soon enough), no other stacks of books have any particular order. Completely random, some having been constructed based on when I got them in the mail, or that I put them at the top of one stack because I wanted to read them right away, but then they got lower in that particular stack.

On top of one stack pressed against a Disney-themed comforter still in the sturdy plastic packaging, I noticed Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine. I had put The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth in the Goodwill box, I wasn't ready to continue FDR by Jean Edward Smith, and it being Friday, some randomness not only could be part of Friday being a free-feeling sort of day, but could shake out the cobwebs in my writing. Treasure Island!!! it was.

I'm still surprised at what I've read so far. It's about a college graduate with an English major who doesn't have much of a future in any avenue of her life, who works at The Pet Library, which loans out pets for a certain period of time, who reads Treasure Island and decides that her life should have that kind of adventure, that daring, that swashbuckling, even. She's foolish, self-centered, mostly oblivious to the feelings of others, but what a character to have in a novel! Imagine Sarah Silverman, but with only a tiny sliver more tact. I've got a little less than halfway to go, and I'm already wondering when Sara Levine's next novel will be out. She writes like I would like to all the time, with boldness and fearlessness that never lets up. It can be done, I think, but Levine makes that work. It's about boldness and fearlessness in service to her characters and she does it so well.

I read the back flap of the book, about who Levine is, and amidst so many other credits that should merit her many more book deals because her writing's so good, I found out that her writing was featured in The Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: Work from 1970 to the Present. Since I will be working in nonfiction for years to come, I also want to read as much of it as possible and that title sounded interesting.

I looked it up on Amazon, and the cover looked familiar. I went to my room, to the second shelf under the top of my nightstand, and found it. I think I bought this when I was considering writing a journalistic novel that took place in one day at a theme park. It turned out to be far too ambitious for me then, but I kept the books I had bought as research/inspiration, and this was one of them. There are essays in it, memoirs, and journalism, and I think I've found my weekend reading. I'll use this as a segue back into my research full-force. I had a dream last night about interviewing George Kennedy for my book, and I came up with questions I hadn't even thought of while awake. It's time to get back to work, and this book will certainly prime the pump, after I'm done with Treasure Island!!!

Not Writer's Block. More Like Writer's Molasses.

2012-01-26T21:29:00.001-08:00

I keep thinking that I should avoid this type of entry, that it seems too self-centered, too egotistical, and by doing it, aren't I writing anyway? It does count, doesn't it?

But then, this is my blog. I can say anything on here. So I say this: I haven't been able to think of anything to write in two days.

I intended to follow up my entry about the Fiesta Henderson with one about Regal Fiesta Henderson 12, continuing my Henderson series, but I haven't felt that urge to as I do with many other things I write about. I realize now that it's because in my mind, I haven't spent enough time in that hallway where all the auditorium entrances are. Just one hallway. I need to see it as clearly in my mind as when I was there and then try writing about it. Because it was an impressive hallway. I need to show it off, but I want to do it properly. Properly to me, anyway, not trying to impress the world with wordy prowess, which sometimes I have, but tonight, I don't feel it.

I think I know the trouble, though. After we got back from Henderson, I tried continuing Everywhere That Mary Went by Lisa Scottoline, hoping I could become interested in it, because I love Scottoline's essays, but despite a legal setting in this first novel, nothing grabbed me. I then grabbed Hail to the Chef, the second novel in Julie Hyzy's White House chef mystery series and devoured it. Give me the White House and the people in it and I will happily read for hours, like I did with that one.

Because of Hail to the Chef, I got a heavy, frantic craving for presidential books and began FDR by Jean Edward Smith, 800+ pages which I obviously can't polish off in one day. It still rests at 105 pages, not out of boredom with it, but because I looked inside one of my box bookshelves and noticed The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth by Alexandra Robbins, about why those students who exist on the fringes of social circles are usually the ones who make great strides in the real world. I'm on page 239 and will probably finish it by the time I go to bed.

Then there's my research for Mayday! Mayday!: The Making of the Airport Movies, which hasn't yet progressed much beyond me receiving in the mail photocopies of the documents I requested be photocopied at the Margaret Herrick Library. One of these documents was a call sheet from The Concorde: Airport '79, detailing what sets were being used on stage 12 at Universal that day, the actors required on set, the times they were expected in makeup and then on set, ready for the day, which, on Tuesday, January 30, 1979, began at 9 a.m. Looking at this one sheet, the treasure out of all the pages I requested, I'm thinking of seeking permission to use this as one of the photos in my book. It ties right into what I intend my book to be, and people, especially those who know these movies and who are into movie production or aviation, should see these.

To continue the research, I should dig into the stacks of books I have for it. But I haven't done that either because my rhythm's off in two ways: One, that trip to Henderson interrupted my work for good reason, and I haven't gotten back into a routine that helps me do as much as possible each for my book, and two, I have to deluge myself with books, and I've spent more time online this week than reading. And not even for any useful purpose such as finding contact information for those actors I want to interview for my book. Just wandering in and out of book-related sites I've bookmarked, reading Disney park message boards, watching the pilot of Smash (As masterful a pilot as The West Wing was, and this could very well be my new West Wing), and ordering a few books I want to read.

The obvious solution here is less time online (save for when I want to write an entry here), more time reading, more time with my research (How else will this book be written?), and probably not being so hard on myself just because I have writer's molasses. I don't like it, but it does happen. I'm betting that going out tomorrow evening to pick up more groceries will help, since I haven't been out all this week (No campus supervisor at La Mesa needed a substitute). This valley isn't ideal living, but different air and scenery ought to help, even though it's eight-year-old scenery. Getting my favorite lemon yogurt ought to trip something in my mind, spark new inspiration, and certainly the atmosphere of a Friday evening ought to help too, the universe feeling like it's aligned.

But first, less time on this computer, starting now.

The Henderson Chronicles, Part 3: Fiesta Henderson

2012-01-24T21:00:00.000-08:00

There are undoubtedly tourists who visit the Las Vegas Strip that, within the span of a few days, feel overloaded. So much to see, so many lights, so much packed to the sides of one roadway. What do you see first? How can you see possibly anything, really, when there's so much that reaches out, wanting you to go here, eat here, gamble here, spend money on souvenirs here?

Las Vegas has the right idea. When people are in this part of Nevada, they are here. There's nowhere else to go like there would be if you were to drive from Los Angeles to San Diego as a tourist, as my family and I did when we first visited Southern California in April 2003. What you see is what there is.

It's not a bad thing. It demonstrates the justified confidence Las Vegas has in itself to provide people with truly unforgettable experiences, depending of course on what you're planning to do because some experiences can become forgettable depending on alcohol intake.

This is why Henderson is a terrific counterpoint to Las Vegas. If you feel overloaded, just drive off the Strip to Henderson. See the town where most Vegas employees live. I don't think there are many who could live where they work. Celine Dion has property in Lake Las Vegas. The Amazing Johnathan, my favorite act in Las Vegas, lives in Henderson, with a garage that has a lot of classic cars and a drive-in movie screen, and he creates one hell of a disturbing display on Halloween. He is the expert on dark ambiance. It's not just spookiness. Blood curdles. He has that twisted talent.

The most relation that Fiesta Henderson has to Las Vegas is its sign at its entrance. It's big, it's bright at night, with green light pulsing down the sides, and advertisements on the white billboards within about what benefits gamblers might find. On the Thursday we were there, the 19th, you had to earn 300 points in the slot tournament area to receive a sweatshirt with Fiesta Henderson's logo on it.

That's as far as it stretches to match Vegas, and with good reason. This is a casino for locals to pop in, play a few slots, see a movie at Regal Fiesta Henderson 12, and it is not empowered to create such a high-voltage atmosphere because people in Henderson live life regularly as anyone does, just wanting a bit of a break from the world, or perhaps even working in a less blazing universe like Vegas is. It's relaxed, it's easy, and it only asks that you hang around for a bit and see what it has to offer.

For us, it offered a room on the 8th floor, and a fairly better experience than Mom and Dad had when they stayed there for three nights last June. One night, the shower dripped loudly all night, and then the Internet wi-fi service crapped out, with the front desk telling Dad to call Cox Cable to find out what was wrong. The hotel couldn't do it themselves? What happened to guest services?

I didn't dread our stay there because first, we got two free nights because of the problems Mom and Dad had had on that visit, and perhaps we'd be treated a little better because of it. We were treated reasonably, though the sink backed up halfway before we left to go downstairs to Fatburger, and later that night, the bathtub backed up, requiring the plumbing guys to come up again, and then on Thursday night, our last night, the Internet wi-fi crapped out yet again. Nothing could be done about it, and Dad wasn't going to bother with it, and I felt fine without Internet access. That's why I didn't write another blog entry after the first one, written three hours after we had arrived.

The casino floor has two entry points. One is toward this big tree decoration where a Denny's is behind it, and the other is near the food court that includes Fatburger and Subway, the box office and entrance to Regal Fiesta Henderson 12, and a Starbucks next to that. It's like walking through a tightly-spaced farmer's market, having to squeeze past slot machines at times. And there are some very impressive slot machines, such as one with a Breakfast at Tiffany's theme that deceitfully presents itself as a penny slot machine. It actually requires a 60-cent minimum bet. That was the only one I was hoping to try, but I wasn't going to spend 60 cents on one spin when I could easily get a book from one of the local libraries there one day for either 25 cents or 50 cents, and I'm sure there's magazines sold for 10 cents. I'd get more value out of any of those than I would out of one spin, no matter how technologically impressive the machine, especially with the silhouette of a cat walking across the digital display of the lower buttons, and clips from the movie also used.

I was hoping to find a new Zorro slot machine I had read about in the Southern California Gaming Guide, but it appeared that Fiesta Henderson decided to blow a good portion of its budget on the four Breakfast at Tiffany's slot machines, the two The Hangover slot machines, and two Godzilla-themed slot machines, the latter looking like 3D through the glass screen also being used as a digital display. Subtly.

Slot machine themes at Fiesta Henderson are mostly plain. The idea here seems to have been to buy up as many cheap machines as possible and save most of the money for just a few of the really new ones, advanced technology and all of that. Give players something to gravitate toward. Me, I need a theme I can get into, and a Bruce Lee one wasn't going to do it, nor was an "Alfred Hitchcock Theater" one (with the famous director a cartoonish figure on the video screen), nor ones themed to Egypt, the wild west, cats, and others I've long since forgotten. It's like me with the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. I love the way that it is all year, with those 999 grim grinning ghosts gallivanting around the property, because I can use my imagination, think up my own stories involving them. How did this ghost get here? Why does the one in that coffin want out so badly? What makes the doors look like they're breathing? With the Nightmare Before Christmas theme toward the holidays, the story is already set. Someone else has decided on it and I can only stand to ride it once just because it's the Haunted Mansion, and then I can do no more because I don't want to be at the mercy of someone else's storytelling. The Haunted Mansion is the only instance in which I feel strongly about that.

With slot machines, I don't necessarily need a kind of bare-bones storyline that I can fill in, but just something to involve me. The most I could think about while playing six slot machines across two days at Fiesta Henderson (Including two called Kitty Glitter and Miss Kitty, which I only played because of our dog Kitty) was about who created these themes, whether there were conferences about them, who built them, who decided that the other symbols outside of the theming should be Js and Qs and Ks and 10s, how long these particular slot machines have been here, how much they've paid out so far, and exactly how many bonuses each slot machine would give me before it finally gave up on me for being a pussy gambler with only one dollar in it, playing only one line. I'm comfortable that way.

I need a more involving theme from a slot machine, though. Breakfast at Tiffany's would have done it if it had truly been a penny slot machine. Some more basic slot machines do the trick, such as one called Cops and Doughnuts, in which one bonus round has you choosing excuses for speeding on the screen (One says, "It's dangerous to drive the speed limit.") and gaining more credits, or double the credits from that. Plus, the video reels include donuts, photos of the different police officers in the game, jail bars, and a few other things. Much better than J, Q, K, and 10. It's not one I seek out often, but it is my dad's favorite slot machine, so I usually know where to find him when there's one available.

Fiesta Henderson also has this invisible sheen of cigarette smoke. It's not as heavy as in some casinos, where you can almost see it in some spots, but it's there, not only from those in the casino currently smoking, but past smokers too. It's not as dominating, but it's like you can smell past visitors, perhaps even those who have been there months ago.

In its drive to not be so demanding, Fiesta Henderson just sits there. Explore whatever you want. Go upstairs to the slot machines there, see the closed bingo room, the trash that still has to be rolled out to the dumpster, the numbers board shut off. See where the buffet is, how big the serving stations are, and then look down on the casino floor, almost directly above the Denny's. After 1, 2 in the morning, janitors come out and clean up a few areas, since it's the best time. Repairs are made, and very quickly too. One collection of slot machines was closed off early Thursday morning and later that day, I saw no trace of the equipment that was there to do whatever they had to do.

It fits in perfectly with Henderson's unassuming nature, saying that anyone is most welcome to visit. For Las Vegas tourists more adventurous than those who prefer to remain on the Strip, it could be decompression from the rush of the Strip, that is if they think of it that way. Remember, different Vegases for different people. Henderson has personality, but it's not eager to show it right away. It wants people to explore, to see what they like, what they want to do, and then the city will reveal itself, always for the good, and always gradually.

The Henderson Chronicles, Part 2: Previously Unknown Food

2012-01-23T19:31:00.000-08:00

At the end of last May, when Mom and Dad drove to Las Vegas and Henderson for three days that turned into 10 because of the PT Cruiser breaking down, Dad didn't want to eat regularly. He has a steel mindset of wanting to get things done, such as getting to Las Vegas from the Santa Clarita Valley, such as the job interview he had there, such as looking at apartment complexes with Mom, which led them to the apartment complex we thought might be ours, but doesn't seem so viable anymore. We're looking at others, and the best thing about Henderson is that there are so many other complexes available and a lot of builders erect them near shopping centers for convenience. Today, Mom looked at one online and said about it, "You could fall out of bed and land in Vons."

When we started out for Henderson in the late afternoon of last Wednesday (the 18th), I wasn't going to stand for not eating regularly as Mom reluctantly had. On our way out of the valley, Mom pointed out McDonald's, but Dad wordlessly passed right by it. She pointed out Wienerschnitzel and we, in our rental Nissan Cube, breezed by. I put my foot down and suggested strongly that we eat before we leave the valley because it was going to be over three hours before we reached Baker and the Grewal Travel Center, a combination gas station/convenience store/food court. Dad surprisingly agreed, turned around, and we parked at Wienerschnitzel, where I had my usual pastrami sandwich and ultimate chili cheese fries, Mom had an Angus pastrami dog on pretzel bread and a root beer float, Dad had a mustard dog, and Meridith had an ultimate double chili-cheese burger and jalapeno poppers. I took this first meal out as a good sign for what was to come. In Henderson, we were bound to find what could never be found in Santa Clarita, something satisfying, something made differently than the generally processed assembly line here, something made by real people.

We checked into Fiesta Henderson at 12:10 on Thursday morning, spending time getting settled in our room on the 8th floor, then went downstairs an hour later to the food court right at the casino floor, which also had the box office and entrance to Regal Fiesta Henderson 12 next to it, and a Starbucks next to that. We'd looked at the menu for Fatburger on Dad's laptop upstairs, so we knew what we wanted there. Mom only wanted a Sprite, Dad had a Baby Fatburger, Meridith had an order of Skinny fries, and I had a sausage and egg sandwich, onion rings, and a strawberry ice cream milkshake, which was authentic strawberry ice cream because halfway down, the ice cream began melting.

Fatburger is as would be expected, reliable, being a chain known well in nine states. Despite copious frying, the onion ring coating was a bit loose, but the sausage and egg sandwich was good for additional energy at 1 in the morning, being that I wasn't ready to go to bed yet. Not after having all that, not with so many slot machines in front of me, and wanting to find the new Zorro slot machine I read about. Fatburger wasn't indicative of the kind of food available in Henderson, but it showed that it was good. And it could only get better.

Thursday was our busiest day. We started at a shopping center on North Green Valley Parkway, at Brooklyn Bagel for breakfast. This is where they seem to make their own cream cheese, judging from one of the employees taking scoops of cream cheese from a big metal bowl and putting it into individual containers for sale, containers with the Brooklyn Bagel name on them. There, I had what was called a morning wrap-up, wheat kind, with three scrambled eggs, ham, and cheese. We never go out to breakfast in Santa Clarita, so I have nothing to compare it to in that way, but on quality alone, Brooklyn Bagel far outdistances anything in eggs, ham and cheese in Santa Clarita. Most importantly, the employees are very polite and clearly love what they do. And you know you're getting high quality there because it's open from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. They're getting everything ready while you're still asleep. Even getting there very late in the morning for breakfast, it was all still fresh. People come, but it's not a mad rush. It's a steady stream, and a polite one at that.

We couldn't go this trip without driving up and down the Las Vegas Strip at least once, and this included a visit to Chinatown. There, at a place called Mr. Sandwich, we had drinks, and all I remember is that I had a strawberry smoothie (Thick and real), and Meridith had a blueberry drink with boba, tapioca balls usually used in bubble tea, but can really be put into other kinds of drinks.

Dinner was at Ohana Hawaiian BBQ in the same shopping center as Brooklyn Bagel, in the same shopping center as a popcorn store called Popcorn Girl which uses real sauces for its popcorn, not powder. They give samples, Meridith tried their "Mac 'n Cheese" flavor, and she knew right away that this was the real stuff. Somehow, they had managed to match the flavor of macaroni and cheese in popcorn. Dad bought a bag of dill pickle popcorn and the same thing: The popcorn tasted exactly like a dill pickle. Henderson boasts a great deal of creativity in many pursuits, and popcorn was a great surprise. In fact, Henderson encourages it. Here, you feel like you want to do so much for this city, to contribute something of value, to help keep the city riding high.

At Ohana, I had chicken katsu, which was fried chicken strips, with macaroni salad and two scoops of rice on the side. There were also malasadas, deep-fried and sugared yeast balls, for dessert. Couple all this with NBA TV playing on the flatscreen above us with an old game on, and I was completely satisfied. Again, just as fresh as Brooklyn Bagel had been, the same high quality, and it still amazed me: People actually care here? People actually want to do well in what they do? I want to do well in what I do! This is truly home!

We got back to our room at Fiesta Henderson at 8:15, and then Meridith and I went downstairs to Regal Fiesta Henderson 12 a few minutes after 9 for the final showing of the day of "Beauty and the Beast 3D," at 9:30. Meridith wanted to try the popcorn in Nevada, and it was another example of caring, though more muted (I'll describe that more in a future entry about this particular movie theater). None of the popcorn in the large bucket we got was carelessly burnt at the bottom. Plus, at this theater, they keep the butter dispenser behind the counter at the concession stand, and know exactly how much butter to put in. Just enough to spread throughout the entire bucket, but not too much that the popcorn is positively drenched in it. Whenever I go to the movies, I don't buy anything from the concession stand anyway, but this was a special exception, being that it was our first movie in Nevada.

On Friday morning, breakfast was at Dunkin' Donuts near Fiesta Henderson after checking out, and not a great one. I had ham, egg and cheese on a croissant and the croissant broke off too easily from being toasted too much. The hot chocolate was so-so, not at all what Brooklyn Bagel had available in a dispenser (That was chocolaty). It's more a kind of Dunkin' Donuts that you go to if you have to get to work or elsewhere quickly. You just pick up what you need and go. It's not one to sit in for a while. Very business-like.

Hours at Galleria at Sunset included me, Mom and Meridith sitting for a while at the food court, and I had a fruit and maple oatmeal from McDonald's there, which I've found that I like after trying it for the first time on the morning of my eight hours at the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills for my research. At that McDonald's in Valencia, they'd accidentally given us an extra oatmeal, but I kept it, saving it for during the day, when I took a break from my work mid-afternoon.

The only thing I really noticed about this oatmeal at the Galleria at Sunset food court is that whereas overregulated California requires that the nutritional facts be printed on the side of the cup, Nevada doesn't have that same issue. They trust their citizens to know what they're getting. And I knew exactly the oatmeal I was getting. Same kind as in Valencia. Same kind that I'll find in other McDonald's throughout the rest of Henderson and Las Vegas. But it also depends on the people and there was another example of someone doing his job well, what looked like maybe the manager of this location, or senior staff. Hierarchies exist for purposes of paychecks, I'm sure, someone gets paid higher, someone gets paid lower, but I don't get the feeling in Henderson that they exist as they do in places like Los Angeles. People have jobs to do, and they do them. They get paid, and they go home to do whatever else their lives entail. In Henderson, a job is only one part of their lives. There's other things to do too. It's important in order to live, but it is not a driving force.

The oatmeal was the end of my exposure to food in Henderson. After Dad's job interview, we had to start back to the border into California, and it was getting late. One major tip to impart is that if you've gone on vacation and you've had all that I've described here, don't have a footlong chipotle chicken and cheddar flatbread from Subway on the way back. I've got more on this in the weeks to come, but you end up having chipotle breath burps often.

And yet, even with having tried some new things, I've covered barely 1/16th of 1% of what's available in Henderson and Las Vegas. There's so much to try that it can take you years to get through it all. One place I'm psyched about either next time or as a resident is a Steak 'n Shake inside South Point Casino. In fact, I'm calling South Point Steak 'n Shake from now on. We had it in Florida, but there's none in California. South Point's Steak 'n Shake is the only one in Nevada. What life takes away, Las Vegas gives back, including good food.

The Henderson Chronicles, Part 1: I Need a New MP3 Player

2012-01-23T00:16:00.001-08:00

It's a huge honking sign when two days in Henderson makes me not hate the Santa Clarita Valley anymore. I still don't like it, but I can tolerate it now and ignore all that has frustrated me for eight years because I know I'll be home soon enough. I can ignore the shallowness now, the logos of Walmart, Target, McDonald's, and other big businesses seeming to be the be-all, end-all in this valley, whereas those same logos are just part of Henderson, not dominant.

I can't simply write a day 1-day 2 recap of all that my family and I did in Henderson. This isn't a day at Six Flags Magic Mountain. This was an introduction to a life with roots I can finally have. Spending more hours in the Galleria at Sunset mall than we did on a visit in 2010, we walked through all of the mall, and I looked up at the ceiling with decorations near that are lit up at night and I truly believed that I dreamed about this mall, or a mall just like this one. On the way into Henderson, I felt like I could drive those roads. Most importantly, I want to be part of this. I want to work here, play here, explore here. I want to know everything that Henderson is and was in its history, the same as I do with Las Vegas.

Therefore, instead of a typical recap, I'm going to stretch this to many entries over this week or more than that. I'm not quite sure yet. But I'm going to start with a problem that I thought was going to be a solution.

The Monday before we left (the 16th), I deleted all the music from my mp3 player, an import from Hong Kong which boasts four gigabytes of space, which seemed to be the biggest at the time. Or the cheapest compared to what the American market was charging. Mom bought it for me and I was enthusiastic about fitting well over 100 songs on this thing.

The constant, annoying pinprick problem about this mp3 player is that it doesn't play all the music I put onto it. Some of the songs just don't show up, despite me syncing the music from the computer onto this player. Looking at the files inside the mp3 player on the computer, I see that those particular files that don't show up are in the player. So what's going on?

I still haven't figured it out. I thought this latest thorough cleansing would help. And it nearly did. One Elton John song, "Club at the End of the Street," never showed up before, and there it was now. Depeche Mode's "Strangelove" was finally there too. But now, the entire soundtrack to the 1999 Broadway production of Putting It Together had disappeared. And I had left enough room in the hope that all the songs I had downloaded to my mp3 player would show up, 1.5 gigabytes worth.

There's an old radio program, CBS Radio Workshop, that had an episode called Subways are for Sleeping, based on the Harper's magazine article by Edmund G. Love, which Love turned into a book that I proudly own. I had the episode on my mp3 player last year before deleting and starting over, and I thought I'd have it again this time. It didn't show up.

I liked that my mp3 player seemed more organized. Songs didn't look like such a jumble as I scrolled through them. The Christopher Cross and Sting albums I have were finally together. It was finally easy to get from Annie Lennox to Donna Lewis without having a long distance to travel between them. But still, half of what I had put on my mp3 player was nowhere on there.

It didn't affect my vacation in Henderson. I listened to it on the way from Santa Clarita to the road we use to bypass the Las Vegas Strip and go on to Henderson, taking a break when we stopped at the Grewal Travel Center in Baker. But that was about it. I was mostly reluctant to use it while we were driving throughout parts of Henderson because I don't get radio stations on it and it's rare that we hear radio stations of Las Vegas in the actual area, or near it in this case. But why bother also with an mp3 player that's apparently not working much for me anymore? I've had it for a few years, so it's probably time to replace it anyway.

It's impossible to top listening to the live version of Depeche Mode's "Strangelove" while driving through darkened areas of Southern California that have bright lights in the distance on the left. Really dark. Like you'd think you were looking at a fairyland at rest.

I don't know if I'll get a new mp3 player by the time we go to Henderson again, but I've got to see what may work and what's reasonable because I want to have all my songs available whenever I want, not just half of them. Or maybe it's better to wait until we're residents of Henderson to start looking. Contribute to the local economy rather than giving money to this valley. I think I can wait longer since I only use my mp3 player on long days of errands here, and the errands haven't been that long lately. Plus, things are relatively cheaper in Southern Nevada and that's worth the wait.

(I promise the entries will get better, certainly more interesting. Four days with no writing beyond what I jotted down in my composition book left me rusty, and this was the best way to start to shake out some of the rust. Something basic before I get to details important to me.)

Home in Henderson

2012-01-19T03:15:00.000-08:00

We got to Fiesta Henderson and checked in a little after midnight. It's now 3:16 and 10 minutes ago, I came up to the 8th floor, to our room, from the casino floor after playing three penny slot machines. Not playing to win. I slip a dollar in, play one line at a time, and zone out into my kind of meditation, but this time, instead of thinking about my writing or various other things in my life, I just deeply appreciated that I'm home. I feel good here. We bypassed the Strip completely and drove to Henderson and I felt like I could drive those roads easily. They're manageable and navigable. It's impossible to get lost on the way to wherever you're going, and since I want to explore every inch of Las Vegas and Henderson and Summerlin (The latter merely out of curiosity), there's no way I'll ever get lost here. Besides, if I take a wrong turn occasionally (doubtful that it'll be before work, wherever that will be), there's always something to see, something to explore.

We found out that the entrance and box office of Regal Fiesta Henderson 12 is right next to the food court, barely touching a Starbucks right next to us, and across from one of the casino floors, this particular one wall to wall with slot machines from penny to $1. Very convenient for tonight when Meridith and I go to see "Beauty and the Beast 3D," either at 7:15 or 9:30 since we'll be busy during the day.

Oh! And speaking of things to do today, Dad drove us around our future apartment complex and I love it! The Review-Journal rack near the mailboxes looks a lot better than The Signal's in Santa Clarita, and the mailboxes are not only pleasantly close together, but there's a bulletin board above the middle section of mailboxes where residents can post various notices. There was one I noticed promoting a book called Confessions of a Pool Hustler by Robert LeBlanc. He lives in Las Vegas, maybe in that apartment complex which is the only way I can think that a postcard about his book would be pinned to that bulletin board, unless he knew someone who knows the bulletin boards around Henderson and posted it there. Nevertheless, I love that no matter what angles people play here, at least they seem honest in their intentions. LeBlanc wants to sell more copies of his book. Others want to win the World Series of Poker. Others just want to win at bingo or make a good life for themselves, as I do.

We also ate at Fatburger in the Fiesta Henderson food court a little after 1 a.m. I had a sausage and egg sandwich which was two sausage patties, fried egg and cheese. And I also had onion rings and a strawberry shake. I was hungry since Wienerschnitzel before we left the Santa Clarita Valley came hours before that, so it worked out. Not exactly what I would have wanted to eat (I would have preferred something healthier), but at that hour, you take what you can get and that sausage and egg sandwich was worth it. It's a fine start to the food to look forward to again here for the next two days. It tasted good and that's what mattered to me, plus the strawberry shake was terrific, and it was real ice cream since it began to melt toward the bottom.

While we were driving to Henderson, I never read any of the books we brought with me. Whenever we drive somewhere outside the Santa Clarita Valley, I spend a lot of time staring out the window, looking at all the sights, including what seemed like a crowded fairyland from afar before Victorville. It was just lights in the distance, industrial lights, streetlights, whatever, but there's a kind of magic to it at all at night.

The car Dad rented, a Nissan Cube, is like a refrigerator box on wheels, but it's sturdy, everything works, and that's what matters. The windows in the back are a combination of a hacksaw on its side on the left, then a strong rubber divider in between, and then a capital "D" with way too much junk in the trunk. It's a D that spent a lot of time in line at McDonald's, KFC, Taco Bell, etc., etc. That's the part of the window that opens, and when closed, it seems like a window on an old Greyhound bus; it seems like you can pull that "D" side of the window back a bit without having to push the button to lower the window.

It's 3:33 now and I'm lucky there've been nights in the past week when I've gone to bed past 3. Not ideal when I'll probably be up by 8 or 9, but I'll take the chance. Tomorrow we meet the new manager of our future apartment complex and that'll be an honor considering the peace of mind I feel there. I intend to be a model resident there, treating that apartment complex with the same respect it has given me in what it offers. I can't wait to see it in daylight.

More tomorrow night. Maybe a little bit after I get up soon, but I can't guarantee that, even though there's still more I want to write about yesterday.

Mom asked me how I felt about being here as we were driving toward the Strip before bypassing it completely. I didn't have an "Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod!!!" feeling. It just felt so good, because I know I belong here and even with this being the first time in nearly two years that I've been here, it's still the same as I remember. It's everything I want in a home and it still delivers.

The Traveling Book Debate, Part 4: One More to Add, Naturally

2012-01-18T13:12:00.000-08:00

It's a little over two hours before our compasses point strictly at Las Vegas and Henderson. Another teacher is taking over Dad's last class of the day so he and Meridith can leave and once here, Dad's going to take the dogs to the kennel in Canyon Country, stop at Enterprise to sign for the car, then someone at Enterprise will follow Dad here with it so he can park the PT Cruiser in the garage. We'll load everything we need into the trunk of what is likely to be a Kia Soul, drop the Enterprise employee back at that location, and we're off to Baker and then Las Vegas and Henderson.

I have one more book to add to my canvas bag, even though I know I won't read most of what I brought. It's what a bibliophile does: We need books with us no matter what. I just got this one in the mail today, called Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction by Alison MacLeod, short stories about desire, loss, love, sex and whatever else MacLeod has planned in this. It was only published in the U.K., and I ordered it from a bookseller there right when I found out about it. From the back copy, some of the stories include "ECT patient Gloria, who falls for her anaesthetist, 'Dr Numb;...the cerebral Nick, who chases after the heavily pregnant Katie at an Ikea sale; and the legendary lovers Heloise and Abelard re-imagined for the twenty-first century." The ideas of these stories fit in with me craving the presence of my future home cities, knowing that when I get there, I'm going to fall for them all over again. So this is going into my canvas bag for that reason.

I've been put in charge of packing Mom and Dad's clothes into their wide blue travel bag, and my clothes and Meridith's clothes into our wide purple travel bag (Mom asked which color I wanted and I chose purple because it's Meridith's favorite color. I did that on our previous trip in 2010). In fact, that's what I have to do right now so that it's less to be concerned about by the time Dad and Meridith get home. Just sweep the bags into the trunk once our rental car arrives and that's it.

As the hours inch closer to our departure, I don't feel the vehement dislike for this valley as I usually do, definitely because I'm going home for a little while, and I know there's hope in the future with this and hopefully with Dad's success at his job interview on Friday. I hope to leave this valley and this state behind permanently and mostly forgotten in the coming months (I will only remember Six Flags Magic Mountain for the relief it gave me from this valley, and such sights as Hearst Castle further up into Northern California, as well as John Steinbeck's house, deemed an historical landmark, which makes me think every few months about reading Jackson J. Benson's biography of him. Hasn't happened yet, but it will), and zoom right into exploring every inch of where I love to be, of Las Vegas being all about hedonism, about the happy freedom that comes with it, and I know that's where I belong because I strongly believe in that.

And now it's time to get back to preparations. As Mick Hucknall of Simply Red sang in the song "Home": "I'm going home....where I belong."

The Traveling Book Debate, Part 3: What's in the Bag?

2012-01-17T22:16:00.000-08:00

In the middle of this afternoon, I decided all of what I'm bringing with me to Nevada in my canvas bag. Here's what'll be in it:

- Two blank composition books (I bought these a long time ago, but never used them, and now's the time to do so, not only to keep tabs on where we went and what we did, but also to look at the businesses all around and attempt to write copy for them in order to create a copywriting portfolio for myself, should I decide to pursue a career in that. I'm also going to write about what's all around me and how I feel while I'm there, because I'd like to expand my desert music soundtrack. I've done well enough so far with "Amazonia" by Paul Lawler and Paul Speer, and two tracks by Jeff Oster ("Serengeti" and "This Place"), among others, but I've done it at a distance from Las Vegas and Henderson. I want to take what I feel about each area after I come back to Santa Clarita and put it into choosing new music to be part of this soundtrack. No goal. Just a continuing hobby to have music express my feelings about my new home and that vast, inspiring desert atmosphere.)

- 28 Barbary Lane by Armistead Maupin (The first Tales of the City omnibus, and a perfect time with a little over four hour drive to Las Vegas to begin rereading the series by reading light, since most of this drive will surely be while it's dark outside. I learned earlier though that we have no more AAA batteries, and if my reading light cuts out, I'll have to replace the batteries with what I have in my fabric mp3 case. We'll probably get more in Las Vegas or Henderson, since prices are more reasonable there.)

- Everywhere That Mary Went by Lisa Scottoline (After reading Best Friends, Occasional Enemies: The Lighter Side of Life as a Mother and Daughter by Scottoline and her daughter, Francesca Serritella, I was curious about everything else Scottoline had written, knowing that the same lighthearted style would probably not be prevalent in those books, but after learning that Scottoline's main series is legal thrillers, I immediately ordered the first of them. I may not even read it because of all there will be to do in two days, but it's what I do, and my canvas bag won't be as heavy as it was on previous trips.)

- Dog On It by Spencer Quinn (I tried reading this novel about a dog named Chet and his private detective owner Bernie in May 2009, but it didn't take. Yet, the concept still interests me, that of the dog narrating the story, and participating in solving the mystery. I ordered it last year (I borrowed it from the Valencia library the first time), but hadn't even looked at it until now, when I was deciding what to bring with me. It's another first mystery novel, first in a series, so there's that, but also because it has Chet, it's worth bringing with me, since I'll be missing Tigger and Kitty, our two dogs.)

- Personal Pleasures by Rose Macaulay (I'll be taking deep pleasure in a lot of things in Las Vegas and Henderson, so it's appropriate to have this British satirical novelist's book with me about her own pleasures. It's also just the kind of book I like, reveling in pleasure.)

I'll bring new pens with me from the holder in the kitchen cabinet, cheap and reliable blue click pens from Target. I have two in a holder next to my bed, but those are nearly out of ink. I'll start new, since many of these experiences to come, such as seeing a movie at a theater that's inside a casino, will be new to me.

Dad and Meridith are done at work at 2:15, though Dad has to wait for his substitute to arrive since she has a meeting about a student first (It's another teacher who's agreed to cover for him). Once that's done, they get home, we make sure we have everything we need for this trip, and I presume someone from Enterprise is going to pick us up since we're renting a car for this trip. I don't know yet, but chances are we'll be out on the road toward 5 p.m., onward first to Baker (Our favorite rest stop, and really the only good one that there is on the way), and then to Nevada and our new home area. For the next three days, life is going to be perfect and hopefully it'll be successful enough to lead us to permanent perfection as residents of Henderson. I'm going to thoroughly enjoy everything about it.

The Traveling Book Debate, Part 2: Who Needs Presidents?

2012-01-17T14:17:00.000-08:00

Toward 2 this morning, I was lying on my bed, watching "The Doorbell Rang," the first series episode of A&E's Nero Wolfe, on DVD, giving myself over completely to the delightful use of language in the series, how measured Nero Wolfe is when he speaks, that when he gets ticked over something, it's the equivalent of an act of war and easily understandable considering who he's usually up against. I also love the combination of Maury Chaykin's Wolfe (Chaykin became one of my favorite actors through this series and his brief role in Entrapment, the latter of which, to me, demonstrated his fearlessness as an actor) and Timothy Hutton's Archie Goodwin, as truly inseparable as Holmes and Watson.

As I listened to the dialogue, I looked around my room as I always do, not out of boredom, but doing some figuring of my own, looking at the stacks of books I have for my research, determining what I should start on when I get back from Nevada, looking at my Las Vegas stack and thinking about whether I should read one or two of them today, and looking at other stacks with so many novels pressed against each other, trying to remember if there are any that demand my immediate attention. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is one, not only because of the trailer for the movie and the commercials for it on TV, but also because right when I finished Greyhound by Steffan Piper and put it in my permanent collection, I wanted another book involving a young boy's exploration of the world. That one would appear to be it, even though I've not opened it yet, and will likely save it for when I get back.

I also looked at the stacks that are so close to my bed on my left side that I barely have to extend two fingers to touch them, exactly as I like it. I looked down the stack closest to me and found a book that makes me cancel out any presidential books I was thinking about bringing with me.

This book is called Personal Pleasures by Rose Macaulay, originally published in 1936, and published again in 1990. She was a satirical British novelist, and in this book, she writes about her pleasures, such as "Eating and Drinking," "Cinema," "Clothes," "Finishing a Book," "Meals Out," "Play-Going," "Walking," and "Writing." I'm going on a trip to where I find the most pleasure in my life. This book will join 28 Barbary Lane in my canvas bag (I'm still deciding on which two first mystery novels to bring). The presidents can wait until I get back.

The Traveling Book Debate

2012-01-16T20:29:00.000-08:00

In 2007, on our first trip to Las Vegas, I took a heavy bag full of books, despite the drive only being four hours, despite never having been to Las Vegas and therefore negating the need to read during my time there, or at least outside of our room at America's Best Value Inn on Tropicana Avenue, adjacent to Hooters Casino Hotel.

On subsequent trips, the bags got heavier, even though I barely read anything I had packed. Now here comes our next trip on Wednesday afternoon, and what do I bring? This trip is only two days, Wednesday afternoon to likely Friday evening (Dad's job interview with the Clark County School District is at 3 p.m. and we're going back to Santa Clarita right after he's done). Chances are Dad's going to go through the entire school day at La Mesa on Wednesday, with that day over at 3:10 p.m. Quickly home, barely a few minutes to put our bags in the trunk of our rented car (Probably a Kia Soul, which Dad likes), dogs in the car with us, and off we go to the kennel we're going to board them at in Canyon Country, and then out to Las Vegas. This seems like we'll be done at the kennel most likely toward 5 p.m. And it gets dark early here in the winter. So the first consideration is at least one hardcover book I can clip my reading light to, or a paperback that I've read far enough into that I can clip my reading light onto the first ten pages, or just enough to keep it steady.

Since I've not read any paperbacks yet that could hold my reading light, I'm thinking of the first Tales of the City omnibus by Armistead Maupin, titled 28 Barbary Lane, which contains the first three novels. I've wanted to reread the Tales of the City novels for a long time, and what better time to start? Two hours to Baker, along with my mp3 player, sounds right. Then there's the two hours after Baker, and then half an hour still after crossing the California state line into Nevada before reaching Las Vegas. No chance of seeing the billboards I like along the side of the road advertising shows and restaurants in Vegas. All dark.

So that leaves paperbacks during the day, but not very much, since I'll continually be looking out the window as we drive, seeing many of those streets in Henderson for the first time, watching for the route that leads to our new apartment complex, and most importantly, my family and I meeting the new manager there.

A vacation, however brief, is time to do things differently from what you do in your daily life. That obviously leaves out my research for my second book. No way am I bringing along any books related to it, despite my excitement about it. I have Everywhere That Mary Went, the first novel in Lisa Scottoline's "Rosato and Associates" series. I've also got The Ritual Bath, the first novel in Faye Kellerman's "Decker/Lazarus" series; Dog On It, the first novel in Spencer Quinn's "Chet and Bernie" series; and The Case of the Missing Books, the first novel in Ian Sansom's "Mobile Library" series. All mysteries, all first novels, and appropriate for this trip since this will be the first time I'll be seeing our new apartment complex, the first time I'll be going into Henderson knowing I'll be a resident there soon, the first time I'll feel like I'm truly home. So one of these books, or two, would be perfect. And three books would be enough in my canvas bag.

Or maybe four. Just one presidential book, even though it would seem roundly ridiculous to bring along Jean Edward Smith's 900+-page biography of FDR. FDR did dedicate Hoover Dam, footage of which is seen in a small screening room at Hacienda Hotel and Casino nearby, on a continuous loop. But there's no way I'd read 900 pages across two days, nor would I want to. It's the kind of biography I wouldn't want to read and then close for a while and then get back to it and then close it again.

None of this should matter since I'll finally be home. I can begin to see the local Smith's supermarket as a future resident, determining what I'd like to try in my first few weeks there, hopefully finding a sizable mustard collection more interesting than just two rows of French's. And there's also the novelty of a movie theater inside casino property, as it is with Regal Fiesta Henderson 12 inside Fiesta Henderson. Yet, books on this trip do matter, as they always have with me. And it's another first with me not carrying a heavy bag full of books, being more reasonable than before.

28 Barbary Lane will definitely go with me, then, and I've still got time to decide which two of those mystery novels I want to bring with me, and which presidential book I want from those three stacks of presidential books in the living room. Then that'll be it. No uncertainty, no falling back into that old habit. Las Vegas being about reinvention, this is a good start for me.

The "Poseidon" That Should Have Been May or May Not Have Existed

2012-01-16T14:20:00.000-08:00

I've reached the end of my notes I've transcribed from my visit to the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library, looking right now at the brief notes I took on the Poseidon script by Mark Protosevich, though how much by Mark Protosevich could be debatable based on the number of people who wrote revisions. Did Protosevich step in after all those revisions, or was he responsible for the huge set pieces?

The front page of the bound script I opened at the library states "Previous revisions by David Scarpa, D.B. Weiss, Stuart Beattie, The Wachowski Brothers, Andrew Marlowe, Paul Attanasio, Akiva Goldsman, Kieran Mulroney & Michele Mulroney." Chances are that the Mulroneys were the first to write a Poseidon script, but it was deemed unsuitable and then Akiva Goldsman was put on it, followed by all the others. Too many viewpoints, too little coherency it seems. Andrew Marlowe is an interesting choice, being that he wrote Air Force One and Hollow Man, so he knew confined spaces.

Did any of these writers have the idea of the survivors being rescued in the opening minutes, followed by massive media exposure, and flashbacks to what had happened? It's something I may never know, but it is interesting that on that front page, it also says "Current revision by Akiva Goldsman." So they went back to him.

At the top right corner of the page is a list of future revisions, being that this particular script was the "Final White Draft - June 17, 2005." Future revisions happened on June 27, July 5, July 25, August 11, and September 12, in blue, pink, yellow, green, and gold pages respectively, most likely expanding on what there already was.

It turns out that even though some of the character descriptions are still shoddy, and didn't fare any better on the screen, Poseidon reads better on the page. Not surprising, but there was still a lot of wasted opportunity here. Undoubtedly, though, there will be books written about the current cruise ship crisis with the Costa Concordia and I'm sure Hollywood producers will try for the rights to various stories now. It's the way they are. But then, after the total failure of Poseidon when it was released, books might have a better chance.

Shots in "Lucky You" That Make Me Want More

2012-01-16T00:31:00.000-08:00

Upon learning that we're driving to Las Vegas and Henderson on Wednesday afternoon, I extracted Lucky You from my completely full DVD binder (The other still has a few empty pages left) last night to refamiliarize myself with those streets I've missed so much, those views I've been away from for too long.

Lucky You was filmed in 2005, but not released until 2007, and The Aladdin, which is seen in the opening credits shots after Huck drives away from the pawn shop, became Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino by then.

Right when the movie begins, when Phyllis Sommerville, who plays the pawnbroker, is adjusting the earrings on that sheet of felt, "Las Vegas 2003" appears at the bottom of the screen and I immediately feel this hard pull of wanting to know what happened in Las Vegas in 2003, what it was like, what events there were, what changes there were, what whales gambled in the casinos ("Whale" being what casinos like because it means big profits for them, which is why they always offer comps to those usually very rich guests), what attractions opened, what attractions closed, even what the weather was like throughout the year. In 2003, I was visiting Los Angeles with my family, a mere four hours from Las Vegas, completely clueless about the riches it offers, even when you don't gamble. Understandable, since I was trying to figure out exactly what the hell Los Angeles was, this seemingly endless sprawl that you could spend years trying to find your place in, and still not have all that you're seeking.

That line at the bottom of the screen always reminds me of the history of Las Vegas and Henderson and Nevada itself that I still want to study. In fact, I have to put my research for Mayday! Mayday!: The Making of the Airport Movies on hiatus for this week. Today's going to be busy, figuring out what I want to wear while I'm there, if I can get away with a white Fruit of the Loom t-shirt under one of my designed t-shirts (I'm thinking of one or two Big Lebowski t-shirts), and then a jacket over all that, even though I've never been to Las Vegas in January. Today would also be the day to pack a few things, with the majority of the packing tomorrow. It's not much anyway. Just clothes for Thursday and Friday, and Meridith and I are sharing a duffel bag and so are Mom and Dad. Two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks, two pairs of jeans, two shirts (I've looked at the temperatures which are quite cool, and am still thinking about if I should bring my blue sweatshirt. We'll be inside mostly, wherever we go, and our car will be a rental, so the heat will be quite reliable in there. I'm still not sure), and one pair of velcro sneakers. It's enough for me.

Tomorrow, just to get even more in that mood and feel some of that atmosphere through writing (Besides watching most of Lucky You again after I sign off), I'm thinking of plucking a few books from my Las Vegas stack. I could read through some of the books I have for my research, and the making-of movie books I have for guidance and inspiration, but I know that Wednesday will come up fast, and I want to be completely submerged in everything that I love, everything that I'm totally ready for.

Also in Lucky You, there's that shot after Huck (Eric Bana) has met Billie (Drew Barrymore), and he's riding his motorcycle down the Strip, past Caesars Palace, I think, with all those softly-glowing street lights lining the sidewalk. I'm not sure what street that's on. I still have to develop my navigational skills for Las Vegas and Henderson, but I repeat street names like Decatur and Tropicana, Sahara and Las Vegas Boulevard, Lake Mead Parkway and Boulder Highway, like the mantras I know they are.

Then Huck walks into the Bellagio poker room as the guy overseeing it is ordering breakfast over the phone for one of the players, and after the guy says to Huck, "Why don't you rest up a bit? You know we never close," there's a shot of one poker table where one of the players is eating a bowl of cereal. I look at that bowl and the dish under it, and I wonder where that bowl will go next after it's washed in the kitchens. What will that bowl be filled with and who will get it? I also think about the sheer enormity of the operations of these hotels and casinos and it's utterly fascinating to me. There are so many stories to witness and to write about. There's a reporter named Sonya Padgett in the Las Vegas Review-Journal who writes those stories. In July of last year, for example, she wrote about the MGM Grand's laundry facility in North Las Vegas. She lives the Las Vegas I love to learn about. It stems from monorail drivers knowing us when we went to Walt Disney World every weekend and parade performers stopping by on their route to say hello to us when I was a tyke. I knew that there was another side to Disney, that which was always in motion to keep visitors happy. It wasn't long after that that I learned about the Utilidors, the tunnels underneath WDW property, which is why you don't see Stitch walking through Frontierland. That's where the laundry facilities are for the park, costume shops, banks of computers for all the audio-animatronics in all the parks, and a whole lot more. That's why Las Vegas fascinates me in much the same way. I like the cocktail waitresses dressed in those pleasingly skimpy outfits at Caesars Palace, my favorite out of all the casinos, even those I haven't been to yet, but I also like to learn about what the custodians do to keep the casinos clean. It's always been who I am.

Oh, and there's also the scene where Roy (Charles Martin Smith), who wants to back Huck in the 2003 World Series of Poker, walks with him past slot machines at Bellagio, and I know that atmosphere so well, and I love to walk by and look at all those slot machines, quick glances at those playing at them. I always feel at home because I'm surrounded by so many different kinds of pleasure. What may not work for me works for someone else, but the option to have it if I ever wanted it is always appreciated.

This road trip to Las Vegas on Wednesday will be a relief. It's not just because I've been cooped up in Santa Clarita for so long that it's basicallly an "anywhere but here" feeling. It's also because I read the Las Vegas Review-Journal every day, and I visit the Las Vegas Weekly website at least twice a week. I want to hold actual copies. I want to read it in print. I want to get to know my local newspaper, to be very happy that I'll finally have a newspaper I know I'll read from beginning to end. I haven't had that since the Sun-Sentinel in South Florida. I don't read the Los Angeles Times because I don't relate to it.

It's also because I've seen those roads in Lucky You, and I know those roads we drove on previous trips, and I want them again. I want to see the traffic flow, I want to enjoy smoothly-paved roads, and I want to study them for myself, to begin thinking about routes for myself. What's the fastest way to go from here to here if there's a concert I want to get to in later years, say, Shania Twain when she arrives at Caesars Palace for her residency? What's the best route to take to get to my favorite restaurant? Even better, how close is the nearest library to our apartment complex? These are questions I can't answer in only two days, as this trip will be, but I can re-establish that base and work my way from that. I want everything that Las Vegas and Henderson mean to me and I know I'll get all of it.

The Differences Between a Little Over Eight Years Ago and Now

2012-01-14T20:18:00.000-08:00

When FX aired The New Movie Show with Chris Gore in 2000, I knew of Chris Gore as the founder of the magazine and then website Film Threat, and that I wanted to be on his show, even though I was merely a stripling in movie reviewing, only a year into my time with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Teentime pages. I e-mailed Chris Gore about getting on his show and he said I had to be in Los Angeles to audition.

The evening I had gotten that e-mail, Dad and I went out to pick up Chinese food and in the restaurant while waiting for our order (I remember that the TVs inside were showing Rush Hour on TBS) and walking back to the car, I thought to myself, "Los Angeles? Isn't that on the other side of the universe?" I loved movies, but didn't have that hushed reverence that heartier movie buffs than I undoubtedly have, such as Leonard Maltin, and Robert Osborne on Turner Classic Movies, names I aspired to be like back then, but no longer. I knew Hollywood to be the center of moviemaking, but figured that with as many movies as Hollywood made during a given year, there's no way that the glamour we see on the screen could ever be matched in real life. Surely it was just a matter of putting up sets on soundstages, filming the scenes, then tearing them down again, or filming on studio backlots. I'd read that the work is usually long, arduous, and frustrating at times. No one likely swans around Hollywood in pearls all day.

When my family and I flew to Los Angeles from Fort Lauderdale in April 2003, I didn't know anything about where we were going. I knew we were going to land at LAX, one of the world's largest airports, and I was interested, as an aviation enthusiast, but not threatening to burst out of my skin from excitement. What could I expect from Southern California? Was there anything I could connect to? Why Southern California for job interviews? What makes Dad want so badly to try to find work there?

During those 10 days, we went to places it took us years to get back to. Dad had no trouble driving from L.A. to San Diego for a job interview at the school district offices there, yet it was years later that we finally went to Sea World. We took one of those tours of Hollywood aboard a nice-looking air-conditioned van, but have never done anything like that since. When we went to Six Flags Magic Mountain for the day, I had no idea that there was an entire working valley in front of it. When I went on Viper, I saw some collections of houses on the way up the track, but didn't pay much attention because this was the first rollercoaster I was on since the wooden Hurricane at Boomers in Dania Beach, and it was bitter cold that day, with drizzling rain lashing about like bullets at high speeds.

When Mom and Dad went back to Southern California for another 10 days in mid-July, they went to what I learned was called the Santa Clarita Valley, that entire working valley in front of Magic Mountain. Dad had a few job interviews there and by the end, one principal wanted him, the one from La Mesa Junior High. Dad took the job. Mom described to us over the phone the apartment she and Dad had found in an area called Valencia. From what she described, it seemed like a closely-connected community, wrapping around a pool area and a clubhouse with a gym. And hearing about a train system called Metrolink, I thought I could take the train to Los Angeles, to one of the major public libraries there, return books, check out new ones, and head back home. It sounded easy and I thought I could do it every weekend. I thought Los Angeles was so close together as to have everything accessible. I was naive.

I learned that the apartment complex could not be more disconnected, at least among residents, but at least it was comfortable. Los Angeles was so spread out that not only could I not reach any library via Metrolink on a Saturday or Sunday, but the freeway system made getting anywhere seem like an extensive strategy session was required before you did anything. During my first weeks at College of the Canyons, once I knew where my classes were, I spent time in the big library building, looking for every book there was about Los Angeles, trying to understand this city. It should have been a clue that I was trying to learn about Los Angeles and not Santa Clarita. It became more and more apparent to me as one year became two, and two became five, and five became eight, that in order to do anything interesting in Santa Clarita, you have to leave.

I pulled down Los Angeles anthologies, books of essays, histories, anything that could show me something about what this city had been and what it currently was all about. What set me at a disadvantage is that there was no time to learn anything before or after we had visited Los Angeles as a family. Dad was going to lose his job as a computer and business education teacher in the Broward County school system because then-governor Jeb Bush decided that the FCAT exam was more important than electives and that the funding for electives would better serve the FCAT exam. Or something like that. It's the only twisted logic I can think of.

The additional issue that cropped up after I had learned some things about Los Angeles is that I felt like I couldn't connect to anything. The city and the Santa Clarita Valley felt so desolate. People were rushing here, rushing there, looking to make their mark with this, with that, and never seeming to slow down. It feels like the past doesn't exist in either place, that it just takes up room that could be used for the future, and so they chuck out the past and pave over it so that the future has an easy time of getting in.

I don't know what made us think of Las Vegas in 2007. Perhaps Dad heard rumblings about his job being threatened again as it had been in Florida. The economy was beginning to trip over many cracks in the sidewalk, so there might have been an internal sense of unease within the district Dad works for. But what I do remember is that when I was in 11th grade at Hollywood Hills High in Hollywood, Florida, when my mom worked in the library there as an assistant, I learned that an acquaintance was moving to Las Vegas and my first thought was, "Las Vegas? Isn't that a desolate gambling outpost?" That was all I knew of Las Vegas: Gambling inside a huge desert.

Dad was going there to get his Nevada teaching license, to meet with someone from the Clark County School District, to scope out the area. Where would we want to be if we were going to move there? Could we make a life there?

Yes, we could. But now it's taken five years to get to our greatest chance of moving there with this forthcoming trip this coming week. We had bad luck not long after our first trip there because the district enacted a hiring freeze. And then the economy crapped out. Now it feels like recovery may happen, slowly but surely, and we've got a foothold we couldn't find before because of those circumstances.

Since 2007, we've been to Las Vegas a few more times, giving me the opportunity to learn more about the city, which I didn't have that first time in L.A. and Santa Clarita. I've seen sights that I'd be happy to see for years to come. I've been to the Pinball Hall of Fame three times, which I know will have my quarters many, many times a year. I feel comfortable in Henderson. Making a good, satisfying life for myself will happen there. Because of how many times we moved throughout Florida, and then the move to Valencia, and then the move to Saugus a year later, I've never felt like I had roots anywhere. I love Florida for all the imagination it instilled in me, but I never felt like I truly belonged in any of those cities we lived in. In Henderson, it's different. I feel like I can finally establish roots, that this can be the home base from which I can do everything else I want to do in my life, that after trips to, say, Missouri to the Truman Library, and Arkansas to the Clinton Library in the years to come, I can come home to Henderson and know that I am home.

Even if I had time to get to know Los Angeles and the Santa Clarita Valley, I don't think I would have felt as secure as I do with Henderson. For one, it feels so buttoned-up here in Santa Clarita. Everyone lives an image, but can never just let loose to be who they actually might be. There is always something they have to maneuver for, and with Santa Clarita being where many actors live, as others who work in Hollywood, it's always apparent.

There is image-making in Las Vegas, admittedly, but it's all in the pursuit of pleasure. What do you want? What would make you happy? Chances are they have it. For me, there's the happiness of having two library cards, one with Henderson Libraries and one with the Clark County Library system, used bookstores throughout the Las Vegas Valley, the Pinball Hall of Fame, easily accessible history of Las Vegas and Henderson through different avenues, casinos to explore, and so much else I probably haven't even unearthed yet. There is always something to see, always something to do. I've heard it said that it takes years to eat at all the restaurants and buffets Las Vegas offers. I believe it. But it's not only all that which attracts me to Las Vegas. It's also that everything feels so relaxed there. Driving slows down there. I've never driven in Southern California because I won't face those freeways. They're all M.C. Escher staircases. The only time I ever drove one was during driving lessons I took courtesy of AAA. That was it.

In Las Vegas, not only can you easily find where you're going while you're driving, there's an easygoing rhythm to the roads. You'll get there, and even traffic isn't so bad because there's always something interesting to look at. Plus, the roads are very well-maintained, so your car's not going to get shaken up a lot.

I think some of this will change after I've spent a few years as a resident, but for the good. I'll not always notice what I gawked at in my first year as a resident, but it blends in to become deep appreciation for where I am, what I do, where I go, how I live. I've felt comfortable every time we've visited, and I know that feeling will only grow larger after I've become a resident. That's all I've ever wanted in a place to live.

Living Like a Resident While a Tourist

2012-01-13T20:59:00.000-08:00

The details were made concrete today: My family and I leave for Las Vegas on Wednesday afternoon, after Dad and Meridith get home from work at La Mesa, with enough time for Meridith to change, and we arrive most likely toward 9 or 10 p.m. It takes four hours from where we are to Las Vegas (Just like South Florida to Orlando), but we stop in Baker, which is the halfway point to Las Vegas and is at the true beginning of the Mojave Desert (Los Angeles can say whatever it wants about being at the foot of the Mojave, but Baker faces the true desert), at the rest stop/gas station there, and I also want to stop at Alien Fresh Jerky right near the rest stop. I love the alien theming they do there (Including a car with alien figures inside, including an alien baby in the backseat), as well as the many varieties of jerky.

At the rest stop, we eat at the small food court there, Mom and Meridith most likely from the A&W counter, and me from Subway this time. A root beer float and cheese curds are very nice, but they would have been a requirement by my vastly overweight self a few years ago. I'm not that way anymore, and even though Las Vegas is a land of countless pleasures, I'm going to live in moderation from the start, even as a tourist. If you're just there for vacation, and you live securely wherever you're from, you can be as wild as you want, or as easygoing as you want. You'll have the experiences, you'll have the memories, and then you go home.

It's obviously different for residents. We have so many choices there, but we can't indulge in them constantly like the average tourist does. For one, we'd be the size of mountains, and secondly, we have jobs, either working to please those tourists on the Strip, or working in the Clark County School District, or at McCarran International Airport, or so many other jobs that you couldn't possibly conceive of until you drive off the Strip and see what else is around. It's not like driving to Six Flags Magic Mountain from Los Angeles, mind set firmly on the rollercoasters, and surprise at there being an entire working valley in front of the amusement park, that is if you've never been there before, as it was for me in April 2003. What there is in Las Vegas itself on the outskirts, and in Henderson, and in Summerlin, powers the Las Vegas you enjoy. There's no disconnect. Therefore, moderation is key for a happy life in Southern Nevada. (I know I'm not a resident yet, but I think like one all the time so that when I get there on Wednesday and in the very near future, I can just dive right into my unfettered happiness. The only adjustments to be made are getting used quickly to much smoother and easier-to-navigate roads, and loving the constant bombardment of creativity on and off the Strip that gives so much to this writer alone.)

Baker isn't all that will slow us down before reaching Fiesta Henderson, the hotel/casino where we're staying. Once we reach the California state line into Nevada, there are the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, which includes a Williams-Sonoma outlet store for Meridith, and there's a store called Viva Vegas, which I hope is a tourist trap because I'd really like to find a few well-designed t-shirts for myself, preferably one with most of the Strip on it.

I also want to ride the Desperado rollercoaster at Buffalo Bill's, deemed the fastest rollercoaster in the west, but the rides on the property, including the rollercoaster, are closed Mondays through Thursdays, and open Fridays and Saturdays from 12:45-9:45 p.m. So that'll be on the way back, and will be one of the two final rollercoasters for me, the other being the taxicab rollercoaster at New York-York. I'm done with rollercoasters after that one. They're not for me anymore, not after the double hell that was Apocalypse and Colossus at Six Flags Magic Mountain. I know not all rollercoasters are like those, but I think my time has passed with them. I'll have the Pinball Hall of Fame off the Strip, I'll have libraries again, I have books I want to write (I've got an historical one in mind that's Las Vegas-centered, and I'd like to work on that one concurrently with Mayday! Mayday!: The Making of the Airport Movies once I'm settled, have a car, and have a job, and am financially stable on my own enough to contribute well to household expenses), I have every inch of Las Vegas and Henderson to explore, as well as extensive research to do about New Mexico and the presidential libraries, to prepare for those trips in future years.

We're staying at Fiesta Henderson, one of the places Mom and Dad stayed at last time during a three-day trip that stretched to 10 when the PT Cruiser broke down. Mom had a spectacular idea earlier this evening. Meridith and I were going to go see Beauty and the Beast 3D either tomorrow or Sunday, but Mom remembered that there might be a movie theater on the Fiesta Henderson property. It turns out that they do, the Regal Fiesta Henderson 12. We definitely will not make it for the 7:15 p.m. showing there on Wednesday, and probably not the 9:30 showing either. But we can on Thursday, and it's perfect because this will be the first movie I see in Nevada, and it's a Disney movie, and I see it as Walt Disney World passing the torch to Las Vegas, from where my imagination was established and expanded to what I am today, to where my imagination will, I think, explode into a lot more than I could dream of from living in the Santa Clarita Valley for eight years.

The main purposes of this trip are job interviews Dad has, as well as all of us meeting the new manager of our future apartment complex in Henderson. It'll be the first time Meridith and I see the property (which includes a double basketball court, which sold me on it right away), and there may be an available upstairs apartment that we could see, as Mom and Dad saw inside one of the apartments already. Ours will be downstairs, but this way, we can learn the layout, see what the living room looks like, which is where our futons will be, as well as the main TV, which will be the widescreen TV that's in my room. There's two bedrooms, one of which will be Mom and Dad's, and the other will be the office Dad's always wanted to have. I'll be a resident of Henderson with easy access to Las Vegas, so I don't mind where I sleep, especially since the cable TV service we'll be signing up for will be a lot better than what DirecTV offers. Plus, there's always free copies of The Henderson Press at this complex, and there's a newspaper rack where you can buy the Las Vegas Review-Journal every day. Mom's been saving up quarters for that for a while now, so we'll probably have enough for the first few months that we're there.

I'll also be eating moderately while we're in Las Vegas and Henderson. Mom said that we'll stick to cheap eats on this trip, and there are a lot of places in which to eat well at low prices. If we go to 7-11 one morning, I'm getting a container of Cheerios, soymilk (If they have it), and a banana. I'm only changing my breakfast routine if we don't go to 7-11, and if it's Dunkin' Donuts we go to, they have breakfast sandwiches I really like and can find one with a reasonable calorie count. All I need is one of those and the Review-Journal and I'm happy. It doesn't take much to please me in Southern Nevada.

I'm still sitting here looking at every page of the Fiesta Henderson website. I clicked on the "Gaming" tab and it says that there's more than 1,600 slot and video poker machines. I'm one of the few who doesn't really gamble. All I do in Vegas is put a dollar into a penny slot machine, play one line at a time, and that's my kind of meditation. I am completely at peace at a decent slot machine, and am hoping to find the new Zorro slot machines I read about in the Southern California Gaming Guide. There's also a 300-seat bingo room open from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. that I would like to try (Also because I'd like to write a book about bingo one day, but am not sure from what perspective yet), but probably won't be able to on this trip, being that we'll be busy Wednesday night and all day Thursday, with Beauty and the Beast 3D for Meridith and I either at 7:15 or 9:30.

I've also fervently requested that we stop at a Smith's supermarket some time on Thursday. As soon as I walk through the entrance, I'm heading right for the condiments aisle to hopefully see more mustards than I get here. I want to take in everything, to know that I will be able to really eat in Henderson, and to be happy with what I eat, which is nearly impossible here. You eat just to eat and you're overjoyed when you find something that lasts, such as Sprouts having bananas that last and last even as the skin turns brown. That saves a great deal of money and it's not the same at Ralphs because those bananas crap out not longer after they're purchased, and I know bananas. Sprouts finds stock that works.

I'll have Internet access while I'm home and very happy, so I'll write a few things, but probably sporadically. I want to spend every single moment surrounded by everything I love about Las Vegas and Henderson, and to explore new places. I know I'll be seeing many on this trip.

And since losing all that weight long ago, and gaining self-control, I won't be bringing as many books as I have on past trips, but I will make sure that I have enough to read, to cover the distance between Santa Clarita and Baker and then Baker to the state line, because I've seen all that land before. However, on the way home, I will be paying attention to Victorville, because I like the vastness of that area, even though it feels desolate, and no wonder there's drug use there. There's really nothing there. But it's just how far that space stretches that impresses me. Oh to see that ocean of desert from that rock ledge next to Hacienda Hotel and Casino near Boulder City, but most likely not this time. I'll keep the memory of when I first saw it until I'm able to see it again.

As the lyric goes in the song Home by Simply Red, "Home is a place where I yearn to belong." I've yearned, and I'll have it for two days. And with luck, Dad's job interviews will soon let me belong as a resident. I feel like this is the start to finally getting what we've hoped for for so long.

The Academy Library: An American Monastery and an Amazing Institution

2012-01-11T23:55:00.000-08:00

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills is in the part that's not really Bevery Hills, not the Rodeo Drive Beverly Hills. It's more like imagining what Beverly Hills might have been without all that glamour. Impossible, but the Margaret Herrick Library is across from La Cienega Park, where you'll find joggers during the day, and soccer games and dog walkers at night. Immediately across from the library are two lanes of traffic going opposite ways, separated by a long, car-level wrought iron fence.

Open one of the two big nearly all-glass doors, and you find total silence and tile flooring. To your left, the security guard's desk where you sign in and get tokens for the lockers across the way in a small room. I had a cloth Albertsons bag with me containing three legal pads, two legal notepads, a collection of pencils in a black-and-purple zippered pouch (the two zippers on opposite sides and connected by a small strap. Pull it down and both zippers come down), a peanut butter sandwich and a bottle of Arrowhead water, a fruit and nut oatmeal from McDonalds (We ate at McDonalds in Valencia before we went to Beverly Hills, and the woman that put together the order at the counter accidentally gave us an extra oatmeal), and the hardcover edition of Scorpions: The Battle and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices by Noah Feldman (to read while waiting to be picked up later on). All of this had to go into a locker, along with my cell phone, because they don't allow cell phones in the reading rooms. I wasn't comfortable with leaving my cell phone in a locker, but at least I was able to keep my wallet. They allow that in case you need to pay for photocopying.

Behind the security guard's desk is a large framed poster for King Kong as well as a poster for either Grand Hotel or another movie I can't think of that starts with a "G". Not Gunga Din, but it was a movie from the 1930s, and it may very well have been Grand Hotel.

One security guard was going to lunch, and I chatted with him briefly, about the welcome arrival of lunchtime. Extremely nice guy. I can't understand people that turn up their noses at security guards or janitors or anyone else that they believe to be beneath their station in life. Most of the time, the security guards and janitors and others are far more interesting than the stuffy people. This guy was.

The stairs to walk up to the library are carpeted and even if you rush up the stairs, which would be quite unbecoming in this setting, there's very little sound. Just what you hear behind you from rushing up there, that brief clomp, but that's it. At the desk right when you get up there, you give your driver's license to the person at the desk, fill out a form to get a temporary library card, sign the back of the library card, and they take your driver's license and you take the library card. At this point, I didn't even notice the shelves and shelves of movie books.

Walk across the room from that desk and you reach another room, where you'll find the Special Collections desk in the middle, and to your left, the desk where you request photographic prints, and to your right, where you request scripts that they pull from the undoubtedly large back room. I called the Special Collections desk on Monday to have them pull a large number of files for me for Tuesday, including Charlton Heston's copy of the Airport 1975 script, scripts of the trailers for Airport, Airport 1975, and Airport '77, and....

I'm stopping the story for a minute because with the revelation of those titles, I will no longer be vague about what my second book is about. It's tentatively titled "Mayday! Mayday!: The Making of the Airport Movies," owing to my obsession with the four movies in my teens, when I was an aviation enthusiast, and they made me really consider a career in aviation, mostly because of George Kennedy's Joe Patroni and the passion he clearly had for aviation. I thought about it for many years, but decided last year that I'd be happiest reading and writing books.

George Kennedy is the reason I'm writing this book. His memoir, Trust Me, was published at the beginning of October, and I only found out in November that he had a memoir, and quickly ordered it, hoping he had a lot to say about the movies, being that he was in all of them.

What he wrote barely amounted to half a page, and I wasn't disappointed, because he said that he got his pilot's license while shooting the movies, Universal rented the Concorde for $40,000 an hour, and he was allowed to taxi it. The latter two details stuck in my mind. At the time, I was thinking about writing a book about the inner workings of the studios that weren't MGM in the 1930s, writing not only about the studio heads, stars, directors, and screenwriters, but also those who worked in the commissary, those who were teachers to child stars, janitors, not just what was considered the top because without those people, I don't think the studios would have been able to function. But I'm sure the hierarchies didn't allow for the top-tier to express appreciation to the lower rungs. I wanted to express that appreciation in a way, but even though I ordered a few books about the studio system, I hadn't cracked them open since I first looked at them, a few weeks having elapsed. Clearly, this wasn't the project for me.

Then about a week before the final week that led into winter break at Dad's school, I was subbing for one of the campus supervisors, and walked around a lot, thinking, thinking, thinking. I liked my aim for that 1930s Hollywood project, but I wasn't doing anything with it. I wasn't as interested in it as I was when I thought of it. I needed something else. I didn't want What If They Lived? to be my only book, and I knew I wanted to write more. I thought about what George Kennedy had said about the Concorde, about taxiing it, and an idea started to form quickly. The Concorde's rental fee belonged in a book. But also, the DVD set of the movies contained only the trailers. No featurettes. No audio commentaries. No reminiscing from significantly older actors. Bare bones. I started watching these movies on videotape. I remember buying a four-tape set of them from BJ's Wholesale Club in South Florida. I nearly wore them out. Then my parents got me the aforementioned DVD set, called the Airport Terminal Pack, for my birthday in 2005. I wanted to know more about these movies, how they were made, the technical tasks involved in filming it, what the actors themselves had gone through, who the directors were and how they wanted to film these movies, who executive producer Jennings Lang was and what made him create these sequels after Ross Hunter had produced Airport to such great success that it single-handedly pulled Universal from the brink of bankruptcy in 1970.

Mayday! Mayday! will be a straightforward history of all four movies. I'm searching for all the actors, including the ones in small roles, as well as producers, screenwriters (Eric Roth, an Oscar winner for Forrest Gump, wrote The Concorde: Airport '79 early in his career), stuntmen, prop masters, set decorators, directors of photography, composers, costumers, makeup artists, hair stylists, unit production managers, 2nd unit directors, everyone. And for those who are long gone, I'm searching for their families. Such is the case with Alec Smight, the son of the late Jack Smight, who directed Airport 1975. It wouldn't be easy to reach Alec right now because he's a director on CSI and they're back in production, now with Elisabeth Shue having replaced Marg Helgenberger. But once the show finishes production for the season (I have an idea of when that it is, based on what I know about the TV industry), I'm going to try to get in touch with him because I want to know from him his father's experiences of directing '75. (In further paragraphs, Airport will remain that, but the three sequels are '75, '77, and '79, as shorthand.)

Getting back to the Special Collections desk at the library, they had all my requested files in one box, including photocopied storyboards from '79, records from Tallmantz Aviation which used its B-25 cameraship to shoot footage for '77 and '79, a press kit detailing Universal's plans to sell a 20-piece clothing line inspired by Edith Head's costume designs for Airport, scripts for trailers and featurettes for Airport (hosted by Arthur Hailey, who wrote the novel) and '77.

I will not write about my findings in great detail because I'd like some curious readers. I'm greedy that way. But I will say that this was the pivotal day of my research, making me even more excited than I already was about this book. The scripts for the two featurettes gave me terrific new starting points on what paths to take, and even more people and companies to contact.

When you go to Special Collections, they give you a form to fill out, describing why you're there, what you're researching, what you're looking to do with it, what credentials you have, and then you sign it. I liked being able to say that I was doing research for my second book, and I wrote down the title you read. Then once you give back the form, they give you a blue sheet of paper in front of the first file or set of files you're going to pore over that details what those files are, you sign it, and then they hand over the first folder.

I went in whatever order they had put the files in the box. The Tallmantz Aviation records, which came after the Edith Head press kit, took up the most time. I opened that folder and freaked out silently. What details did I need to pull from these records? Well, I needed the tail number of the aircraft. That was a good start. I needed the number of hours flown to get a sense of filming time. I needed to know what the B25 cameraship was shooting (On Monday, August 30, 1976, they were shooting a nighttime takeoff shot for '77, to become the perspective from the private Stevens 747). At the beginning of these records, I found details of the shooting of the exterior shots for the opening credits sequence of '77.

I'm trying to remember when I took my first bathroom break, and I think it might have been after the Edith Head press kit and before these records. I didn't even know these records were coming up before I took the elevator down to the lobby, But it was a lot to go through.

Now, about photocopying, there's a horizontal grid form that you fill out, writing under the labels of the boxes the file name, the file number, the name of the file (For example, Airport - Featurette, even though I didn't request anything from that), a description of the file (One line, very short), and how many pages it is.

At the end of the Tallmantz records, my heart nearly stopped. I found a call sheet for '79 from January 30, 1979 (The movie was released on August 17) detailing what actors were required on the Concorde cabin set, what time they were expected (8:45 a.m. for the majority of them), as well as what scenes would be filmed in the future. There was also an announcement on the page about cold weather gear being handed out for the shoot in Utah (If you've seen the movie, remember the Concorde landing in the snow and being buried under it? Utah, standing in for Patscherkofel in Austria). Even though I could have probably gotten another photocopying form if I asked, I'm lucky I didn't accidentally rip the first one in excitement while writing down the details for the call sheet. As I do further research for this book, and eventually writing it, I'm keeping that call sheet in front of me. From videotape to DVD to seeing all these papers at the library. I'm sitting here a little over a day after and I'm still amazed that I did all this.

But that wasn't the only thing that stunned me. After finishing with the Tallmantz Aviation records, the next file handed to me was thick, with "Charlton Heston papers" written on the tab. I opened it up, and it was Charlton Heston's copy of the '75 script, exactly what I had been anticipating. He used this script. He thumbed through it. He crossed out lines that weren't being used and replaced them with what he was told were the new lines. There were two huge coffee stains on pages 13 and 14, the one on 13 nearly dominating it. Through it, I confirmed the start date of filming on '75, and I also wrote down some of the lines that were crossed out. There is no fanfare in research, no Glory, Glory Hallelujah raining down from hidden speakers. Charlton Heston is long gone, and this is part of what remains of his legacy. The bent pages of his script. His handwriting. The coffee stains. I'll never know at what point he accidentally spilled coffee or when those new lines were given to him, and I don't expect to know. The book is partly about him, and it's also partly about Karen Black, and Dean Martin, and Jack Lemmon, and Christopher Lee, and Darren McGavin, and Monica Lewis, and George Kennedy, and Lee Grant, and Helen Reddy, and Linda Blair, and Jacqueline Bisset, and producers Ross Hunter and Jennings Lang, and directors George Seaton, Jack Smight, Jerry Jameson, and David Lowell Rich, and directors of photography Ernest Laszlo and Philip Lathrop (Lathrop shot the three sequels), and composers Elmer Bernstein, John Cacavas ('75 and '77), and Lalo Schifrin, and screenwriters George Seaton, Don Ingalls, Michael Scheff & David Spector, and Eric Roth, and so many others you wouldn't know right now if I told you, but I hope you will know them through what I intend to write.

It was just me and Heston's script, and the woman sitting across from me tapping out notes on her laptop was involved in whatever her research entailed and it was the same with the two people at the table next to me (Including a woman with very nice legs wearing a slightly above-the-knee skirt, and it was very hard not to take a quick peek when I was waiting behind her at the Special Collections desk to get my next folder). This is what research is. It's the love of movies, of wanting to know what happened in their history. One researcher in the room was working on something about Hitchcock, another was researching Cedric Gibbons, the famous MGM art director. You can't shout to the world your find, not only because the library knew about it before you did, but because you'd be making a ruckus that would probably get you kicked out, and there's more research to be done. How else can a book be written?

After giving back Heston's '75 script, I got the next related folder, which showed that he had a good sense of humor. He clipped the cover of a July 1975 issue of Mad Magazine, which turned '75 into "Airplot '75." Nancy, the flight attendant (Karen Black), became Naggy, Heston's Alan Murdock became Mudrock; Sister Beatrice was Sister Beardless; Helen Reddy's Sister Ruth was Sister Cooth; Gloria Swanson was Swansong; Mrs. Patroni was Mrs. Baloney; Linda Blair's Janis was Janecch; Glenn Purcell was Purehell; and Erik Estrada's Julio was Jigolo.

I wrote down in my notes my two favorite exchanges from the section that Heston had also clipped:

Naggy says to Mudrock, "Engine three is acting badly." Mudrock replies, "So?!? Why should engine three be different from anyone else in this movie?!?"

Salt Lake Control says, "Okay, Columbia 904! Hey, Captain, can I ask a question? If we're all in a Universal picture, how come you're a Columbia airliner?" The captain replies, "It's our sneaky way of putting the blame for this bomb on someone else."

The cover of the issue was pure genius. All the major actors in the movie are asleep on one side of the plane, and it looks like Henry Kissinger is in the back row, also asleep. Alfred E. Newman is sitting next to a sleeping Gloria Swanson, very much awake, holding an inflated air sickness bag in one hand, about to pop it with his fist.

Also in Heston's folder was a Spanish lobby card for '75. I'm curious to know where he got that or if it was sent to him, but that'll never be known.

After the Heston papers came set decorator Jack Moore's bound faux leather copy of the Airport script. Airport was his final movie, and this was the first time I saw a script for Airport, important to me because so far I can't find very much about George Seaton and I wanted some insight into him, through his writing.

Moore underlined all the locations of the scenes, needing to know them to get started on thinking of how to decorate the sets, based on what producer Ross Hunter and writer/director George Seaton wanted, and likely contributing his own ideas. For example, Moore's mind is already at work when Bakersfeld is paged for the white phone outside a section of a building at the airport. Moore circled the words "white phone" in the paging line and in the wide margin, wrote "White phone black one?" (No question mark after "phone." Getting the work done matters most.)

By this time, it was a little past 3 p.m., I had gotten to the library a little after 11 a.m., and had my bathroom break at 1 p.m. I was getting sluggish, a little frustrated (Not by the research, but it's that feeling when you've been sitting for hours, staring and concentrating), and I needed a longer break. Before I had signed for the Jack Moore script, I remembered the transcript from the Academy's 2006 screening of Airport as part of its "Great to be Nominated" series, which featured Jacqueline Bisset, Burt Lancaster's widow Susie, and a few other actors from the movie, and that it was one of the reasons I was at the library. I requested it from the woman at the counter at the time, and as I was nearing the end of Heston's script, she came over to me with the request form, making sure she got it right on there (I had her change "1976" to "2006"), and then she went in the back to get it. When I went up to the counter to hand over Jack Moore's script (You can't leave research materials on the table when you're leaving for a break) and have them keep it near my box for me, I saw that the transcript was waiting on the cart. That would come after my break, after I was done with the Jack Moore script.

I took the elevator down to the lobby, saw the security guard at the counter that I talked to briefly when I came in, asked for a locker token, went to my locker and pulled out my bag, putting it on a small table that was filled with ads for the Aero Theatre, which shows classic movies, and pulling out the paper bag with my peanut butter sandwich, bottled water, as well as the McDonald's bag that had the oatmeal in it.

I put the bag back in the locker, put the coin in the slot, closed the locker, turned the key and pulled it out, and heard the coin drop to wherever the coin drops to. Maybe to the bottom in some kind of compartment, maybe to the floor where it's swept out from under there. Most likely an unseen compartment, I think.

I went outside, but the only bench in front of the library was taken, so I sat on a curb in front of a bush and ate. Relief. I felt a lot better. Sandwich gone, oatmeal nearly gone, water three-quarters gone. I watched the security guard run to the FedEx truck parked outside to give a package to the driver.

I went back inside, got another token, put the key in the locker, opened it, and put the paper bag with only my water bottle and the McDonald's bag with the rest of my oatmeal inside the locker, in front of my cloth bag. Put the coin in the slot, closed the locker door, took out the key, coin drop.

I didn't feel like going back upstairs yet, so I went to talk to the security guard for a little while. I told him that I noticed him running to the FedEx truck and he said that while he was at lunch, the security guard manning the desk for him forgot to give a package to the previous FedEx driver that had come by and he didn't want to miss it this time. He told me that he and others call that particular FedEx driver Bitterman because he's bitter about everything. He complains about his job, he complained that there were so many packages at Christmas. The security guard laughed when he got to that part of the story and said to me, "What did he expect?" He then told me that he lives an attitude of gratitude and didn't see what the driver had to complain about. The driver a job, good benefits, good pay, yet he said to him that he's lucky because he gets to sit in air conditioning all day.

As we were talking, a few employees came by to pick up a few of the packages stacked against the wall, making a bit of small talk with the security guard, and then they left. I liked this guy. He was clearly appreciative of what he had, seemed to enjoy his life, and was good-natured. That's everything I like in anyone.

I asked him when his shift was over and he said at 6. I told him I'd be down later before he left for the night and headed back upstairs, back to Jack Moore's copy of the Airport script.

I liked that Seaton's script didn't have overly long character descriptions and motivations and descriptions of various actions, how an actor is supposed to react. He clearly had respect for actors because he gave them just enough of what they should know about a character, presenting it more as guidelines than edicts. That's the impression I got anyway. He seemed to trust the actor to figure out how to play a scene after reading what he described.

The transcript came next and the hits just kept on coming. I filled a few pages with notes, learning a great deal about the 707 cabin and flight deck sets on stage 12 at Universal, exactly what I had hoped to find when I started this project. After that came another script I was anticipating: The first draft of Airport 1976 by H.A.L. Craig, delivered in March 1974, two months before '75 began shooting. Jennings Lang must have been hoping to have another sequel to shoot right after '75 was finished, but this wasn't the one.

The action returned to Lincoln International from Airport, where George Kennedy's Joe Patroni was now the manager after Burt Lancaster's Mel Bakersfeld became head of the FAA. After I read that Patroni was now the manager, I wanted to see how he did in the position. The main plot involved the hijacking of the private 747 of one of the richest men in the world, which is likely why Craig got a "story by" credit for '77. Helen Hayes' Ada Quonsett was in this one too, but admittedly, the new characters were awful, nothing remotely interesting about any of them. It was a 180-page script, and counting each page of at least one minute of screen time, a little unwieldy in light of there being so much clunkiness about, but then Craig may have been operating under executive producer Jennings Lang's idea of having enough written in case this was the script so that an extra hour could be filmed for television broadcast. You see, '75, '77 and '79 each had an extra hour or so of footage filmed in the way of extended scenes or entirely new scenes, all during the same production. Lang sold these versions to networks, which made entire evenings out of them. NBC aired '75 as its "Saturday Night at the Movies" in 1978. In the '90s, TNT took the sequels and aired them as part of a "Super '70s Week." Scenes from '79 that were filmed for that purpose can be found on YouTube, and there's a bit from '77 there too, but that's it. One of the personal mysteries I want to solve is what all the footage is from each sequel. I know nearly nothing of what was filmed for '75's eventual television broadcasts. I know a bit about '77 from what I saw on YouTube (I may have seen all those extra scenes when TNT aired it, but I've long forgotten), and I remember only the alternate Kevin Harrison suicide scene in front of the media in '79 from that TNT broadcast.

I was relieved that Lang decided not to produce Airport 1976. It could have been that he didn't want to bring the movies back to Lincoln International. Maybe he didn't want to go where another producer had been. He wanted to create his own movies. But it's clear that the hijacked 747 angle stuck in his mind, though something different to incapacitate the passengers then some kind of pellets being dropped into the air conditioning system on the plane to apparently knock out the passengers. I get the impression that Lang wanted more detail. And considering that he had gotten the cooperation of the U.S. Air Force for '75, well, why not go bigger? He wouldn't have gotten that with the '76 script. The opening credits for '77 say "Story by H.A.L. Craig and Charles Kuenstle." Now I have to find out who Kunestle is and if he contributed a script too.

After this came correspondence between special effects artist Linwood G. Dunn and various high-ranking members of the Airport production team. Not a whole lot to write down. It took some time to get through Dunn's special effects papers, just skimming mostly since special effects are part of what makes a movie, not the whole thing, so I wasn't going to go that detailed about the special effects, just enough to be well-informed so it reads well in my book.

With the Linwood G. Dunn papers done, I was finished with my box. I had gone through everything and I thought I might not have, considering the folders that kept coming out of there. I got my library card back and went to the right to the scripts desk and requested Airport, '75, '77, '79 and Poseidon from 2006, in the hope that it was a draft that touched upon what I thought the movie should have been, what would have made it a smarter disaster movie.

While the scripts were being retrieved, I took the elevator to the lobby to see the security guard before he left. I thanked him for his kindness and asked for his name for the acknowledgements page. He said I didn't have to do that, but I told him that he did a lot for me (It's especially nice to see someone who's actually living an attitude of gratitude) and wanted to. I also wrote down my name and What If They Lived? so he could look it up on Amazon. And that was it. I thanked him again profusely, we shook hands, and I went back upstairs to the scripts that were waiting for me.

I started with Airport, which was bound in a tan cover with the title printed in black on the spine and was gifted to the library by director of photography Ernest Laszlo. It was the same script I had read as Jack Moore's, but without all the writings. I forgot to mention before that Moore's folder also included long sheets of legal paper with many lists of locations and tasks. I looked at those, but couldn't find much of anything to use.

'75 was the same way. It was the final shooting script dated April 26, 1974, exactly what Heston had, just without lines crossed out, new lines written in, and huge coffee stains. There was nothing in it that I hadn't already seen.

The script for '77 was a "second revised final draft screenplay" dated August 4, 1976. This was one I needed, and I took lots of notes, mostly asking myself if certain scenes had been filmed for TV broadcast and if other ones had been extended scenes that were filmed for broadcast. I intend to find out about all this.

I then went into the '79 script by Eric Roth, which had the alternate titles of Airport '79: The Concorde (Instead of The Concorde: Airport '79), and Airport '79: Supersonic. I like the last one, but Lang was smart, considering that the plane cost Universal $40,000 an hour. For that price, the plane had better be in the title. There was also a page detailing character name changes, such as David Harrison now being Kevin Harrison and Celeste now being Isabelle, Sylvia Kristel's character, and Coach Spassky now being Coach Markov, who was played by Avery Schreiber. I hope to find out from Roth how he was hired for this, how long it took him to write the first draft, and what research he did for it. For example, was it Roth's idea to give Markov a deaf daughter or a suggestion by Lang expanded?

And that was it. My Airport research was over. I filled all but 19 pages of one legal pad, using only the first page of a legal notepad to copy down the names of two people in Special Collections to help me, as well as the name of the security guard so I can put them in my acknowledgements page. I also used only one pencil throughout the entire 8 hours, a Crayola twist pencil. But better to be overprepared for this.

Now it was time for the Poseidon screenplay. I returned '77 and '79 to the scripts desk (I returned Airport and '75 to the desk after I was finished in order to get '77 and '79) and took Poseidon from the person behind the desk.

This was a "Final white draft" dated June 17, 2005, and future revisions were listed with the color pages they would be. A further revision came on June 27, 2005 and was in blue, July 5 in pink, July 25 in yellow, August 11 in green, and September 12 in gold. The page also listed previous revisions that had been done by 10 other screenwriters, with the current script by Mark Protosevich and current revision by Akiva Goldsman. The movie that was barely seen in theaters was exactly that way in the script, but the only consolation was that some of it read better on the page. Maybe because there's more hope on the page before it becomes a movie. After 10 writers taking a crack at it, director Wolfgang Petersen couldn't very well do much else.

I returned Poseidon, got my library card back, turned the photocopying sheet in to the Special Collections desk, paid $5.75 for 10 pages and told the guy at the counter that they should be mailed to me since this was the only time I would be at the library (The only day when the library's open until 8 p.m. and I needed that time cushion, and the only day it was possible after the holidays were over, and Dad's going back to work next week). I asked the guy if I could look around the library and he said yes, and I made sure I got the spelling of his last name correct for my acknowledgements page, collected everything of mine at my table, made sure I had everything, then went to look at the books.

This is paradise for any movie buff. Any book you can imagine about an actor, about a certain genre, about movies from another country (They've got many books on Mexican cinema, for example), about the making of certain movies, about anything you could want to know, they have it. I went into each tight space in awe to look at the shelves around me, to note the books I've read and the books I have here at home. After circling the entire library, I went to the desk near the stairs and asked the woman there if the library would consider stocking my book, and was told I'd have to talk to the person in charge of book acquisitions. I will.

She then took my legal pads and notepads and flipped through them to make sure I wasn't smuggling anything out of the library, saw that everything was clean, and I handed over my library card and got my driver's license back, then went down the stairs. I went to my locker, got out my cloth bag, stuffed the paper bag with my bottled water and the McDonald's bag into the cloth bag, put the pencils and technical eraser into the black-and-purple zippered pouch and zipped it back up, made sure I had everything and left that little room. I said good night to the new security guard on duty, went outside to the bench near the driveway where Mom, Dad and Meridith had dropped me off, and sat down to wait for them to come from Universal CityWalk, where they had been all day, and had gotten me a magnet that said "Turn off the TV and read a book. Think outside the box," and a laminated card that said "Bowler's License," with the stats and photo being that of The Dude from The Big Lebowski. I spoke to them before I put my cell phone in the locker and outside before I ate.

From that bench, I watched a soccer game going on at the park, joggers, a guy walking his dog, and enjoyed that peace. My research ultimately doesn't matter on this planet. I don't mean it in a low self-esteem kind of way. I'm fine and well-adjusted on that end. I just mean that there I was on that bench, the traffic was passing by, and only my parents and Meridith knew that I had been reading Charlton Heston's copy of the '75 script, learning more than I had ever expected to find about the Airport series, being introduced to new paths to take with my book, getting even more excited about the great possibilities ahead for what I'm doing with this book. The world keeps going on. It doesn't stop for every parade. And I like it that way. My research at the Margaret Herrick Library ended quietly, and I like quiet. I'd rather it be this way, enough quiet to do what I want. I don't need hype. I believe it's overused for many things. If you believe your work is worth something, can be beneficial to some audience, then just do the work. Have something tangible to present to the world. Don't be like those people who audition on American Idol saying that they're the best that anyone will ever know and then they begin to sing and you wish they had decided to go to work that day or do anything else but sing.

All I will say here at the end of this entry is that this research day has pushed me into being serious about this project. I was in a preliminary stage before this, buying books I needed of actors who were in these movies, buying making-of books like one about The Wizard of Oz and another about Blade Runner for guidance and inspiration, and I knew that I wanted to do this, but to what extent? Now I know. I'm going all the way on this. Finding a publisher, writing book proposals, and pitching this book to publishers and agents is all on me now. Only me. I will do it. I want people to read my book when the time comes. When I'm finished writing it, or at least the first two chapters since a lot of publishers seem to prefer that when considering manuscripts, the first draft will be for me. The second, third, fourth and whatever drafts will gradually be for potential readers. I will do my best to make this project what I want it to be, what I hope to gain from it, namely, in a way, getting the audio commentaries I never got from the DVD set. I will only be satisfied once I know as much as possible about the Airport movies, which I prefer to be everything there is to know, but we'll see how this plays out. I'm very happy to be doing this. Most importantly, I'm having so much fun doing it.

(Yet another thing I forgot to mention: The Special Collections area with the tables reserved only for Special Collections researchers is called the Katharine Hepburn Reading Room and has a blown-up photo of Hepburn in one corner of the room. Also in this room, behind glass and under glass was an exhibit about the public reception Hitchcock's Psycho received, with articles and letters and photos. The many bookcases and long tables across from the Katharine Hepburn Reading Room is the Cecil B. DeMille Reading Room.)

Thank Goodness for Julie Hyzy

2012-01-09T00:33:00.000-08:00

Before I get to what this is all about, I just discovered that my workload on Tuesday at the Margaret Herrick Library has increased considerably, though I'm not complaining because there could be even more treasure to unearth.

I searched the library catalog again for the scripts of the movies I'm writing about, to check the date on one of them, and left the search terms at "keyword," rather than "exact beginning of title." I found the listing of that particular script, but further down that page, I saw the listing of the papers of a man who was an art director on one of the sequels, and then the production designer of the following sequel. According to the listing, there's "eight production design drawings," (and I've got to see if any of them are related to my movies), as well as an album assembled by this man and his wife of their careers in Hollywood.

Below that listing was one for the papers of a man who was a set decorator on the first movie I'm writing about, which turns out to have been his last movie. His papers include the script of that first movie and I want to see if there's any notations by him on it, perhaps any insight into his thinking during production, maybe even communication with the writer/director of the film, of whom I can't find much, at least not yet, so I'm relying on other sources to hopefully give me something about him.

Each listing says that these papers are "Available by appointment only," so I'm going to call the library later today and make an appointment. I'll be at the library for hours anyway, more than I thought now with these papers potentially available to me.

Ahead of this important research visit (I'm still stunned that I'm allowed to do this), I began reading the novel that the first movie is based on. I started yesterday afternoon, but by page 136, I'd had it. I know I have to keep reading to get a good grasp on this since I haven't read it in many years, and I respect the author because his insights into various institutions are generally unmatched, but he dumps all his research into his novels, and character descriptions go far beyond what's necessary in the service of the story. There were instances where 20-30 pages passed before getting back to other characters, most of those pages taken up by explanations. The author doesn't think his readers are morons, far from it. He wants them to know what he knows, what they might not know and might be interested in. But there are so many times in this novel that I want him to get on with it already.

I couldn't take this cement block of a novel anymore and went looking for something else to read. I needed a break from the world of my second book, and in one stack near my bed, I found State of the Onion by Julie Hyzy, billed on the paperback cover as "First in the new White House Chef Mystery series." I've been looking for a series I could get into, because I want characters I can go back to often, for as long as an author writes them. I'm trying the Nero Wolfe series again because though I was bored by the mysteries themselves, I liked Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. I liked Wolfe's schedule of life, and I liked the rapport he and Archie have. I have the first two novels in a stack somewhere in my room, but I know where they are when I'm ready.

I also want a series of some kind that I can relate to. I still have the latter two novels of Ridley Pearson's Kingdom Keepers series to read, and that may become automatic because it revolves around the Disney empire. With State of the Onion, I would have a fictional White House to read about (For me, fictional presidencies count, as The West Wing is my favorite show of all time), and maybe whatever mystery is involved would be more interesting because it would be happening in the White House.

Thank goodness for Julie Hyzy! She cured me of nearly-punishing boredom and gave me much happiness in reading about this White House. Hyzy has clearly done a lot of research, and she threads it throughout her story; she doesn't dump all of it in one place. I like novelists who remember that they're writing a novel. Olivia "Ollie" Paras, the White House Assistant Chef, is most enjoyable to know. At the beginning, she carries no baggage and is not a detective in any way. She gets caught in the middle of a major security breach on the grounds of the White House and begins to think that something's not quite right about it after footage on the news is different from what she saw. She digs from there.

Hyzy also fully draws the rest of the kitchen staff, including retiring White House Executive Chef Henry Cooley, and even those characters who are assholes as soon as they walk in, namely Peter Everett Sargent III, head of the White House's Etiquette Affairs department (He prefers "Sensitivity Director"), are fun to hiss at and hope for a swift-enough demise. Hyzy does that very well because you can't be angry at them for too long. There's so much else going on. Hyzy also makes the fictional names of Middle Eastern countries seem plausible. It's not like Hollywood Novelist Syndrome where the names of big stars in that universe seem so far-fetched, even though it's all fiction.

It's rare lately that I read a 301-page novel in one sitting, but this was that novel. And I've already ordered the second novel in Hyzy's series. It makes going back to the novel for my research easier to bear. I've got strength again because of Hyzy.

Hollywood History on Tuesday

2012-01-07T22:10:00.000-08:00

When I began research for What If They Lived?, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe intimidated me. They were, and still are, legends, and how could I write about them when so much had been written about them already? So many biographies, so many essays, so many analyses of careers abruptly ended. What could I bring that hadn't been brought before?

As I read some of those biographies from beginnings to unfortunate endings, I looked around, and I was the only one reading whichever biography was in front of me. I was the only one figuring out how to shape my essay. I was the only one in that room learning more than just the tidbits that made them famous, a glimpse into who they actually were at times, the humans they were. It made it much easier because I wasn't looking to compete against anyone to be the King of All Knowledge of Hollywood Gods and Goddesses. These two were among 18 essays I had to write, and I couldn't worry about how I would be received among those who know so much about Dean and Monroe.

That experience makes research for my second book much easier. I know that the first movie I'm going to write about created a major trend in Hollywood. Yes, this was the one that started it all. But I'm not going to worry about how my writing might be perceived by film historians who perhaps have delved far deeper into this particular decade than I ever have and ever will. For one thing, these movies are generally forgotten against what came after them (and in one instance, what came before the three sequels) and what is offered in theaters today. I have as much room to maneuver as I want. I'm sure there are ideas for my book that I haven't even thought of yet, but which may reveal themselves as I keep reading, keep watching those movies, and outline the chapters.

I've been thinking about this because of my current workload: I have one more movie to watch and take notes on, forming questions to ask those who I find for interviews, and I think there will be a lot of people, based on my notes for the three previous movies, and the beginning and end credits for these movies, names that go far beyond "Director," "Screenwriter," and "Starring." I still have to re-read the novel on which the first movie is based. I read it many years ago, but want to again to get a good grasp on the material, and I have a major reason for doing so.

On Tuesday, I will be embarking on what I never imagined in all my years of writing movie reviews, in the eight years I've lived in Southern California. This feels like the pinnacle of my love for movies, like it's one of the reasons I wrote all those reviews, and my first book. It's not all downhill from there, but besides the interviews I'm hoping for, it's going to be damn hard to top this.

I will be visiting the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills. They have scripts for all four of the movies I will be writing about, and they could very well have been used during production. I will be holding history that means so much to me. And that I've gone from watching these movies many, many times on videotape to watching them on DVD to holding these scripts come Tuesday is stunning. It'll prepare me if I get the interviews I want, to be stunned for a bit and then get right to it. Right now, I can be stunned for longer than that because Tuesday is the only day the library is open until 8 p.m. I'll be there quite early in the day (It opens at 10 a.m.), and I don't necessarily need all that time, but I do need a cushion of time because you're only allowed paper (notepads and notebooks count as that too) and pencil (Pens can leak, and there's movie history in that building!), and not only have I not used pencils in years, but my handwriting is still crap, which is why tonight, when I watch the final movie in the series and take notes, I'm going to write more carefully. Same goes when I re-read the novel tomorrow and take notes.

The library also has a transcript from a screening of the first movie that the Academy held in 2006 with actors from it. I hope to find treasure in those pages. And the scripts were written not just with theatrical exhibition in mind, but also television broadcast, because there was an hour or so of extra footage filmed for each of the three sequels that was for TV only. That footage has never been released on DVD. The executive in charge of the sequels was well-versed in television, so he knew how to get even more value out of these movies.

I'm writing this book for myself first. I want to know how various scenes were staged. I want to know how various actors coped with some of those scenes. I want to know the technical details because a lot of them are really a sight to see onscreen.

After I've found all that out and wrote down everything that I've found, then I'll edit for readability. A first draft is for me. A second, third, fourth, whatever, and final draft is gradually for readers.

I'm no different from any other author: I want my books to sell well. I'd like to make some money off of my writing. But I love that on Tuesday, I will be at the Margaret Herrick Library, holding history in my hands, both Hollywood and personal. I didn't start writing when I was 11 because of the thought of great gobs of greenbacks. I started writing because of that kind of experience. You can't get it any other way. It's the reason I still write.

Walgreens Movies

2012-01-05T22:52:00.001-08:00

I keep up on pop culture, music, movies, TV, the latest best-selling book, but I'm slow to get to them. You won't find me waiting hours and days in line for one movie, nor dressing up and going to various geek conventions (though I have a yen to go to one, if there is one in Las Vegas, to see what it's all about), nor waiting until midnight to be one of the first to get a copy of an ultra best-selling book. Meridith did that once with Dad for one of the Harry Potter books, but for her, like me with conventions, she just wanted to see what it was like, and experience it once. She just went that one time, never again to the ones that followed.

But I am curious about pop culture when it stops being in the zeitgeist. I don't wait purposely until a book or a movie is out of favor, just that when it's popular, I'm usually always busy with other books and movies. For example, I knew nothing of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close when it was published, and I plan to read it soon, not because of the movie, but because I finished Greyhound, about an 11-year-old boy traveling alone cross-country, and I was curious to see what the kid is like in Jonathan Safran Foer's novel. I've also got Unstrung Heroes, Franz Lidz's memoir about being influenced by two eccentric uncles while growing up, and I sought that out because I love the movie that stars John Turturro, Andie MacDowell, and Maury Chaykin, one of my favorite actors. It's in my DVD collection. I especially love, and get a little teary at, the scene in which Uncle Arthur (Chaykin) explains to Steven (Nathan Watt) why he collects balls that children have lost: "You know how seashells hold the sounds of the ocean? I think balls hold the sounds of the children who bounce them." I never thought of it like that, but I do think like that about a lot of things in life.

On Tuesday, Mom and Dad had a late-afternoon doctor's appointment, which meant eventually knowing exactly what shade of white the waiting room walls were, while enduring another crappy movie on the TV, which this time was the remake of The Karate Kid, starring the son of stage mother Will Smith.

Then after the appointment, having finished reading Fool Me Once by Rick Lax (I started reading it that morning), we went for wings at Wing Stop (Their Louisiana Rub flavor is quite possibly the best flavor they've ever had), and then to Walgreens to pick up Mom's prescription.

We really only go to Walgreens if a prescription is needed or if Mom finds something she needs at a lower price there, such as lipstick or something for the bathroom. I like it because they sell DVDs for cheap, from $3.99-$5.99. They remodeled the Walgreens near us, putting the books and magazines against a wall near the register, and moving the DVDs for sale into a smaller plastic square display in the aisle where seasonal and discounted items are sold.

Most of what they offer I either already have, such as Swing Vote, or don't want, which is most of what they have. I don't fall into the hype trap that so thoroughly dominates mainstream entertainment because I like to discover books and movies on my own terms. I'd probably make a crappy book publisher for that reason, which is why it's better that I write.

I found two movies in that collection, one that I immediately snapped up: Talk Radio, starring and co-written by Eric Bogosian, and directed by Oliver Stone. I've always liked Eric Bogosian as a stage performer. I wish his novels had the same impressive power his stage shows do. His novel Mall was populated with characters whose personalities were too thin, and when I heard that a movie was going to be made of it, starring Vincent D'Onofrio, Chelsea Handler, and Bogosian, I immediately hoped that it will be better than the book.

I'd seen Talk Radio many years ago, and loved how deep Bogosian got into this manic talk radio host. This had to go into my DVD collection.

Then I found an unusual-looking DVD case, because of its cast: Henry Winkler, Sally Field, and Harrison Ford. It was called Heroes, from 1977, and according to the back copy, Winkler is a Vietnam vet who travels cross-country to open a worm farm, and Field is a woman he meets on the way, with Ford playing Winkler's army buddy. This used to be the kind of movie I'd look up on the Internet Movie Database to see who else was in it and what the general reception was toward it, but no. I want to find out fully on my own how it is. The screenwriter, James Carabatsos, is a Vietnam vet, and this was his first screenplay. He later wrote Heartbreak Ridge for Clint Eastwood, and Hamburger Hill. Points so far for credibility with Winkler's Vietnam vet character.

Jaws began to rapidly change movie marketing when it was released, and I'm sure it went full tilt when Star Wars was released in the same year as Heroes, so this could very well be one of the last small movies that Hollywood was willing to take a chance on. I guess they were less risky back then, but then, the '70s were a time when Hollywood was willing to be bold.

I haven't watched Heroes yet, but I think what made me buy it just to see it was that Winkler's character goes cross-country. I like those kinds of stories, people searching for something in life, or forced by circumstances to go on the road. It may well be a cliche of sorts in movies, but it endures because humanity wonders what it must be like to be somewhere else. Heck, I've been thinking about that for eight years. It also endures because the world is so incredibly vast, moreso than any movie can show. The road leading out of Baker, straight into the Mojave to Las Vegas, is stunning every single time because there's so much desert. It stretches so far in opposite directions. It's a creative wonderland for me because I think anything can exist in the desert. Riverboats too, like the casino we saw once on the way into Vegas that was designed as a riverboat, that was closed and boarded up, and the next time we drove into Las Vegas, the riverboat was torn down, gone. The reality of the riverboat being gone was obvious, but a riverboat seemingly disappearing into the desert like that is pure poetry to me.

Going back to the beginning of this entry, it's like science fiction for me. I'm becoming more interested in it, but I'm moving slowly, seeing what fits me, what worlds, what writers, what movies. Blade Runner has been one of my favorite movies for many years, long before I became interested in science fiction (It must have set something in my mind). I liked Tron: Legacy when I first saw it, and became a huge fan of it when I saw it again on DVD, to the extent that I own a diecast model of the Recognizer. From this, perhaps I'm interested in dystopian science fiction.

I've seen a few episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and while it's not likely that I'll become a Trekkie (or Trekker or whatever the hell isn't considered offensive to devoted Star Trek fans), I liked the vast imagination I felt from it, all those universes out there to explore. I'm not sure yet if spaceships beyond the Enterprise would interest me, but I'll eventually find out.

Time moves fast enough, and I like to wander slowly, never rushing for anything I'm told I should see, never rushing because millions of others are. I'll get there. I like to think that when I do, there'll be more room for me to wander.

Tidbits from the Second Issue of The Henderson Press

2012-01-04T22:17:00.000-08:00

It's not enough for me to simply keep on hoping that we soon become residents of Henderson, or, rather, as quick as possible. I'm not any more connected to Las Vegas or Henderson like I want to be. So I've begun pulling books from my Las Vegas stack, reading Fool Me Once by Rick Lax, which I read in one day yesterday, and starting today on Super Casino: Inside the "New" Las Vegas by Pete Earley, published in 2000. The year never matters to me because I want to study every decade of Las Vegas, including before it was the Las Vegas we know.

That covers Las Vegas, but what about Henderson? I've drooled over our future apartment, fondly remembered buying that toy flour truck at Smith's in Henderson, and marveled at how much there is near the apartment to explore. I need to strengthen that connection I feel with Henderson. Last October, I wrote an entry about what I had learned from the first issue of The Henderson Press, dated September 23, 2010, but hadn't written about any more issues. That changes now, because while I still wait, I want to not only know more about my future hometown, but to feel even more for it, more excitement, more pleasure that will undoubtedly multiply once I'm there. It's not a matter of eight years in the Santa Clarita Valley making me want anywhere but here. I've been to Henderson before and I love what I saw. I know that I could easily be part of it, finally part of a community in many facets.

From the second issue, which spans October 22 to November 11, 2010 (They were not yet a weekly paper), I've learned:

- There was a dance troupe from the Las Vegas Indian Center called the Red Hand Dance Troupe that performed at the dedication ceremony for the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge which is perched over Hoover Dam. An Indian center seems to me to be further proof that Las Vegas is open to anyone, a great change from the shameful racism in the city in the 1950s.

- The article about the ceremony notes that it was private, with only the O'Callaghan and two Tillman family members and those who worked on the bridge attending, and "a public event was held two days later with nearly 20,000 well-wishers attending." That would have made quite an article. Report what happened, get some quotes from Nevada and Arizona residents, and tourists, and get a sense of the atmosphere of that event as well. But with this being the second issue, I suppose space was at a premium.

- There's a Clark County Museum on South Boulder Highway, which is all about the history of Southern Nevada. Googling it to find out more, I saw a listing for the Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum at McCarran International Airport, at 5757 Wayne Newton Boulevard. History never fades here, it seems, and I'm finding more and more to do in Southern Nevada!

- An arson fire caused $300,000 worth of damage to a two-story, five-bedroom, 3-and-1/2 bath house, and even with how short this story is, it's apparent that the reporters care about the stories they write. There are more details in this one story than most that I find in The Signal, which may not be a fair comparison considering how much more Henderson has than the entire Santa Clarita Valley, but if you like where you live, then you care about what goes on in your city and in writing about it too.

- Skyline Restaurant & Casino on North Boulder Highway, offers, at least at the time of this issue, live entertainment every Tuesday through Sunday evening, with Vic Saladino performing in the evenings, and The Dummkopfs performing Thursday and Sunday afternoons. My friend Google tells me that Vic Saladino is a blues musician and The Dummkopfs are a comedy band. I think I'll check out the entertainment there. I want to see what every casino in Henderson offers.

- In the corrections box on page 3 is this: "The Henderson Press corrects its mistakes. Please bring any errors to the attention of Jeannette Carrillo, editor." "Mistakes," "errors," that's fine, but I hope they don't go full force on a thesaurus like that for any same-meaning words that fall close together.

- Also, this issue is "No. 1, Vol. 2."

- Shell has a lube center and car wash on South Boulder Highway at Palo Verde Dr., south of Smith's. It already feels easy to find decent food in Henderson, and it's nice to know that there are more gas stations there than there are here.

- In its efforts to be environmentally friendly, the City of Henderson, according to reporter Jeremy Twitchell (so far my favorite Henderson Press reporter), "is replacing 28,000 street lights with energy-efficient induction lights that are projected to save more than $15 million in energy and maintenance costs over their life." This is the first time I've ever been interested in street lights beyond artistic effect, but then, anything under Henderson jurisdiction has my interest.

- There's a shop called Henderson Hobbies on Water St. I e-mailed the owner, asking about diecast cars and trucks. Even though I'm not there, I want to map out what's available because I plan to buy less online and more in-store to support my town's economy. (At 11:45 p.m.: The e-mail address bounced, which likely means that Henderson Hobbies went out of business.)

- An 11-year-old named Samanatha Chang came up with the winning name for the 6-foot-tall puppy statue at Heritage Bark Park: Barkules (pronounced like "Hercules"). This paragraph was most impressive to me: "Parks Superintendent Doug Guild presented Chang with a certificate of achievement, as well as a prize package. Prizes were co-sponsored by the Galleria at Sunset, Levi Strauss, Tracey Ford Perry Photography, Madame Tussaud's Las Vegas and Rave Motion Pictures.

Galleria at Sunset is the main mall in Henderson, so there was likely a gift certificate for the mall. Levi Strauss, probably jeans were involved. Tracey Ford Perry Photography is billed as "Fine Art Portraits," so undoubtedly a free session. I highly respect how Madame Tussaud's reaches back to Henderson, never forgetting about those who live in the area. And Rave Motion Pictures is a theater chain that has one location in Las Vegas, the Town Square 18 on Las Vegas Boulevard South. Free tickets, I'm sure.

- Downtown Sewing Machine Co., offering sewing machine sales and repairs, at 155 Water Street, Suite 130. You'd never hear about sewing machines here. To me, that's a further sign that Henderson is filled with regular people, with little shallowness. I hope so anyway.

- At Prestige Assisted Living, Henderson City Councilwoman Gerri Schroeder presented a certificate of Congressional Recognition to Sophie Maselko Sojka, who turned 100. In the Santa Clarita Valley, age is to be feared. In Henderson, it's a natural part of life.

- I spotted another ad for Coo Coo's Cafe - "Home of the Funky Monkey Frappe." Instead of waiting until I'm there to find out what's in it, I found the website and the menu. It's a "blended mocha frappe with a whole banana added." I'd try it, but I'd first dive for the "3 Cheese Omelet Quesadilla," which is made with two jumbo eggs, swiss, cheddar and provolone cheeses, and served with salsa, sour cream, and a fruit cup. Sure, it's not enough that our new apartment complex will make me feel like I'm truly home, but this place just has to serve a quesadilla that I'm now craving. I love having such issues.

- The electricity bill at the Lexus of Las Vegas dealership on West Sahara Avenue is $30,000 a month. I always wonder about those bills for casinos.

- Another full-page ad for Johnny Mac's Restaurant & Bar, in business for 28 years, which boasts "the best wings and pizza in town." Meridith's set on trying the wings. I think we all are, since we'll be trying everything in the years to come.

- There's a Hawaiian food truck called Island Breeze. They do events, and they also park outside Island Sushi and Grill on South Eastern Avenue, which supports the business. I'll be there and I'll try Hawaiian tacos.

- There's an Outdoor Picture Show at The Green in The District at Green Valley Ranch (long names, but worth it), which offers free popcorn and Monsters, Inc. on October 29, and Alice in Wonderland on October 30 (It doesn't say which version). It's still going on, and this most recent October they had The Incredibles, Ghostbusters II, and Casper, among other movies. I want to go to at least once next year.

- I know this is a Henderson newspaper, so this is to be expected, but it's nice to see a quarter-page ad from Henderson Libraries with the heading "Your All-Access Pass," touting the library card. There's six locations, including a cubbyhole at the Galleria at Sunset mall, which I will happily hang out at whenever we're there, though not as much as I did at the Valencia library because this is my home mall, so I'll always walk around, enjoying all of it.

- There's two full pages of coupons. Downtown Sewing Machine Co. offers a $10 gift certificate, Skyline Casino is pushing an $8.95 all-you-can-eat large fried shrimp special, the late Henderson Hobbies is giving 10% off all model rockets, and Johnny Mac's has one for $10 for a large one-topping pizza.

- Thinking about needing a car when I get to Henderson, I looked at the nearly full-page car listings and no one at that time is selling a Toyota Corolla. I want one because it's the most comfortable car I've ever been in. The prices on these listings also severely cooled my book-buying habit. I'll have libraries again in Las Vegas and Henderson anyway, but I've got to cut it if I happen to find a reliable-enough vehicle for $4,000-$6,000. Stop laughing. I'm still naive, but I'm learning.

- It's fun looking at the real estate ads because I don't have to think about any of these. We've got that apartment in Henderson, and don't have to worry about any of the costs that would be incurred with these houses. I will pay my share of the rent there, of course, and I'm thinking that when I do move out, I'll seek an apartment, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the same complex, considering that they've got a basketball court and a gym there and the grounds seem very well-maintained from what Mom and Dad have told Meridith and I.

End of the second issue, and that felt really good. I've Tivo'd The Good Wife over the final three weeks before holiday reruns, but haven't watched them yet because my research and my books always get in the way, save for Jeopardy!, The Big Bang Theory and returning interests in The Simpsons and Family Guy, which is when they step aside. They'll also step aside for this, reading all these back issues of The Henderson Press. This I can keep up on much more easily than The Good Wife.

The Target, Kmart Super Center, and Albertsons Score

2012-01-03T22:46:00.000-08:00

On New Year's Eve, Mom's birthday, at Pacific View Mall in Ventura, we turned toward Target after leaving Calendar Club, where Mom had been looking at page-a-day calendars, looking for a new one since Wonderword wasn't published as one for the new year.

I wanted Target because this wasn't the one in Valencia, nor the one in Golden Valley that I still haven't been to to see what Matchbox cars they have there. This was also a Target fitted to the mall, with two levels, with us entering the second level which had electronics and the toy aisles.

I fairly breezed to the toy aisles, finding where the Matchbox cars were, and a lot of what I already had. I didn't need the desert vehicles, I didn't need an ambulance, I didn't need a police car, because the former was a different from what I wanted and the latter two are fairly typical of any city. But I did find a green Matchbox flatbed dump truck, which is what I count as a working vehicle because it can be driven distances, unlike a tractor or a backhoe, as I mentioned in yesterday's entry. Plus, the orange flatbed lifts up to its highest angle toward the back. I still marvel at that only being $1.09.

Yesterday, on the way back to Pacific View Mall for Mom to pick up a calendar she wanted at Calendar Club, we stopped at Kmart Super Center because Mom wanted to try the Pepsi Icee that Kmarts seem to have. By now, you can tell what I was thinking when we parked in that Kmart lot.

I went to the toy aisles, and saw a "Camping Adventure" five-pack that had a camper transport vehicle, but not enough true working vehicles. I couldn't get used to them. At the same time I found that, I also found a gray "Quick Steam Cleaners" van, with the slogan, "Call the Professionals First!" I could imagine the equipment in the back of this van, and so it was mine.

There was also a clearance section in one toy aisle with bins you could dig through for toys at 50% off. There were a few Tron: Legacy figures, and I remembered going to Big Lots the day before and seeing many of them, turning one to the back and finding that a figure had apparently been made of Castor, Michael Sheen's delightfully charismatic club owner and one of my favorite characters in all of movie history. Researching online, I learned that either the figure was rare or had never been made. My theory is that the first wave of Tron: Legacy toys came out before the movie's release, and then when it didn't do as well as Disney hoped, there were no more toys made, with Castor being the second wave if the movie had been more successful according to Disney's standards, which were understandable with an estimated $170 million dollar budget, and a $172 million dollar gross in the United States, though it did make $400 million worldwide. But I would have loved to have that Castor figure, though I guess I'll settle for the film strip bookmark I have with Castor on it from a seller that used to reside on Etsy, but now sells her bookmarks on Artfire. I use that bookmark now for all the Las Vegas books that I'm reading one after the other in anticipation of always-hedonistic days ahead.

Even knowing about the fate of the Castor figure, I still looked through what Kmart had and found nothing of Castor. In one of the bins, though, I found a diecast model of the Recognizer, those flying upside-down wide U-shaped machines that hunt and capture rogue programs in Tron City. The yellow tag on the packaging said "Reduced - $2.00." I got it for $1 (50% off, remember), and with the Matchbox steam cleaning service van, the total was $2 and minor change. Can't beat that for a collection. I'm thinking of keeping the Recognizer in front of me when I'm researching and writing because though the machine is used for malevolent purposes, I'm hunting for what I want to profile in my next book and just like the Recognizer brings the rogue programs on board, I'm bringing all that I learned into my mind and into notes, swirling it around, looking for the combination that works for me. I've got the skeleton of the book down, but now need to make a proper outline to figure out the path for each chapter. To me, the Recognizer is a reminder of tenacity, of unceasingly working to get what you want. I can't do "unceasingly," since I need some time for other things, my working vehicles collection notwithstanding, but I embrace the same spirit for better purposes.

The end of our hours of errands brought us to Albertsons after dinner at nearby Chronic Taco, where I had the breakfast quesadilla with chorizo that I had been craving for a week and a half after having it for the first time two weeks prior. They serve it all day and it's worth it at any hour of the day. At Albertsons, since this wasn't the usual Albertsons we go to, I went right to the toy aisle and found resounding success. At the other Albertsons, there was a five-pack of vehicles belonging to a car repair shop, including a white tow truck, and two regular trucks that I didn't want. The set was $7 and change, and I didn't want to pay for two vehicles I didn't want. That same day, before this Albertsons, Mom said I could buy the pack and donate the two trucks to Goodwill. Leave it to mothers to instantly find the logic that didn't seem so obvious at the time, particularly since I donate a lot of books, some that I had just bought but had read them and determined that they wouldn't be part of my permanent collection. In this Albertsons toy aisle, I found a "Service Center No. 12" pack with a black tow truck with a blue hook, far cooler than that white tow truck I thought I wanted so badly.

There's also a tan "Service Center" truck with a hitch in the back, a blue "30 Minutes or Less Tune Up Service" truck, a green "EcoFuel Intl." tank truck with a black tank, and a nacho cheese-yellow "JC Body & Paint" van saying, "We take any make or model" under the logo.

None of these five vehicles will go to Goodwill. I paid $7 and change and got exactly what I wanted and more. I'm deeply satisfied with every single vehicle I have, and can admire them, play with them, and enjoy them, thinking no further of expanding my collection until we move, and that includes big rigs and Hess trucks that I had when I was little that I want to have again. If there happens to be another working vehicle I find before we move that I really want, of course I'll snap it up, but I don't have that electric desire for any other working vehicle like I did for the tow truck.

I love that what I did as a kid never faded, just waited patiently in the background. To think it all started again with that flour truck I bought at Smith's in Henderson.

Day 6 of a Four-Week Pleasure Cruise

2012-01-02T22:43:00.000-08:00

We four are standing on a section of sidewalk overlooking part of Ventura Harbor, in front of a large fishing boat that's firmly anchored, yet slowly drifts to the dock and away from it repeatedly. I've got a butter pecan ice cream malt, and Meridith's got a cotton candy/bubble gum ice cream malt (which turns purple, her favorite color, when both flavors are combined), both from Coastal Cone nearby. We're right near the Fisherman's Memorial, which faces the parking lot that's adjacent to Andria's Seafood Restaurant, which was prohibitively expensive for us this time. It's the afternoon of New Year's Eve, also Mom's birthday. Being at Ventura Harbor Village used to feel vivid, exciting in parts, with much to look at in all the shops. It doesn't anymore.

Before this point, we went to Pacific View Mall, which Mom wanted to go to as a farewell before we finally left the Santa Clarita Valley for good (It'll happen soon enough, I hope), and she wanted to see what calendars the Calendar Club store had. I like that mall because most importantly, it's not Valencia Town Center, where you can walk around but feel throughout that you can't touch much, unlike Galleria at Sunset in Henderson where you can go anywhere in that mall and feel like it's yours to explore. Pacific View Mall actually feels like a mall, not just a collection of stores separated by escalators. There's Sears, Macy's, JCPenney and Target as anchors. The second floor is wall-to-wall carpeting. It's not a mall for me to embrace because outside of the Santa Clarita Valley, I always feel like a tourist wherever we go. California has that gift, good or bad.

At Target, I found a Matchbox flatbed dump truck, which I snapped up for my working vehicles collection. That's as far as I go with construction vehicles. Bulldozers, mixers, backhoes and others do a lot of work, but generally in one place. A dump truck has to get from one place to another. You can't drive a backhoe down the 405.

After that was Super Panda Buffet at the corner of the mall property. We've been to it before, and Mom decided to go there because Andria's was far too expensive and at least here, the price for all four for us was a lot more than what we could have gotten at Andria's for the same price. Plus, we could all find something we liked there, and we did, save for the hard-boiled egg I had at the end which was in the fridge in its shell for too long, with a gray color around it.

Back at that section of the harbor, after air hockey with Meridith, two games of Galaga, and two games of Cruis'n USA (I wish it had been Cruis'n Exotica, like at the roller skating rink in Ventura the year before last, because I liked rolling under that landing 747 at that Hong Kong airport), I thought about the entire day, had liked what we did, but it didn't feel like it used to. And I realized what was missing.

The many times before that we were at Ventura Harbor Village, there wasn't as much hope as there is now in moving out of Southern California. So being there, being somewhere completely different from where we exist ("Live" is a word that should be used when you're happy with where you are), we threw ourselves into the experience, which wasn't hard. This time, the pleasure was muted, because we know better things are coming in our lives.

Even so, it's places like Ventura Harbor Village that saved me from feeling insane from where I exist. It's true that in order to do anything interesting in the Santa Clarita Valley, you have to leave. Thank goodness for those options.

Real Reinvention

2012-01-02T01:11:00.000-08:00

(I was going to write about my mom's birthday last Friday, which became day 6 of a four-week pleasure cruise, but this comes first.)

On the cover of Fool Me Once: Hustlers, Hookers, Headliners, and How Not to Get Screwed in Vegas by Las Vegas Weekly staff writer Rick Lax, a man looks at a smiling woman standing on a corner of Fremont Street against a brightly-lit casino background, white lights almost blinding. Is the woman smiling at him because she's genuinely interested, or is she thinking of more sinister plans? Is he dazzled by her only or do the lights behind her and the atmosphere around them make him interested and he'll find out that he was only interested in her in that setting?

Las Vegas is full of fantasy of all kinds available to everyone. You can find your pleasure here. But as you either go to Vegas more and more, or you become a resident, the fantasy begins to peel back. You come to a point where you have to separate fantasy from reality. There is reality in Las Vegas, but it's more a matter of adjusting what's to your taste. For example, I love Carnival World Buffet at Rio. I always look around in happy shock, wondering if I died and it's my first day in Heaven. But I can't go there all the time. I'd be right back to what I weighed in 2010 and then about 215% more than that (Outrageous estimates are made up by a professional, so please remember to always estimate with caution).

For people who move to the Las Vegas area, such as yours truly soon enough, you can reinvent yourself. You can keep only what's important to you from past experiences, what will truly benefit you in your new life, and then dump the rest. No one knows who you have been. You're free of what you once were, of insecurities you might have had, of what has bothered you, which, for me, is the Santa Clarita Valley.

For the past few months, as Dad has applied for many jobs in Las Vegas, I've enthusiastically told Meridith over and over that you can reinvent yourself in Vegas. We have so many chances to do what we want. But I didn't listen to myself. I thought being a middle school campus supervisor while reading and writing on the side would be enough.

Dad had a very successful phone interview on Friday for a job that has three positions available, and he was only one of three people interviewed. There's a very good chance that this job, which he'd really like to do, could be our supersonic ticket out of here.

This job combines Dad's decades of experience in teaching and working for Southern Bell/BellSouth. He'll be doing exactly what he wants, and he'll be a lot happier. What about me? A campus supervisor? Is reading and writing after work and on weekends and teacher workdays and holidays enough? No.

If Dad can find the job that completely suits him, so can I. I don't want my reading and writing to be shunted to the side. I want it to be the center of my life every day. I'm not going to get that by being a campus supervisor. It's still an option, as I'm keeping all my options open, but it's not my main hope anymore.

I've decided that I want to be a copywriter or a content developer, and I started by applying to be a content developer for Vegas.com. The company matches my love for Las Vegas and their offices are close to our new apartment in Henderson. I read the requirements, and I fit all of them. I have the experience, the computer knowledge, and I know I can do everything they want. They can ask for copy in any style they want and I will work promptly and diligently to match it. Most of all, I want to explore every inch of Las Vegas once I'm a resident and this is one of the best ways to do it.

This is the year to challenge myself and go for what I really want to do, not what I think I should do so I have a chance to do what I want to do. This will keep my writing the center of my life, and make it stronger because of it.

I wrote movie reviews for 11 years, I worked in two newsrooms, and I know Internet media. I'm a little nervous, but I'm ready. Let's do this.

Three More Working Vehicles

2011-12-30T22:44:00.001-08:00

I thought I'd wait until we were residents of Henderson to expand my toy working vehicles collection. I was wrong.

Target was the first errand for Dad, Meridith and I, with Sprouts and Pavilions afterward, and we were there because Dad needed Imodium A-D or something like it. "Something like it" won out because it was cheaper than the brand.

We were at the register, Dad paid, and as he was leaving, I realized that I forgot to look at the Matchbox cars in the toy aisles. Meridith called Dad to let him know where we were and that we'd be at the car in a few minutes, and off I went, fairly rushing, fueled by my enthusiasm for my collection.

The tow truck still wasn't being sold separately from the car repair service set, but I first became giddy from finding a "Dallas Fort Worth Airport" hazmat truck. Then a green garbage truck with a sun and a green leaf in a white rectangle in the middle on each side, the stem of the green leaf saying "Live better in a clean world!", with "Go Green" under the leaf and word stem.

The back of the garbage truck is slightly open, and you press it down, and it comes back up to its original place. It's meant to be the crusher that comes down to make room for more garbage.

The final working vehicle I found was a water truck, labeled "Aqua King" on the underside. The inside of the truck is full of what's supposed to look like greenish bottles, their tops sticking out like you see on the road. This is one of my favorites.

I love how relatively cheap my hobby is, with these vehicles being $1.07 each. For now, at least, I don't go searching often for mine, and my hobby started by happening to find that five-pack of city vehicles, including the ice cream truck and moving truck, at the same Target. I was just browsing aimlessly.

I still want that tow truck, but now that I've searched on eBay, probably not the one I've been eyeing in that five-pack. There's so many other Matchbox types, including a "GMC Wrecker" released this year, another from 1990, and still another from 2000. I think I've found something to do while working on my writing projects.

The Stormy Present: The One Episode of The West Wing That's Bothered Me for Seven Years

2011-12-29T23:23:00.000-08:00

After creator Aaron Sorkin and chief director Thomas Schlamme left The West Wing at the end of the fourth season, the show entered a severe creative slump that only lessened with the spectacular episode "The Supremes" (guest-starring Glenn Close and William Fichtner as potential Supreme Court nominees), and then lasted until the seventh season, when the show got halfway and almost three-quarters to being Sorkin-like. I hung on. I had watched The West Wing from the beginning in 1999, graduated high school between seasons 3 and 4, and moved to Southern California between seasons 4 and 5, which should have been a sign of what living in Southern California was going to be like for eight years.

No matter how much John Goodman's Glenallen Walken was wasted as an Acting President (There was so much more they could have pursued with that storyline than just partisan sniping), no matter how bad the writing got, I was there. I kept hoping for better. I knew that without Sorkin, the show could never again reach the greatness it had consistently achieved, but I wanted enough of my show back to justify still watching it. I'm fascinated with the presidency, historical and fictional, and I just wanted my show to work again.

When "The Stormy Present" originally aired on January 7, 2004, I was hopeful. John Goodman was returning as Glenallen Walken, and James Cromwell was guest-starring as former president D. Wire Newman, the last Democratic president in office before Bartlet. All three were flying on Air Force One to the funeral of former president Owen Lassiter, a Republican, and likely Bartlet's predecessor, as Lassiter had served eight years in office throughout the '90s (The West Wing universe is markedly different from ours, especially with the differences in election years, which fans online have theorized about at length).

This was a few months before Reagan had died, so the funeral was modeled on Nixon's in 1994. It was being held at the "Lassiter Library in Costa Mesa," "The one with the fake Oval," as Josh states in Leo McGarry's office. Nixon's library does not look like what they filmed. It seems more vast, and quietly haunting, not just because of the funeral at hand, but I guess all presidential libraries are haunting in a way, with a recap of power, photos all over, various historical videos (The starting point of the Nixon Library has a video of Pat Nixon accepting a gift of two pandas from China for the National Zoo), accomplishments heralded, and scandals kept on the down low, save for the Nixon Library which apparently has a new Watergate exhibit that hews closely to the truth and not created by loyalists, as the previous exhibit was.

Bartlet with Newman and Walken could mean that the men would talk about their time in office, how they feel personally about the huge burden placed on them as leaders, however temporarily it was for Walken. It would be interesting to learn what it was like for Walken when he was summoned to the Oval Office to become Acting President. All we saw at the end of the fourth season was him coming down the steps of what might have been his home, or the Capitol building, and being ushered into a waiting car with a security detail there, and then climbing out of it and walking up the steps to the back end of the White House.

None of that happened. The episode was also about a protest in Saudi Arabia shouting for democracy, and the thought by Newman that Walken's actions of bombing Qumar (fictional Middle Eastern country in our world) in retaliation for Zoey Bartlet's kidnapping may have helped foster the protest. It's just policy discussions between Newman and Bartlet, and then all three after Walken joins them when the plane lands in Missouri to pick him up.

I still somewhat like the episode because of the presidential library setting, but Newman gets more play when discussing with Bartlet how he felt when Bartlet revealed to the world that he had multiple sclerosis. Walken is reduced to sitting with Bartlet on a bench, recounting a trip to China with Lassiter. The show is generally only 42 minutes, I get that, but here was a grand opportunity for reflection of a kind. Instead, the episode is also jammed with "B" and "C" storylines of Josh mediating a dispute between Connecticut and North Carolina on who actually owns a copy of the Bill of Rights that was stolen by a Union soldier during the Civil War, and C.J. finding out if the Department of Defense is heading up mind-control research. Useless storylines. What was so wrong with spending more time on Air Force One, and at the Lassiter Library, a little more time than just the last 11 minutes? There's former members of Lassiter's cabinet on the plane, including one named Bobby Bodine, "who I think tried to sell back Alaska as Secretary of the Interior," as Toby tells Josh on his cell phone while talking to the plane. Shouldn't Toby talk to these men that incense him so? He may not come to an understanding with them, if they'd want to talk to him at all, but just to put more meat in the episode. Here is a long-ago administration in the same plane as one that's most likely in the second year of its second term (I can't quite determine here what year the Bartlet administration is in, but that feels right).

There's a covered outdoor area of the Lassiter Library that Bartlet and Newman somberly walk through, and there's a banner with Lassiter's likeness on it. Here is this man's presidential library. Here are these men who have served and are serving in the same office. Reflective moments were sorely needed in this episode, from those former Lassiter cabinet members, from Walken, from Newman, from Bartlet (though he does get one when he talks with Toby, who's having trouble writing Bartlet's eulogy for Lassiter). What does it mean to these men to have been in power, to have power? How does it change them?

All of that would have been most welcome. But still I'll watch that episode occasionally (I am right now on Amazon), reminded of Reagan's death and the events that followed, and watching the Reagan funeral motorcade on that freeway from our apartment in Valencia in that summer of 2004. And it continues to inspire me for one presidential history book I want to write. I watch with regret, though. Always regret.

More Hope

2011-12-29T20:50:00.000-08:00

Not that I need any reassurance that moving to Henderson and always having Las Vegas available is the right path for me, but it's always nice to have those moments along the way to it that give more than you thought was there. Much more. And I've already thought there to be so much to look forward to already.

I'm reading a novel called Greyhound, published by AmazonEncore, about a 11-year-old, nearly 12, who's put on a Greyhound bus in Stockton, California by his feckless, uncaring mother, pushing him off to Altoona, Pennsylvania to live with his father's grandmother (a father who left long ago), because she doesn't want him to interfere with her new life with her new man, Dick, another man in a long line of men. This is a three-and-a-half day journey for the boy, with many well-defined characters along the way, the best so far being the kindly Mr. Hastings, working behind the ticket counter at the Los Angeles Greyhound terminal, and Marcus Franklin, his seatmate out of Los Angeles, a Langston Hughes and Miles Davis conoisseur.

I'm only on page 58, out of 240 pages, and I love this novel. I was on page 20 a few minutes ago and I knew that it was going into my permanent collection. Most important to me is where AmazonEncore seems to be based. On the copyright page, there's a P.O. Box address that ends with "Las Vegas, NV 89140."

Great literature does exist in, and come out of, Las Vegas. It is a place for readers and writers just as much as it is for dreamers. I will be proud to be part of it, because there's so much to see, so much to feel, so much to write about. From there, anything is possible for me, and AmazonEncore's existence gives me more hope. Maybe it was just a matter of convenience for the company, to not have that division ensconced in a thickly-populated metropolis. Even so, they have the right idea. The writers that fuel AmazonEncore may not come from Las Vegas (Steffan Piper, the author of Greyhound, lives in Los Angeles), but the books themselves do. The city is part of yet another valuable service.

Got to Be the Only Uptick in That Aisle

2011-12-28T11:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the end of a long list of errands (post office, Sprouts, Walmart, made long by the time spent at the latter) led us to Albertsons to pick up what apparently is the only decent bread in this valley. It's the only one Mom has found that is tolerable, and we hope to find many good kinds in Henderson and not just one.

Albertsons is also the only store I know of in this valley that sells individual Matchbox cars. Target sells only five-packs, one of which I picked up and considerably expanded my collection of working vehicles. I haven't checked Toys"R"Us because the location here has always felt like the Wal-Mart of toy stores, just where you go to pick up obligatory birthday gifts for someone's kid.

At this Albertsons, in recent weeks, I've bought a forklift, a "concrete specialists" truck, and an "MH Authentic Austin Performance Parts" vehicle, which looks like a close cousin of a hearse. I figure that in supermarkets, at Walmart, at Target, heck, at anywhere that caters to customers, they keep tabs on what sells. Now, whether my purchases of individual working vehicles at Albertsons made such a difference, I don't know, but last night, I went to that empty toy aisle as always (It doesn't seem like anyone buys anything from there), flipped through the individual cars, noted what I already had, and then found in the back a water tanker truck, "Construction Water Supply Delivery." Exactly what I hoped to find just as a working vehicle, and it gives me hope that maybe somewhere in Vegas or in Henderson, the tow truck I want is sold individually, because I surely won't find it here.

The water tanker truck brings me to 11 working vehicles so far, and it'll only keep growing. I was always fascinated by garbage trucks when I was a kid, and I think I like these vehicles because they've got a purpose besides transport. They're not just showing off. They're a part of something. Once I have more room in our new place (even though it's actually smaller square footage than this place, but my DVDs are all in two binders and I'll be moving with less books), I'm thinking of adding big rigs.

Covered in Books, But Not Overwhelmed

2011-12-27T01:09:00.001-08:00

Mid-afternoon yesterday, I began reading an anthology called Steampunk!, which involves worlds with machines made of many gears, clockwork, airships hovering about, and I know I'm not explaining it very well, but I'm still immersing myself in it and it is awe-inspiring. I want a way to have now that expansive feeling when I spent all day in Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, going between Space Mountain, the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, and Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress, that unspoken encouragement to imagine big, dream big. I get that with this anthology, and as I resume an interest in Superman, and seek out more sci-fi books, I feel I can have it all the time.

Sara, an old, very dear friend of mine who is making great strides toward becoming a human rights lawyer at Florida State University College of Law, recommended to me To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis in a list of her favorite books when we reconnected at the start of this year. I thought nothing of it, then, but later in the year, I thought I had purchased it out of curiosity, yet let it languish just like countless other books in my room.

With this new craving for sci-fi books, and so invigorated by the stories in Steampunk!, I remembered To Say Nothing of the Dog and thought I still had it in my room. This, of course, meant pulling out stacks of books that inevitably fell. Lola of WOMEN: WE SHALL OVERCOME offered to organize my books for me, and I refused, because I have certain stacks in place, one with all Las Vegas and Florida books (the former for the future, the latter for nostalgia-at-a-glance), another of books I want to read over the next few weeks or months, and others just haphazardly organized. When you don't look at those stacks closely every day, and put back the books that have fallen out of place without thinking anything of it, there's no reason to consider organization.

I'm not overwhelmed by the sheer number of books in my room, but it is clear that once we move to Henderson, settle into our new apartment, and I get the bookshelves I was promised years ago, I am going to come up with an organizational plan. I can't do it like this anymore. For now, being that all my DVDs are now in two big, heavy-duty binders, those box shelves are empty (yes, box shelves, fashioned from the boxes we moved with, which are still whole), and once I determined what I didn't need to read right now, I shoved a lot of books into those shelves and into the bottom box shelves too. It's not a case of out of sight, out of mind, but rather getting some floor space back and maybe vacuuming it one of these days.

I couldn't find To Say Nothing of the Dog. I may actually have been remembering checking it out of the Valencia library a few months before it switched from County of Los Angeles to City of Santa Clarita control. But that craving for sci-fi books is strong, and so I found the other steampunk anthology I bought last month, as well as the Superman novels I bought, Soulless by Gail Carriger, the 600+-page The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book I have that contains all the novels, the Jules Verne book I have with all his novels, as well as many Charles Dickens novels I bought that I want to read, including Hard Times, Great Expectations, and Bleak House. The 2005 miniseries of the latter book is what turned me on to reading it. Unrelated to science fiction, but the same desire.

Cleared floor space means room for a very important stack, that of the books I'm using for my research, as well as books I'm reading for insight and inspiration, such as The Season by William Goldman, his chronicle of the 1967-68 Broadway season. It's not what I'm writing, but it's that kind of framework that Goldman employs. Plus I've ordered a few other books which are directly related to what I'm writing, and I want to see how those authors did it. I'm never intimidated by reading those who have done what I want to do; I just want to study their approach, and see what works for me.

My room looks a lot better, now that I've also cleaned up the junk that was littering my floor, such as loose papers and past issues of The New Yorker that I probably won't read now. The October 13th issue that I picked up from my floor is still folded back to the page that begins a profile of IKEA, and I intend to read that, now that it's sitting right in front of me.

Hopefully this reorganization of my book stacks is a sign that we'll be moving soon. I'd like that to be the final time of doing that here. I know I can't take all these books with me, and I don't mind that. But I would like some hint that this is getting me closer to the future I want. Can't predict what others are going to do, but I hope those others are giving thought to bringing my dad into their company so we can finally get started on really enjoying our lives, and I can seek the job I want.

If She Does, Then I Will

2011-12-25T22:32:00.000-08:00

The thought of another relationship is so far in the back of my mind that it has to fight its way through the loads of research I'm doing for my book, the movies I want to see again on DVD, the episodes of Red Dwarf I want to watch, the movies I want to see in 2012, the upcoming two Knicks games this week, future blog topics, the leftover pumpkin pie in the fridge (Not ideal, but I'll take what I can get for now), my search for the person who made, or created the recipe for, the perfect Sysco pumpkin pie I had at Six Flags Magic Mountain, the books I want to read in the next couple of weeks, the movies I still have on the Tivo in the living room, the books I want to write after I'm done writing my second book (hopefully with a publishing contract attached), ransacking the Nevada history sections in the libraries of Las Vegas and Henderson once I'm a resident, etc., etc., etc. and still etc.

Yet once in a while, the thought protrudes a little. If I seek out someone for me, she has to be a voracious reader, has to know intimately the feeling of a great book, how it can do so much for you, make you feel like you can fly throughout the world, inspire you endlessly. No one who reads only for information.

At Ralphs yesterday with Dad, picking up a few groceries, including ice cream, more Silk soymilk, and two bottles of Arrowhead sparkling water for me, there was a big waist-height bargain book box in the middle of the frozen food aisles. I started digging through the books, not specifically looking for anything, but hoping for one or two grab-worthy titles, particularly because these books were selling for 3 for $10.

The paperback edition of Home by Julie Andrews was in there, but it stops before Mary Poppins and therefore includes nothing about Victor/Victoria, so I didn't want that. One day I'll read it, most likely when I check it out from the Henderson library. I hope she writes a second memoir that features those movies, and that's one memoir I'll buy, though I'll probably check it out of the library too since I won't have to buy so many books by then.

I came upon Nanny Returns by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, the sequel to The Nanny Diaries. I vaguely remember reading The Nanny Diaries years ago, but I liked the description on the inside flap of this part of the plot of Nanny Returns: "To compound the mounting construction and marital chaos, her former charge, Grayer X, now sixteen years old, makes a drunken, late-night visit, wanting to know why she abandoned him all those years ago. But how can she explain to Grayer what she still hasn't come to terms with herself?" I want to see how that plays out.

Digging past multiple copies of a book that wasn't notable enough for me to remember, I found My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D., about how her knowledge of the brain saved her from a stroke she was having. I've got to know more about this.

Both books were $1.99 each, coming out to $4.29 with tax. I love finding cheap books that interest me. I don't know if Smith's or Vons in Henderson and Las Vegas have bargain book boxes like that one, but if they do, and if I spot a woman digging through those, as absorbed in the task as I was (I forgot I was in the frozen food aisle and only realized it when I looked up after finding those two books), I'm boldly walking over to her and striking up a conversation and hopefully getting her phone number. That's the kind of woman I want.

Day 5 of a Four-Week Pleasure Cruise

2011-12-25T21:15:00.000-08:00

I went to bed at 1:45 this morning, hoping to get up before 9 so I could watch the Knicks/Celtics game, the start of the new NBA season. I didn't. It was 10:53 when I woke up and turned on the TV in my room to the heat of the 3rd quarter, or rather the heat for the Celtics, who were running fast, with the Knicks spending the rest of that quarter trying to close the point-gap. I don't like coach Mike D'Antoni because he looks like a schmuck, argues like a schmuck, and needs to stop coaching like a schmuck. Ok, there are going to be less practice sessions because the season is shortened, but Miami pulled way the hell ahead of the Dallas Mavericks in their game, and the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers were keeping it very close throughout their game, two points and then at the end, one point apart, with the Bulls winning 88-87. I'm not interested in either team, except for Bulls star player Derek Rose, and was only curious to see how the new Lakers coach would fare, but that was a truly suspenseful finish.

As to the Knicks, they won 106-104, and thank god for Carmelo Anthony, but he cannot be the only player on the team. The rest need to step up, besides the top 3, including Amar'e Stoudemire, my favorite player in the league. D'Antoni needs to get this team motivated, and I'm sure the game today didn't quell calls for him to be fired.

Reading a live blog I found of today's game, I see that a lot did happen before I woke up and turned it on, with the Knicks way ahead at times. I'll watch the next game in full on Wednesday, which is them against the Golden State Warriors on NBA TV, of which DirecTV has a free preview going, so I'm glad for that, not to have to wait until Thursday when they're playing the Lakers, with that game broadcast on TNT.

I can't watch basketball like others do, riveted to the screen, shouting at the TV with every play, although I did that in the fourth quarter, hoping the Knicks would get ahead. I enjoy suspenseful final minutes, but only when my team is a few points ahead. I prefer comfortable leads, of course, but that'll do, when the defense is good enough to hint heavily at a win. I always have a book open while I'm watching the game, which today was These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach, spurred on by seeing the trailer for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, starring Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy and Tom Wilkinson. Based on the trailer, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel seems to be just like The Bourne Identity (2002), in which the concept is used for a movie, but nothing else. These Foolish Things is about a retirement hotel in India, but from what I can tell, very few of the characters in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel are adapted from the book. Characteristics, perhaps, but not entire persons. It's why when the movie tie-in edition of These Foolish Things comes out (retitled The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), people will be surprised to find that little of the book is in the movie, and also that in These Foolish Things, the property is called the Dunroamin Retirement Hotel, not The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. As it happens, the movie goes the right way on its own because the first 78 pages of the novel are a bit too gray for a movie and it's obvious those who produced the movie wanted it to be internationally accessible; in other words, not too much for moviegoers to have to think about in terms of other cultures. Just see India, see the culture, see the British retirees, and go from there. I like wider exploration, but I'll accept the seemingly myopic view here because Judi Dench and Bill Nighy are in this, and Tom Wilkinson is always good, so I'm set. Plus, I love the trailer. I've played it almost as many times so far as I did the one for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. By the time the movie comes out in May (pushed back from March, which was a perfect time for it), I'll have seen that trailer more times than the one for Ghost Protocol.

The turkey that Dad had shown us in the trunk in the parking lot of Wienerschnitzel on Friday was 10 pounds and was turned into a masterpiece by Meridith. She's got a gift, an instinct for food that will propel her to wherever she wants to go. She rubbed butter all over the turkey, under the skin too, unleashed a few spices, and it came out golden, nearly glowing. At dinner tonight, Mom said that there were many years in which she stayed up all night to make the turkeys we had, set an alarm for every 2 hours or so to baste it, and it never came out as Meridith made it tonight. And this was her first turkey, which she took photos of because as if we didn't know already, this was the one moment that shows a remarkable talent about to break open wide. The butter all over the turkey she learned from watching Food Network, and that's the amazing thing about Meridith's cooking: She can learn something from a source and then employ it as if she's been using it for years. Dad used to just dump marshmallows on top of the sweet potatoes before putting them in the oven. Meridith places each marshmallow in a circular pattern on top of the sweet potatoes until the top is completely filled. While I was washing the dishes from dinner, a break before dessert that included a just-ok Claim Jumper pumpkin pie, I said to Meridith that it's really something that our family has a fast-budding chef and a writer. I credit continued exposure to Walt Disney World when I was a toddler, and Meridith's first visit to Walt Disney World when she was nine days old. The imagination expands immeasureably there, especially a developing one.

This four-week pleasure cruise turned out exactly as I had hoped. I did everything I wanted to do, and to cap it off, my book research has become even more fascinating. It's a bigger puzzle than I first imagined, with the families of some late actors hard to find (if there even are families), and it's exactly what I wanted. It's more rewarding when it takes time to get what you want.

Someone Got It Right

2011-12-24T20:28:00.001-08:00

Three Saturdays ago at Six Flags Magic Mountain, I tried the pumpkin pie I had been thinking about all day, at a table outside the Cyber Cafe in the central plaza with the glut of souvenir shops. It was the best one I had had in all the eight years I'd lived in the Santa Clarita Valley, though I don't think I'd been into pumpkin pie when we moved here. I remember many lemon meringue pies, some chocolate pies, an apple pie or two. I think I'd tried pumpkin pie when this valley began to get to me in the last four years. It's the one pie that's solid in nature, reliable, able to pull you through anything, a great comfort when you need it and even when you don't.

This particular slice had the perfect balance of pumpkin, spices and sugar. No one flavor dominated another and whoever made it knew just how much spice to put in. I vowed to e-mail Six Flags Magic Mountain and ask who had made the pie. I wanted to buy more.

I got a call this past Monday from a woman who works at Magic Mountain, possibly overseeing the food they sell there. I didn't ask. I was shocked because I didn't remember e-mailing Magic Mountain about the pie. Did I e-mail them that night, after I'd gotten home from the park? Did I e-mail them after getting home from Burbank after a day of IKEA, the Burbank Town Center Mall (and a few games of Simpsons pinball, Galaga, and a game of air hockey), and Barnes & Noble? After I thanked the woman for the information and hung up, I tried to figure it out. I honestly don't remember. I must have been really tired whenever I e-mailed them, yet I still was able to form whole words.

The woman told me that the pumpkin pie had come from Sysco. Sysco! The food distributor! Meridith was surprised when I told her where the pumpkin pie had come from, and told me she had heard something about them having test kitchens somewhere. Maybe that's true, to make sure that the products they push are of the quality they need them to be, but this pumpkin pie could not have come from a committee. This had to have come from the mind and heart of someone who had grown up with pumpkin pie, who had seen relatives make it, who saw how much nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger to put in, who had made their own as they got older and learned how they liked it and what worked best.

I doubt I'll be able to find that one person, if it even was one person who had come up with the recipe, but I've got to search. I've got to know. Even three weeks after, I still remember the taste of that pumpkin pie, and before I embark on my quest to find other great pumpkin pies in Las Vegas, along with chili-cheese and other covered fries, marinara sauce (Not the crappy, liquidy marinara sauces I've had here), and quesadillas, I want to get on the trail of this particular pumpkin pie, just to know.

Once businesses get back up and running after the start of 2012, and I'm deep into my book research again, I'll use the pumpkin pie search as an occasional break from it. There's a Los Angeles branch of Sysco with an "800" number, and I'll start there. I know it's a corporation, so it's very likely that they won't be as easily forthcoming as the woman from Six Flags was, but I've got to try. And even if nothing comes of it, that taste will be a good start for my pumpkin pie search in Las Vegas, to find one just as good or better than that one. I don't see how it's possible, but it can be there.

Day 4 of a Four-Week Pleasure Cruise

2011-12-24T00:45:00.001-08:00

I think the last time I went to Edwards Canyon Country 10 to see a movie was in late July of 2008 for The X-Files: I Want to Believe. I'd seen many episodes (but not the entire series), and knew enough about the alien mythology and other stories featured on the show to hope for another feature film that could be as interesting and complex as what I had seen.

I didn't get that. I got a half-baked story that maybe was created just to put something on the screen, to keep people aware of the franchise, to say, "Hey, X-Philes! You say you'll do anything for the show you love so much? Pay to see this! That'll test your loyalty!" Since its theatrical release, which flopped, there have been occasional rumblings that in 2012, we'd get the alien X-Files movie we hoped for, to match the whole 2012-being-the-end-of-the-world thing. If Chris Carter is indeed working on that screenplay, I hope he's taken more time to figure it out than he did for this one, which could have been just another episode of the series. That's not why I sometimes go to the movies.

Mom, Dad and Meridith got the much better deal that day. They were seeing Mamma Mia!, and so was I when I walked into their auditorium after feeling down and disappointed from what I had just seen, a waste of Mulder and Scully. That didn't last for even two minutes. I was so thoroughly charmed by sheer playfulness that at times wasn't afraid to be silly (I don't remember which part was playing when I walked in, but Mamma Mia! is just that kind of movie where you can come in anywhere and you're immediately sucked in), that after it was over and we were outside the theater, I suggested that we buy tickets for the next showing and get right back in line. We didn't, but we did go back the next day and I bought the tickets for all of us.

We've never needed to go to Edwards Canyon Country 10 since then because any movies we'd seen were always playing at Edwards Valencia 12. It was always convenience because we were closer to that one from Saugus.

But I didn't need to pay $18.50 to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol in IMAX at the Valencia location. And Mom wanted to see We Bought a Zoo. Valencia had these showtimes: 11 a.m. for We Bought a Zoo and 1:05 p.m. for Mission: Impossible. Canyon Country had them five minutes apart, with We Bought a Zoo starting at 12:55 p.m.

So to Canyon Country we would go, and while Mom and I were at the movies, Dad and Meridith would do whatever they wanted to do.

Once at the ticket window at the Canyon Country theater, I bought both tickets. $9.50 is far less painful than $18.50 and I had a $20 in my wallet. Both tickets came out to $19. Why have Mom pay separately?

We got our tickets, went inside, and looked at the prices for popcorn and soda and candy. Ridiculous. Theaters strive to turn a profit on the concession stand since the movie studios take most of the ticket price, but if the managers of these theaters wonder why people aren't buying popcorn and soda, this is why. $6 and $7 for different sizes of soda is not worth it, not even for the Icee-like kind they had.

I went into Mom's auditorium to make sure she was settled and had the seat she wanted, and then I went into my auditorium, full of expectations. I had been so dazzled by the trailer I saw many times online, and thought that the James Bond producers had better up their game.

My expectations were met. The gadgets used in Ghost Protocol were shown as part of the missions, never shown off. The virtual reality screen that simulated a hallway inside the Kremlin was just there, just part of the work. The black computerized adhesive gloves that Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, of course) uses to scale the world's tallest building in Dubai work for a time and then one of them craps out. Skyfall, the next Bond movie, will have a new, young Q played by Ben Whishaw, and I hope the Bond producers keep to what they did in Casino Royale in any gadgets simply being part of the job.

The biggest asset to Ghost Protocol is director Brad Bird, who started his career with the animated The Iron Giant, and then wrote and directed The Incredibles and Ratatouille at Pixar. He knows how to tell a story. He knows how to move around characters, how to give just enough to an audience to let them work it out on their own and remain engaged with what's going on. He believes an audience is intelligent enough to piece together what's happening, and I wish the rest of Hollywood would have more faith in us moviegoers like that. We're given just enough about the entire, disavowed IMF team (including Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Paula Patton) to get a sense of who they are, but not to be overwhelmed by their presence. They're not bigger than the screen. Tom Cruise, in fact, is far more serious than charismatic in this installment, and when he's bantering briefly with his team, it's as part of the team, not him above the team. He's done well here.

Bird and the screenwriters also know that a villain is more threatening when they aren't seen that often, yet their motives are known and worrisome. In this case, a man named Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), who believes nuclear war to have a pleasant, cleansing effect on the world in order for it to start fresh. He has Russian nuclear codes, and access to a device. The IMF team, after the Kremlin has blown up (though not by their hand, obviously), have to work alone with no backup, no further gadgets or weaponry, to stop Hendricks. Hendricks is seen a few times before the obvious climax between him and Ethan, but is mostly shadowy. That won't work for Skyfall, since Javier Bardem, one of the greatest actors in the world, is playing the villain, but I hope the Bond producers allow him to be shadowy at times, but with his motives eventually looming large.

The commercials for Ghost Protocol have been hyping the stunts on the Dubai building, and the hype is justified. There's been nothing like this in years, perhaps in a decade. It's genuinely suspenseful, starting when Ethan has to lose one of the adhesive gloves while climbing up one side of the Dubai building. It's not unusual to call out "Oh shit!" or "Holy crap!" when Ethan tries to get into the computer server room in another tower, and then has to get back out, back to where his team is.

I hope this is the movie that gives Paula Patton more roles. I liked her a lot in Swing Vote as the reporter who tries to get Bud's (Kevin Costner) full story, trying to get it through his daughter (Madeline Carroll) at one point. Her range is rapidly growing, since there's no trace of her character from that movie, and I know she's been in other movies as well besides these two, most that I haven't seen, and one (Just Wright) that I couldn't sit through because it was awful at the start. And for a career that's had 12 roles so far, co-starring with Kevin Costner and Tom Cruise is quite a major batting average.

Pixar is a potential incubator for great live-action filmmaking talent. Brad Bird has proven himself (and I hope he makes more live-action movies), but the real test will be when Andrew Stanton's John Carter is released next year, based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' tale. Hollywood's still not understanding that it needs to treat audiences more intelligently, because we are. Give us entertainment that makes us glad to spend two hours at the movies, to feel that we've spent our time well. Ghost Protocol is a good start for a return of sorts to that. And something else I got out of it was seeing how Jeremy Renner was, being that he's the lead in The Bourne Legacy, which I'm excited about, even with Matt Damon not there. It'll be fascinating to see this particular universe expand through another agent that was also part of the Treadstone program. Renner's got the skills in this one, not just in action, but also in his acting. He may very well make the impact that Damon did in The Bourne Identity.

Adding to my fourth day of this four-week pleasure cruise, Mom and I met Dad and Meridith at Wienerschnitzel nearby, where I had my usual pastrami sandwich and ultimate chili cheese fries, and a cookie dough Freezee, which tastes more real than a McDonald's McFlurry. And you get more candy, or cookie dough, from it.

By the time we finished at Wienerschnitzel, it was nearing 5 p.m., so there was nothing else to do but head home, finding out that Dad had bought a turkey for us for Christmas Day (we're Jewish, but it'll be a nice change from the Chinese food cliche), which he showed us in the trunk, and finding at home that the mailman had delivered Red Dwarf: The Complete Collection and the 2005 Bleak House miniseries starring Gillian Anderson. Both went into my second DVD binder.

Tomorrow is the fifth and final day of my four-week pleasure cruise, with the first game of the NBA season at 9 a.m. here, New York Knicks (my favorite team) versus Boston Celtics (Doc Rivers, my favorite coach). I hope I'll get up early enough, preferably before the start of the game.

Poseidon: The One Movie That's Bothered Me for Five Years

2011-12-21T19:22:00.000-08:00

Poseidon cost approximately $160 million, was filmed on adjacent soundstages at Warner Bros. (One as the ship right-side up, the other upside down) and at Staples Center (as the ship's dance club), and was considered a flop with only $60.6 million earned domestically.

Every few months, I watch clips on YouTube, disappointed that Poseidon missed a major storytelling opportunity that could have possibly saved Warner Bros. some money and produced a much better movie. Obviously, as a remake of The Poseidon Adventure (of which I'm a fan and which was my reason for seeing this), Poseidon has to feature a cruise ship being capsized by a rogue tidal wave. With special effects far more advanced in 2005 than they were in 1972, it could be a ship with more capacity than the Titanic, more to show than The Poseidon Adventure. Once the new Poseidon capsized, bodies could be shown floating in the water along with deck chairs and other vast detritus of a cruise ship. In the ballroom, where the central action takes place, dead bodies could look more eerily real, and they were in this remake.

The screenwriter, Mark Protosevich, is better at writing special effects than characters. His career began with The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez, which was outstanding because the artistic special effects were handled by an incredibly talented director in Tarsem Singh. The journey through the serial killer's mind was much more fascinating than anything that could be revealed about Lopez's character, properly presented as a tour guide through this twisted mind.

Protosevich also wrote I Am Legend and contributed the story for Thor. Future projects, according to his IMDB page, apparently include an American remake of Oldboy, directed by Spike Lee, Jurassic Park IV (though that project is always in so much flux that it's never certain who wrote it until the movie is made and the credits are concrete), and Freakshow, based on a comic, for which he wrote the screenplay and will direct. The failure of Poseidon obviously didn't hurt him since what he wrote on the page had to be brought to life by others, including director Wolfgang Petersen, who made a much better movie in the depths of the sea with Das Boot.

Protosevich's characters in Poseidon are only mildly interesting on the surface, since they're at the mercy of the special effects, with explosions throughout the capsized ship, the gas tank falling through the floor of the lobby, which is now the ceiling, and killing one of the members of the group trying to get out of the ship, and lots of rising water. To start, there's Kurt Russell as Robert Ramsey, an ex-firefighter and ex-mayor of New York City whose administration sounds like it was under a cloud, from the very little we learn. Emmy Rossum plays his daughter, Mike Vogel plays her fiance, Mia Maestro plays a stowaway helped along by a steward (Freddy Rodriguez), Josh Lucas plays a gambler, Jacinda Barrett plays a single mother (with Jimmy Bennett playing her son), Richard Dreyfuss plays an architect devastated by his boyfriend's breakup with him, and Kevin Dillon plays Lucky Larry, who isn't so much lucky as obnoxious, and is exactly the kind of role Dillon's Johnny Drama would have been seen playing on Entourage.

Think about this. This Poseidon holds over 2,000 passengers. The ship capsizes. The ballroom eventually floods, killing Captain Bradford (Andre Braugher) and hundreds of others, including Fergie (credited as Stacy Ferguson), playing a singer named Gloria. At the end of the movie, the survivors get into a raft as the ship begins to right itself, and then sinks. All that remains are these survivors. More people died on this ship than Titanic.

It was enough to make me think about writing a sequel just for myself, just to come to terms with what this production missed. I understand them wanting to make it bigger than The Poseidon Adventure. The majority of the budget was for special effects, as the exterior of the ship, especially during the capsizing, was entirely CGI, and it's in Guinness World Records as the most detailed computer-generated designs.

If they had done it the way I've been thinking about it for five years, the ballroom flooding could not have been shown, and they probably would not have wanted to miss that opportunity, since the flooding in the original movie was never seen, only heard. But maybe there would have been a better movie.

The survivors float on the raft after Poseidon has sunk, and at the fadeout before the end credits, we see a helicopter approaching the raft with a search beam shining, and ships in the distance racing to the raft. These survivors would be famous around the world. The media would descend on them, wanting to know everything about their ordeal.

If the movie had started that way, with those few survivors being rescued and the entire world shocked about the magnitude of this disaster, it would have been more promising. Start it with news bulletins throughout the world about the sinking, with uncertainty about who survived. Cut to the survivors, on board the rescue ship, in shock, blankets wrapped around them, what happened to them not fully registering yet because these are the first moments that they could rest after spending all those hours going from the mid-section of the ship to the bottom to get out.

A cruise line has lost an expensive ship, and so those executives are scrambling to figure out what to do. There will be questions, such as if they should try to raise the ship in order to piece together what happened. Thousands lost their lives. There will be lawsuits.

The survivors begin thinking about their ordeal, and there are flashbacks to their time on the ship before it capsized. The problem with this is that these are the only perspectives. Captain Bradford is dead, and so are the officers who were on the bridge trying desperately to turn the ship. Those sequences would be gone, so the suspense wouldn't be there as much, save for the survivors trying to get off the ship, which could be exciting enough on its own if handled right with the flashbacks.

Once that rescue ship gets to a port, those on board will see that the dock has been flooded with media. The entire world wants to know the survivors' stories. How do the survivors cope with this sudden fame? Is Robert Ramsey still remembered in New York City as a shoddy mayor or is he celebrated for giving his life to help the other survivors?

And intercut with that plot is the cruise line trying to figure out what to do, with some unscrupulousness thrown in. Blame Bradford and his officers, even in death, for what they were unable to stop? These rogue waves cannot be predicted or pinpointed. They just happen.

The original Poseidon Adventure was founded not just on the special effects, but also the relationships between the survivors, such as Jack Albertson and Shelley Winters playing husband and wife, and Red Buttons as a bachelor. Poseidon would have gotten much more mileage if it had gone that way too. The media presence alone in light of the worst ship disaster in history would have been a fascinating perspective. And I would have liked this movie a lot more.

Three Dreams about Women

2011-12-21T14:34:00.000-08:00

I went to bed at 2:17 this morning and woke up at 10:39. In between, I marveled yet again at what goes on in my head during sleep. I have entire theme parks in there, Walt Disney World in a far different incarnation, rollercoasters, pinball machines, huge school campuses with ornate marble staircases, math classes that I prefer to skip, movie theaters to haunt, and, of course, women. Not often anymore, but when those dreams happen, I always lay in bed after I wake up, thinking, "How in the heck did THAT happen?"

The first dream involved a relationship-ending argument with Kirsten Dunst. I don't know why it was Kirsten Dunst, but I'm relieved it wasn't Drew Barrymore or Renee Zellweger. It was most apparent that I wasn't interested in saving the relationship, and perhaps I had lost interest a long time ago. In trying to argue my side, I mistakenly called her "Lisa" at one point, which I don't read anything into because I could never date anyone who reads books only for information. I told Kirsten that I had liked her since Bring It On, and had wanted her even then, so why would she think things had changed? Again, just arguing without feeling, without meaning, which isn't my style. Arguing isn't either, but when I'm passionate about something or someone, I show it.

The second dream took place at a variation of Walt Disney World, not the incarnation that I know so well, even though I live on the other side of the country. There was a holiday version of the Jungle Cruise being tested, and this one was indoors. A woman came up to me, asking if I'd like to take part in it, and she had a twinkle in her eyes when she asked me this, which made me play it low-key, since it was clear that she wanted to lead and impress herself upon me. I didn't mind at all. I went on the ride, but nothing else happened with the woman, because the dream ended while I was on the ride.

In the third dream, this particular woman appeared only in an e-mail. I had been to a restaurant months ago and had scribbled my name and e-mail address on a scrap of a postcard in order to be informed about some event that was happening at the restaurant. I received this e-mail and it was the woman who worked there to whom I had given that scrap of postcard for the future information, who just wanted to say hi, wondering why I hadn't been back lately, heavily hinting her interest.

Those latter two dreams were nice, but it doesn't make me move faster in pursuing a relationship. I've got a nonfiction book list that's growing longer by the day (Last night, I added to the list a late actor I've always admired, who I believe never got the biography he deserves), a future home city that I want to know intimately from one end to the other, a glittering city beyond that whose entire history I want to know, a small library branch inside a mall that I really want to see, the Pinball Hall of Fame that I would be happy spending a lot of time in (I think there was a Galaga arcade game there), and so much else to do and experience in my new home state, when that finally happens, as well as my desires to visit New Mexico and all the presidential libraries in the nation. My interests alone keep me pretty well occupied and very happy. Now if only Matchbox would sell its cars individually instead of just five-packs, I could get the tow truck I really want for my working vehicles collection.

The Randomness of a Tuesday Night

2011-12-20T21:34:00.001-08:00

I don't have enough for a full-course, meaty entry tonight, so there'll be some randomness, which is suitable for a Tuesday night that feels like it's simply whirling through outer space. Not a great deal going on; I read some of one of the books I'm using for research for my own book, still have to read the rest, and this is still as specific as I'll get for a while, at least until I have two chapters written and can pitch it to publishers and search for an agent, in order to try for the big publishers.

I'm thinking of seeing Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, day 4 of my four-week pleasure cruise, on Friday. I love the high praise I've read from critics who demand that you see it in IMAX because of the action sequences. I won't. I'm not paying $18.50 for IMAX. If those critics want to pay for my ticket, I'm all for it, but I'm happy with seeing it on a regular screen. That's all I need.

Every other day or so, I check the movie schedule on the Lakeview Cinemas website, the two-screen theater that's inside the Hacienda Hotel and Casino outside of Boulder City, on the way to Hoover Dam. This casino overlooks a vast ocean of desert, so imagine Jack and Jill playing there, as it is right now. It's a shame, but if makes the Lakeview Cinemas owner some money and keeps the theater running, that's fine, because it just reopened after a months-long closure. I really wish I could be there on Christmas Day because It's a Wonderful Life is playing at 3 p.m., just once that day. Seeing it in that setting would be most memorable, but I'll have to settle for DVD for my first time, probably tomorrow night or the day after.

Speaking of Christmas movies to watch, I've also got the original Miracle on 34th Street, as well as National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, my favorite Christmas movie. Any Christmas movie that has a SWAT team at the end is my kind of Christmas movie, along with a dog yakking up a bone under the Christmas dinner table, which is the one scene that makes me lose it, laughing until I can't breathe.

During Dad's time off from work, which lasts until January 17, since it's a combination of winter break and required furlough days, I have to go to Beverly Hills for a few hours, to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library. This will be for research for my book, so I'll be allowed in and I've memorized their procedures and rules. They have shooting scripts for all four of the movies I'm writing about, as well as a transcript from a 2006 Academy screening of the first movie, featuring actors from it. I need it all. I've memorized the movies, but I know there was an extra hour shot for the three sequels for television broadcast, and I'm hoping the scripts for the three sequels have that, because I can't find most of the footage on YouTube, and those extra hours were never released on DVD. I'm excited about this experience because I'll have history in my hands that means a lot to me, scripts from when those movies were in production. Mom read the procedures on the website today and looked at the hours of operation and suggested a Tuesday would be the best day to go because they're open until 8 p.m., whereas on Monday, Thursday and Friday, they're open until 6, and closed on Wednesdays and Saturdays and Sundays. Tuesday would be best because while I can skim past the scenes I know so well, I want to make sure I get everything out of the scenes that are rarely seen now, and the most out of the screening transcript for details about the making of that first movie.

After What If They Lived? was published, I was in awe about signing up for an author's profile on Goodreads, which became my main account. I didn't realize until early this evening that I could do the same on Amazon. I signed up for an account through their Author Central, and my awe is triple what it was for Goodreads. Click right here for it!

I started reading No Place Like Home by Barbara Samuel on Sunday, intending to read as much of her work as I can while impatiently waiting for The Garden of Happy Endings, which she wrote as Barbara O'Neal, which will be out in April. I love what I've read so far, another novel that takes place in Samuel's beloved Colorado, but I'm still only on page 19. My research comes first, but I want to find a balance that lets me read other things too, if only for 20 pages at a time. However, considering that I spent much more time reading other books rather than the ones for my now-aborted previous project, it's understandable right now that I've not yet gotten back to No Place Like Home. Today, I received Samuel's A Piece of Heaven, which takes place entirely in New Mexico, so I want to get to that one soon. I'm hoping it strengthens my desire to visit New Mexico (Created by reading O'Neal's The Secret of Everything), not that it needs any help, as I've been reading a lot about New Mexico, learning about its culture, and interested in Georgia O'Keeffe's experiences there.

The part of my brain reserved for blog entries is dry, so I think I've covered everything.

Weight Lifting DVDs

2011-12-19T22:47:00.000-08:00

Just like last Monday, I spent most of today putting my DVDs into a 400-slot binder. This was my second 400-slot binder after filling up my first one completely, rendering it suitable weight lifting equipment. Same one like the first one, I bought it from Fry's and now knew what I was doing. There was less frustration with the DVDs not always going into the fabric-backed plastic slots at first, and I didn't miss an entire page of slots like I did before, making me move DVDs back many spaces, one after the other. The instances in which I had to move DVDs back or forward was when I missed a DVD in my chronological organization.

In this binder, all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls came first (My first DVD binder has a bevy of TV shows in the first 200 slots and about 50 more in the second 200, including seasons 1-4 and 7 of The West Wing, all four seasons of The Big Bang Theory, all eleven seasons of Married with Children, and the first and second seasons of Perfect Strangers), followed by all Bond movies up to Quantum of Solace (I'm such a fan that I even keep the awful ones, such as A View to a Kill), and then the rest of my movies in chronological order, with some exceptions. Sequels to Clerks, The Bourne Identity, and Back to the Future go next to the first movies, and I put Charlie and the Chocolate Factory next to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory for easier reference. The 70th Anniversary Edition Citizen Kane set had not only the American Experience documentary that was part of the previous two-disc set, but also the HBO movie RKO 281, about the making of Citizen Kane, starring Liev Schreiber as Orson Welles and John Malkovich as screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz. Those discs are together too.

I got immense satisfaction from putting all these DVDs in one place and getting rid of all the cases. They weigh a lot when you hold one stack of them. Unfortunately, as I chucked more and more DVD cases into the recycling bin, the book stacks in my room began to look a lot larger, and I don't think I can take all these with me. My permanent collection goes, of course, but as to the others, I know I'll have to give up many and I have no problem with that, but I only will as we get closer to moving because I'm not going to be stuck without anything to read, and I'm not getting a new library card with the Valencia library because there's no point. The only library card I want to see is one with "Henderson" on it.

Also creating more satisfaction for me was that I apply this kind of focused work ethic to my book research. I took these DVDs out of so many cases and put them in individual slots. For the book, I'm plucking facts from many different sources and organizing it in one place. Just like flipping through these binders and feeling inspired by seeing all my favorite movies and TV shows in one place, I think about what I have to find out, by watching the movies, by reading various books, by seeking interviews, and I feel the same inspiration. I can do this. I want to do this.

And now I can also practice weight-lifting with my DVDs while deciding what to watch next. For the next few months, that'll be the movies I'm looking to write about for this book, continuously to pick out all the details I need, as well as whatever else strikes my interest. Probably Swing Vote again. I need another New Mexico fix.

Day 3, Part 2 of a Four-Week Pleasure Cruise

2011-12-18T22:18:00.000-08:00

Before we walked into All Amusement, before I knew what was in there, Mom decided to go back to IKEA with Dad because he hadn't eaten. It turned out that instead of the trio going to Universal CityWalk, they had been talking in the car for 45 minutes, and moved their conversation to a nearby Starbucks. Convenient and cheaper, and in attempting to make us residents of Henderson, the conversation was much more important than the setting. Nothing moving on that front yet, but I hope it was the conversation that does it for us.

Mom told us that she and Dad would meet us at Barnes & Noble and off they went, and off Meridith and I went into All Amusement. Tokens were required for the games, two each for Galaga and pinball, four for air hockey. I played Galaga first and reveled in the discovery that if you press the "fire" button firmly, hold it for a second, then lift your finger off it, your ship keeps firing and you don't have to keep pounding the button. Cheating, yes, but the only chance I got to play it that way. Other times, I'm always pounding that button as if I'm suddenly a butcher behind the counter, and ducking and weaving as if the aliens are firing at me. Funnily enough, during the bonus round when the aliens fly down in a row or in another lockstep pattern and you try to eliminate all of them, I eliminated all but two. My aim sucks when I can fire without making an effort. It's more honed when I have to do the work.

I saw Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring when it was in theaters, and I liked parts of it, but it's not my kind of genre. Therefore, the Lord of the Rings pinball machine I saw was not for me. Now, The Simpsons Pinball Party machine, well, I still have a picture that I drew of them when I was in 1st grade. Therefore, my machine. I remembered also playing this at the arcade at Ventura Harbor Village, but this one was better-calibrated. I was a million points away from a free game, and could have easily gotten it, but it went down the left side and into the drain without a chance to hit it back up into the board.

Meridith and I never play air hockey competitively. We're always just grateful to find an air hockey table since we don't go to arcades often. The last time I remember going to one was back in June (), also for Galaga and air hockey. Unlike that table, there was no chance of keeping accurate score with the table we played at, since it was so slow to keep score and therefore we got a few more turns out of it than what you can usually get for four tokens. Up to 7 points and then the table shuts off. We got three extra turns.

The last time we were at Ventura Harbor Village, I remember really playing that air hockey table like a madman, whacking at that puck mercilessly. Now I reserve that energy and insanity for Galaga.

This time, I played it calmly. Didn't matter if I won or lost. Doesn't change the curvature of the earth, or the state of affairs anywhere. Meridith loves air hockey like I love Galaga, so I'm always happy to indulge her. While I played, I was thinking about what I could use as an outlet while I write my second book. I've got months to go before I start writing even a chapter, with an outline to slowly form while I get more and more information, but when it finally happens, what do I use? I've got books unrelated to my research, lots of them; I've got my DVDs, I've got whatever will be on the Tivo in our new apartment, with Jeopardy! always an evening staple. Then I've also got the Pinball Hall of Fame off the Strip, where I've been three times and have worshipped accordingly. It doesn't feel like the writing will be that hard, but I can't write all the time, and I'd love to just stand at a pinball machine, idly thinking about my book, while hoping to get a free game out of whatever machine I'm playing. It's ironic because there I am playing one game already and I should be enjoying that, but it's that sense of achievement of doing more on a pinball machine. Plus, it's safe to say that I love pinball out of anything else I could play at an arcade. That dollar you're likely to use at a slot machine on the Strip as your way of gambling cautiously is what I put into the change machine at the Pinball Hall of Fame and dash to my favorite machine. I'm perfectly satisfied with not getting a financial return on the money I spend there because I'm doing one of the many things I love about living.

So when Meridith made a few goals, I simply reached down, got the puck, and continued. I like the rhythm of the game, the clacking of the puck against the sides of the table, that determined look Meridith gets after a few times when I successfully block her. It's not vicious, all in fun, but I know that look because it's my look whenever I'm playing pinball or Galaga.

The game over, we left All Amusement and I spotted Maui Wowi Hawaiian Coffee & Smoothies, which showed off bottled drinks in a window, including water, which I desperately needed after that game and which I was sure Meridith wanted. I bought two regular-sized Arrowhead bottles, got 50 cents back, and decided to go back into the arcade and play Galaga once more. Still awful at it when the fire button is stuck.

The Barnes & Noble across the street from IKEA is very much about books, though very quietly. There's no outspoken staff recommendations on cards under certain books in the new releases, and this doesn't seem like the kind of location to have storytimes or book club discussions. It's just here to sell books. Come in, motivated by some book you want to read, find it, perhaps discover something else you want as well, and eventually leave. That was the exact order for me.

In the mall, I was thinking about those editions that Barnes & Noble hawks of, say, five Jane Austen novels together, or a few Dickens, or Gray's Anatomy, or any other book that looks like it has a leatherbound cover with a long, thin fabric bookmark inside and gilded pages. Specifically, I was thinking of The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I have the 2005 movie tie-in edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but wanted the other books without having to pay for them separately. 815 pages of Douglas Adams for $25 seemed like a good deal. As soon as we reached Barnes & Noble, I went straight for the table stacked with those editions and found it. You have to want a book that has the eyeless round green being sticking its tongue out at you. That's my kind of book.

Whenever we go to this Barnes & Noble, I always look at the magazines since we rarely go to this one and they've got a much better selection than the one in Valencia. Nothing like The Normal School this time, and since this had been the third day that I was walking great distances, or what seemed like great distances, I had to sit down, and I did so on the floor in front of the writing and history magazines, which included science fiction anthologies which I picked up and held on to as I walked through the rest of Barnes & Noble, but decided that if I wanted to read more science fiction, I had to decide first which aspects interested me because it's vast.

While sitting there, I found Writer's Digest Yearbook Presents The Writer's Guide to Creativity. I didn't have the idea for my second book laid out like I do now, but I felt like I needed this since there's an interview by Anne Lamott in it. And headlines on the cover such as "Make the Most of Your Writing Time!" and "How to Write Your Way Out of a Rut" made me consider that there will be times when I need those articles. Ruts do happen. They don't last very long with me, but I know what they feel like.

I went into the fiction aisles to see if they had all of Barbara O'Neal's books and there was How to Bake a Perfect Life, The Lost Recipe for Happiness, and my favorite: The Secret of Everything. I went to the science fiction aisles and walked right back out after 10 seconds. So many authors, so many worlds. I'm a little intimidated by it, but I keep in mind that there are humans in these novels and they have emotions and problems and joys and sorrows and problems solved just like I do. On days when the writing's not coming, I'll remember to see what kind of science fiction would interest me.

Back in the fiction aisles, I remembered how much I had enjoyed The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle because he observes aspects of real life slantwise that brings new meaning to them. The typical things of each day are made different, more interesting. And then, there was 691 pages that made up T.C. Boyle Stories, and one of the rare times I don't mind paying full price for a book, because $20 seems justified for that many pages, especially with the promise of most likely getting the same satisfaction I had before.

That was it. That was all I needed. The magazine, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and T.C. Boyle Stories were enough. One thing I plan to do once in Henderson is haunt the library book sales as well as the used bookstores. I find a lot more at those because there's a bigger chance of discovery of what you've never heard of before that instantly appeals to you and you wonder why you hadn't found it before because clearly it was made for you. And then you think, "Enough of that. It's enough that I've found it and I'll start reading and that'll be that."

I don't lament that there's not a community feeling to the Burbank Town Center properties because it knows what it is. It's not trying to be something it isn't like many areas in the Santa Clarita Valley. I was there for those purposes, I got what I wanted, and there was nothing more than I wanted. That seems to be how it goes for all other shoppers there.

Now, this was last Sunday. Today, we went back to Fry's so I could get another 400-slot DVD binder, and back to IKEA to eat. Last Sunday, Dad brought home some of the ribs he'd had there, I tried a piece on Tuesday, and wanted more. The cornbread that had come with his ribs was just sitting in the fridge, so I had that too, and I wanted all of IKEA's cornbread. If there's some kind of chemical agent in this food that's meant to enslave Americans and turn us into zombiefied consumers, moreso than usual, I'll take my chances.

This time, I had the ribs and the cornbread and found out that the ribs came with fries, so I had mustard with the fries, as well as spinach and cheese crepes and an almond cake with buttercream and butterscotch, the latter the main attraction of the cake since I love butterscotch. Every single time we go to IKEA, the food is excellent. It didn't change. There is a rigid consistency there that I wish many institutions in our country would learn, with the hope that things would get better by implementing it. IKEA can do it with Swedish meatballs alone. Ok, they've got a lot to answer for with the instructions included in those hopeless build-it-your-damn-self kits, but that consistency is awe-inspiring.

On the way home, we stopped at the Walmart that overlooks Six Flags Magic Mountain, and in the electronics department, there were holiday movie DVD displays. Last week, I got in the mail from Amazon A Charlie Brown Christmas, which is my favorite Christmas special. At Walmart, I found National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, my favorite Christmas movie. Any Christmas movie that has a SWAT team busting through a house is my kind of Christmas movie. Every time Cousin Eddie's dog yaks up that bone under the table and the whole thing shakes, I lose it, needing time to get off the floor and resume breathing normally.

I don't count today's errands as part of the four-week pleasure cruise, just an observation that some of what we did last Sunday carried over into this Sunday, sans the mall and Barnes & Noble. When we parked at IKEA, I was thinking about Galaga again, but it's not worth the stuck "fire" button. It's the one video game for which I like to make an effort. I don't play anything else.

Weekends like this one that include rollercoasters, pinball, Galaga, Swedish meatballs, macaroni and cheese, pumpkin pie, new books bought in a bookstore, DVDs, air hockey, crepes, do not happen often here. When it does, it's total pleasure without question. So it shall be where I know I can find this kind of happiness all the time. This is good training.

Day 3, Part 1 of a Four-Week Pleasure Cruise

2011-12-17T20:03:00.000-08:00

The Burbank Town Center Mall and its outlying areas, including IKEA and Barnes & Noble, are built for a maximum shopping experience and nothing more than that. There is no sense of community to be found there because people from all over visit, including Mom, Meridith and I last Sunday while Dad talked with the CEO and one of the other influential bigwigs from K12, which is all about online education. He arranged to pick them up from Burbank Airport after they dropped off their rental car, hours before their flight out, and take them to see Universal CityWalk, then drive them back to the airport for their flight. Dad had to meet them at 3, so we had plenty of time beforehand and therefore left the house at 11, on our way to Fry's in Burbank, where I constantly hope to meet Bill Prady, the co-creator of The Big Bang Theory, after learning months ago from his Twitter account that he shops at this Fry's.

Mom and Meridith wanted to look at waffle makers, and it was finally time for me to get a DVD binder. I'd researched a few online, and seen what Target offered in Case Logic binders, which I didn't buy because I don't like the stitching. It looks like it could come loose within a few months of heavy use. (I later learned from an acquaintance on Facebook who knows his DVD binders that he has a Case Logic binder. Still doesn't convince me.)

A visit to Fry's means a look at DVDs I can't find in Best Buy, what they won't sell because residents in my area aren't that willing to explore. I love that I can find The Big Kahuna, starring Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, and Peter Facinelli (which I own), as well as The Pajama Game (which I also own). Before Sunrise and Before Sunset are also there (I've got them too). I also spotted The X-Files: I Want to Believe, but not DVD sets of the TV series, which makes me wonder where Fry's priorities are, because that movie was garbage, and we finally deserve an epic alien conspiracy chapter in movie form. I also say this because I was hoping to find maybe one season set cheap enough, preferably the first season, and that's when I found that urgh-inducing sequel.

Whenever I'm at Fry's, and it's been a long time since the last time I was at Fry's, I always end up buying DVDs, but always ones that hew to one of my many interests. I nearly bought the Ethan Hawke Hamlet because I received in the mail the Kenneth Branagh epic version and it sparked my interest in other versions of Hamlet. But even for just $6, I didn't want to get it because if I didn't like it, I'm out 6 bucks. That doesn't square with my ordering books from abebooks.com that I've never read before, yet I spend money on those, but most don't go above $4. $3.95 with free shipping, though it's generally $1 for the book and the $2.95 for shipping is folded in, so the shipping technically isn't free. I'm still paying for it, but I don't mind. A movie demands time. A book lets you have as much time as you want. Something like that.

Then I found the new Patrick Stewart version from the Royal Shakespeare Company which was produced by the BBC, and even though it was $14 for a 3-hour DVD, I still wasn't sure. This is why I can't wait to have a local library again, when there's the chance of finding not only these versions of Hamlet, but adaptations of Shakespeare's other plays. I've never seen any version of King Lear, and I've heard intense things about that one. Shakespeare is not my favorite playwright, nor will I join in on that argument about whether he's the greatest playwright who ever lived thereby ruining it for future playwrights, but he does know how to wring the most drama out of any situation.

Walking through the aisles of DVDs, I checked the concert DVDs for Phil Collins and Sade, and found nothing of Sade, and of Phil Collins, his Finally! The First Farewell Tour and Serious Hits...Live!. Both over $20 and neither really worth it to me, since I love the energy of his Live and Loose in Paris concert that I proudly own on DVD. I checked out Serious Hits...Live! from the Valencia library many years ago, and didn't think much of it. Good for the songs, but not to watch again.

I also kept in mind Dragnet, anything about Las Vegas, and any movies I like and want on DVD. That was the case when I found the double-disc set of Sister Act and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. I like the first one, Dad likes the second one, always watches it whenever it's on one of the cable channels. So he can have what he likes whenever he wants, and I can have what I like, though I'm keeping both in my DVD collection.

In the TV DVDs, I found Dragnet for $3.99, four episodes from the 1950s series, these episodes from 1953. I was hoping for more Dragnet than that, but I'll take what I can get because I like Jack Webb. His writing is no-nonsense, but there's a kind of clear-eyed urban poetry to it, and his business-like narration gives it an interesting air of authority. He can be understanding, but you wouldn't want to mess with him if you were any kind of criminal on that show. He knows Los Angeles intimately, and the research he did for the series served him very well. I keep meaning to listen to the Dragnet radio show from the late '40s, and now that I'm spending more time on the computer doing research for my second book, I should and I will.

In the drama section, I found The Time of Your Life starring James Cagney for $3.99, from Alpha Video, the same company that put out the Dragnet DVD I found (That also reminds me that I still have the 1954 Dragnet feature film on the living room Tivo). I'd bought it once at the 99-Cents Only store, but didn't watch it and eventually got rid of it because I had too many DVDs, this being years before I only just recently figured out that a DVD binder is the best solution.

I like that The Time of Your Life takes place in a bar, yet another self-contained world that, in this case, can't reach out to anyone or anywhere else. And there's a pinball machine in the movie. It doesn't take much to get me interested in a movie. For example, I will follow director Joseph Kosinski anywhere because of the creatively inspiring dystopian visuals in Tron: Legacy. When his next movie comes out, I'm there.

This time, I will watch The Time of Your Life, considering that it was a passion project for Cagney and his brother William. Plus, the little I saw of it a few years ago I really liked because Cagney is the center of that world.

I nearly passed by the small documentary section, stopped and went right there. I found a DVD containing footage of flying over Florida, past Walt Disney World, and thought I might like it, but the DVD rattled inside the case, which meant it was loose, and I didn't want to spend $10 on a DVD that could be scratched up. Plus it was a sign that even though I could still fondly remember what I loved about Florida, I needed to fully concentrate on my future home. Not that I haven't, but there's nothing in Florida anymore for me. Too many years have passed. It was right then that I found Vegas: The City the Mob Made, a 10-episode documentary acreoss two discs. No DVD was loose inside the case, and what better way to learn much more about the history of Las Vegas? After we finally move to Henderson, I'm ransacking the Nevada history sections of the Clark County and Henderson library systems, but for now, this will do along with the Las Vegas books I've already bought.

After spending over 45 minutes in these DVD sections, I went to where Mom, Dad and Meridith were, among the binders I needed. There was a TekNMotion binder that looked sturdy enough, held 400 DVDs, and was $35. I needed a binder already and this was it. I bought it, of course, along with the DVDs, and spent the next day putting nearly all my DVDs into that binder. I have to buy another binder to fit the 100 or so DVDs that are left.

It always seems to me that IKEA exists for those massive changes you want to make in your lifestyle. You don't like how your house is decorated, so you decide to spend hours at IKEA to see what might fit you. And if you do go to IKEA for little things, you don't spend as much time because you know exactly what you need. The little things for me are Swedish meatballs, and after Dad dropped us off at the sidewalk in front of IKEA, we went right to them. Three trays on a cart piled with three dishes of Swedish meatballs with gravy and lingonberry sauce, with one side of mashed potatoes and two sides of macaroni and cheese, one side of spinach-and-cheese crepes (for me), one side of french fries (mostly for me), a slice of Swedish apple cake (for me), one separate side of macaroni and cheese (for Meridith), and little paper cups filled with ranch dressing and mustard. Whenever Meridith and I see those dispensers, we always get overenthusiastic. She filled 6 cups with ranch dressing for her, and 6 cups with mustard for me. And there was also three slices of garlic bread, one for me, one for Mom, and one for Meridith. It's great garlic bread, with the garlic an even flavor.

We found that the best table was one that Mom originally wanted to avoid because it was right next to where people stand in line, if the line gets that long. But sitting there, you don't have to weave past other tables to get to yours, you don't have to wait when others get up before you can get to your table, you can just do whatever you need to when you want to, including going back to the drink dispensers to refill glasses with "lingonberry drink," as IKEA calls it.

Those Swedish meatballs are pure heaven. IKEA isn't working to try anything fancy with what it serves. It knows what works and it sticks with it. I like it for that reason, that I can go there and know that the spinach and cheese crepes are going to be exactly how I like them. They changed cakes since last time, introducing this Swedish apple cake which was not as good as the chocolate cake they had last time. I'm hoping for a new one when we go next.

After dinner, Mom looked at a few things, I got a bag of individually wrapped milk chocolates with butterscotch pieces inside (I love butterscotch and always seek out anything that has it), we got ice cream from the counter near the exit, and then went to Burbank Town Center Mall. It's a nicely-designed mall with three floors, and it has to be because it can't muck about. You dither with your business and you're gone, just like Steve & Barry's, which used to be on the top floor of the parking garage, next to those parking spaces, above Barnes & Noble, but that t-shirt emporium is gone and that space is still empty. Partly the economy, but mostly byzantine business practices that I'm sure are still trying to be figured out by those involved in it, even with the business long gone.

If you want clothes, there's plenty of clothing stores. Need lotion, there's Bath & Body Works. Just want to walk around, there's a lot to look at. This is one mall that actually meets needs. It's not trying things internally that ultimately make no sense to customers. What you want, they've got it. For me, that was All Amusement, which sounded like video games, which don't rapidly interest me unless it's Galaga, and pinball, which always does. I had to wait for Mom, Dad and Meridith to come out of Bath & Body Works, and it was an adventure all its own in trying to find a bench since all of them were taken, and when I sensed someone was getting up, I rushed to that bench, but the person I thought was getting up wasn't getting up so quickly. I still waited, and then as soon as they got up and cleared it, I grabbed it. Turns out I didn't need it since not 30 seconds later, there they were outside of Bath & Body Works. No matter, since we went down the escalator to the second floor, spotted Macy's, walked toward that, and there was All Amusement. Glorious, joyous All Amusement. Everything I could want in one arcade. There was a Pac-Man/Galaga arcade machine, Lord of the Rings and The Simpsons pinball (That would be so cool if it was one machine, but it was two), and air hockey for me and Meridith.

(I didn't think I'd need a part 2 for this entry, but I do. More book research calls. The rest of this tomorrow.)

Day 2, Part 3 of a Four-Week Pleasure Cruise: Would It Have Been Better If?...

2011-12-16T22:43:00.000-08:00

Looking out at the rest of the park from the Sky Tower, as it begins to get dark, the light touches the rollercoasters and ride vehicles and trees and walking paths in such a way that it makes it all the only place in this entire to have feelings. When it's sunny out, and even when not, it assumes full control. It is confident of its power in offering up so many rollercoasters, in ensuring that a lot of people have a good time. When the sun goes down as it did in those moments, it feels sad that people have to leave soon, have to give up this temporary world for what awaits them wherever they come from. It wants to get a stranglehold on the sunlight, push it back up, and spread it out to the entire park again. People can't leave yet. There's still so much to do.

This is why it closes at 6 p.m. in winter. There's not enough lighting throughout the park. What is there is suitable only to the immediate areas, but never beyond that. You'd have to bring in floodlights if you wanted to illuminate the park entirely, but that would be too harsh. Near the Golden Bear Theatre, there's lights in the souvenir shop, and a few other places, but not among that walking path. You can get to where you're going, though, by the arcade ahead and brighter lights as you get to the central plaza near the front gates.

The elevator came back up and that was it for us. No reason to stay longer. There's a lot less memorabilia than there was last year. Maybe some of it was being spruced up, maybe they rotate it. It didn't seem like enough, as if there's indifference here as to whether people know more about the park as it was. It's one of the rare instances here that the attitude of the Santa Clarita Valley has crept in: No history. Only the present and the future are allowed.

Going down in the elevator with a few other people, including two employees, I knew already what the park looks like at dusk from on high and what the seemingly distant valley looks like too. So I spent those few minutes looking at the wires of the elevator moving in the structure as we went down. You can see stairwells, all painted orange just like the rest of the tower, and once on the ground, the other elevator, which wasn't in use since there weren't that many people in the tower. Never are. It's the same line of thinking used at Superman: Escape from Krypton. If the crowds grow, then they'll use the second vehicle.

We passed Ninja, and I felt like seven times on it had been enough. "7" is a major number in Las Vegas, and it felt right with a farewell to it that way while looking ahead to my new home.

At the top of Samurai Summit, across from Ninja, is the Orient Express, an air-conditioned tram that takes guests from there to the central plaza of Six Flags without having to walk back down the steep hill that takes you up to Samurai Summit. It was the best way to get back down since we were beginning to run out of time, with it being 10 minutes to 5, and the park closing at 6.

The Orient Express has two trams, operated by the same cable, and when one tram goes down the hill, the other goes up to the Samurai Summit station, and then they reverse. It's not long to wait for a tram, and it was a relief to sit for a little bit. My feet don't hurt like they used to before I lost all that weight, but the day began to wear on me. Not sleepy just then, but tiredness began to settle in all my joints. There was still more to do, since Meridith wanted to ride Colossus, and I had d promised that I would go on it with her.

To get to Goliath, you walk past the Magic Moments Theater building, which is used about as much as the Golden Bear Theatre, and there's the entrance for Colossus. Then you weave through where longer lines would be until you reach the loading station. They were running two trains, so it wasn't long to wait for ours, and it was when our train bolted out of the station that I realized that Colossus is the father, and Apocalypse is the son. Colossus races up the first lift hill, and when I saw the steep drop, I said "Oh shit!" out loud. This was harrowing. It jerks you around so much, up one hill, down one hill, up one hill, down one hill, that you don't have a chance to breathe for even a second. Then there's another lift hill and you drop way down yet again. It's said that the Colossus trains on both sides (There was an empty loading station across from ours) were used years ago to race each other, and during Magic Mountain's Halloween festivities, the trains run backward. I still shudder at the thought of that.

After I knew it was over by Meridith no longer pressing herself into my shoulder and screaming with her eyes shut tight, as she did on Apocalypse for equally good reason, I felt a bit of a headache, which went away as I regained my balance after we got off. I told Meridith that I was done with rollercoasters, and I mean it. I can't do this anymore. Riding the wooden Hurricane rollercoaster 19 times in one night at Boomers in Dania Beach was easy because I was in my teens. It was also easy to ride Space Mountain at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in 2000 after eating an entire turkey leg because I was in my teens. In March, I'll be two years away from 30. I know there are some daredevils well older than me, and rollercoaster enthusiasts I've seen at various websites, including themeparkreview.com, who probably had this love instilled in them at a young age. Reading I did. Movies I did. Aviation I did. Not rollercoasters. I'd be fine with never riding another one again if not for the Desperado in Primm, Nevada, one of the first things you see after the state line in that complex of three casinos and an outlet mall, which I'll ride for home state pride, and the taxicab rollercoaster at New York-New York. But other than those two, I'm finished. At least with Superman: Escape from Krypton, it was just one tall curve and then back down. I know there are easier rollercoasters and I've been on them, but I've lost my interest. Better that my time with all that is replaced with more books and more writing, and probably more Galaga too.

On the way back to the front gate, Mom called Meridith and told her that she and Dad were at the Cyber Cafe and they had already gotten me my pumpkin pie. See, pumpkin pie, butterscotch anything, types of pasta, those are other fine replacements for my interest in rollercoasters, especially with pumpkin pie being my favorite kind. And after the pie we had had at Thanksgiving that we bought frozen from Walmart that had to be baked, I was looking for one far better. When we got to the table where Mom and Dad were sitting outside the Cyber Cafe (with all the computers inside in use, of course), and I got a plastic spoon from inside, I found the pumpkin pie I had wanted for so long. The pumpkin, the spices, the sugar, all melded so perfectly. It was a welcome comfort after the physical turmoil of Colossus, but most of all, it was amazing to me to find this here. I can understand the funnel cakes being so good since they make them on-site, but where would they make a pumpkin pie? They have each slice in individual clear plastic containers, so maybe it's brought in from somewhere else. I really want to know where that "somewhere else" is, and I've just gotten the idea to e-mail the park and see if anyone knows. There are a lot of things worth living for, and that pumpkin pie is close to the top of my list.

We ordered another slice to take home for Mom and I to share, and I told Mom that I decided not to ride Ninja again because first of all, we were already away from Samurai Summit and I didn't want to hike up there again, plus the Orient Express eats up more time and I wanted to make sure I got my Superman t-shirts and anything else Superman related that looked interesting to me. Plus I told her about keeping it at 7 times in honor of Las Vegas, and because the appeal of Ninja to me is gliding past those trees. At nighttime, it doesn't have the same effect. You're just gliding through darkness, and the trees are just outlines of something.

Walking through the main souvenir shop in the central plaza was an immense pleasure. A tinier crowd this time, and I found two Superman shirts, one in a can, and another with the Six Flags name under the image of Superman. Others were comic book covers and too specific for me. I like a general Superman on my t-shirts, open to all possibilities.

While they waited for us when we were on Colossus, Mom and Dad picked up the pickle and the school bus from package pickup at the Looney Tunes Superstore. On the way out, I went into that store to find a relatively unscratched red Superman cup (Has a clear plastic mold of Superman on the left and the right), since the ones in the main souvenir shop looked terrible, more scratched up than is worth buying just to have Superman. Most in the Looney Tunes store were no better, but I did find one that didn't look so bad, and I wanted a spare.

So that was it. All that was left to do after leaving the park was stopping at Grand Panda to pick up the beef chow fun that Dad had ordered for dinner, and at Chronic Tacos for Meridith and I to get what we and Mom wanted. I was still thinking of a chicken and cheese quesadilla when we walked in, but breakfast items are served all day there, and I spotted a picture of a breakfast quesadilla with cheese, eggs, potatoes, and veggie, chorizo, or machaca, which is shredded beef, grilled onions, and tomatoes. I chose chorizo and my god, not only was it filling, but this was what every quesadilla needs to be: Hearty, confident in its combination, and offering up so much good stuff in every bite. Taking our orders home for dinner was perfect because not only were we worn out from the day, but I preferred to be at home, enjoying my quesadilla at my own pace. I don't eat as fast as I used to, but rare is the time that I slow down for something, and this was it. Between the french fries, the pumpkin pie and this, the meaning of life to me seems to be pure pleasure in whatever you love and savoring every moment you have it. The next time we go to Chronic Tacos, that quesadilla is mine again.

Going back to the question that has been part of the title for three entries, I think it would have been better if I had gotten a season pass. When I was in line with my Superman t-shirts and a small Superman desk light I found, there were three people in front of me who were from somewhere else, because the guy at the register told them to have a nice flight back. I was surprised that people venture as far as here, what with Los Angeles, and Anaheim containing Disneyland. But I understand it because perhaps they wanted a different perspective of this region. People watching alone would have made a season pass worth it. A lot to observe and be entertained by, and a lot to write about. A chance to continually explore a different world, to just sometimes watch rollercoasters in motion.

I can't go for a season pass now. Last year was better because though our situation was fluid like it is now, I didn't feel that drive for movement like I do now. Not that I didn't want to leave for home this year, but it felt like things had to take more time to develop. Having passed in August our eighth year of living here, I've become much more antsy. A season pass wouldn't work because it'd be an all-the-time reminder that we're still here. It's not just about having a place to live; it's about where you live, where you're happy. For a final time, though, this was the right feeling. Casual, absorbing everything that I've loved about Magic Mountain, and leaving with a smile. That was the way to do it.

Day 2, Part 2 of a Four-Week Pleasure Cruise: Would It Have Been Better If...?

2011-12-15T18:54:00.000-08:00

During my french fry reverie, oblivious to the crowds passing across from me away from Goliath, and to the booming noise of the one running Superman: Escape from Krypton train, my cell phone buzzed. It was Meridith, saying that she, Mom and Dad were at the souvenir shop across from the Golden Bear Theatre, and they were still selling Thomas the Tank Engine items, this time for 75%, way up from half off when we went to that shop last year. Upon Six Flags giving up its licensing for Terminator and Thomas the Tank Engine, the Terminator rollercoaster became Apocalypse, and Thomas Town, which had Thomas the Tank Engine as a train kids could ride, became Whistlestop Park, the most generic-looking train station you will ever see anywhere. Six Flags is not good at in-house creativity, also evidenced by the pre-show videos passed by on the way to the Apocalypse loading station. More on that fresh hell later.

After finishing the fries, collecting the unused mustard packets (and there were many, since I'm always overzealous for mustard), and putting them back in the container behind the front counter, through the open window, I began walking past the food court, past Goliath, toward the Golden Bear Theatre.

The problem with this particular shop is that if it's doors aren't open, you miss it completely, pass right by it. The double doors were open this time, yet I still didn't notice it. I thought it was further up than where it was, and called Meridith to ask where the heck I had to go. She told me not past the arcade, I turned around, walked past the huge fake tree that you can walk through into Looney Tunes World, and saw Dad standing in front of the shop. I went in, saw the Thomas the Tank Engine toys still unclaimed, and noticed that the park's also still trying to get rid of Superman: The Escape t-shirts, which could be collectors' items if the ride hadn't been so rickety toward the end of its operation.

I also looked at the Batman, Superman and Green Lantern merchandise on display (The latter because of the opening of the Green Lantern: First Flight rollercoaster in the D.C. Universe section of the park), and then spotted a three-tiered metal display case full of toy cars, including fire trucks and school buses. I have an aversion to police and fire vehicles because they're fairly typical of any community, expected, and therefore not really all that unique to my working vehicles collection. I wanted the school bus, though, picked one up, determined that all the parts were intact, and paid for it at the counter.

One of the things to love at Magic Mountain as a once-in-a-great-while visitor is that they have package pickup, which means you can have your purchases sent to the Looney Tunes store right near the entrance and exit gates of the park, and pick them up later, though not until after 3 p.m. And that's what I did: I had a toy school bus sent over there to pick up later.

After Mom and Meridith had looked around, and determined that we had enough toy Thomas trains for our dog Tigger that we bought during our visit last year, we walked to Cyclone Bay, which most visitors don't seem to bother checking out unless they're there to ride Apocalypse, or drive go-karts, or try bungee jumping. There's also carnival-style games that require little effort, such as one you pay $5 for to hit a round metal platform with a mallet to try to make the bell ring at the top. You do that twice, and then you can pick any prize that they have there. Meridith did it and choose a Tweety cape for Mom that she had been eyeing for her last year.

Then came hell. Apocalypse. Meridith wanted to go on it since it was a wooden rollercoaster. You enter under the sign, then walk through a maze of a queue before reaching the first part of the building that has a pre-show video running of people under attack by some vicious force, and psyching themselves up to defend themselves and their families against it, but it's not really clear what it is, and, at this point in its operation after switching from being a Terminator rollercoaster to this, which required new pre-show videos to be shot, no one really cares. No one is required to watch the pre-show video. Once you're allowed in (We had to wait a few minutes while the small crowd in front of us cycled through the building), you just walk past those monitors and loud noises emanating from the sound system, pass through another room that used to have the top half of Terminator robot bodies, ignore another flat-screen monitor with more of that pre-show video, and then walk up a set of stairs to the loading station for the ride, choosing which "sector" you want to be in, meaning which part of the ride vehicle.

Also here, the ride vehicle currently in use rushes overhead and the screams are LOUD. I wish I had taken that as a clue to what I was getting into, because Apocalypse has major anger-management issues. You speed to the first lift hill, go swiftly up it, and then zoom right down and the speed never lets up. It's vicious. There's one really wide turn that's hell to go through, and there's also the turns that go through narrow wooden tunnels that let thin shafts of light through. It leaves you extremely shaken up.

After we got off and walked out of the Apocalypse area, I told Meridith that Apocalypse is one rollercoaster that could use some serious therapy to smooth out whatever makes it pissed off at the world. It should be torn down to make way for something different, but considering the major cost likely involved in building the thing, they're probably going to keep it. To me, it's a waste of space, but I guess it appeals to thrill-seekers much younger than me. Even when I was that young a decade ago, I didn't go for that kind of rollercoaster. I was satisfied and happy enough with the Hurricane rollercoaster at Boomers in Dania Beach, Florida, which closed a few months ago. That was a wooden rollercoaster too but it wasn't as abusive as Apocalypse. It was fast, but it didn't jolt you, and going down those short hills was pure sugar for the pleasure center of the brain.

After leaving the Apocalypse area, we found that Dad had gone on ahead of us and was in the Coaster Candy Company shop, where truffles are sold at the counter, and there's displays of various candy, including huge lollipops that are actually holders for 12 much smaller lollipops. M&Ms are prominently featured, and there's also bags of candy with the Coaster Candy Company label on them, most of it brittle, including peanut and cashew. What caught my eye was almond brittle, I was thinking of getting it, and I have no idea what stopped me. My attention was focused on getting a quesadilla at Los Cuates Mexican Grill nearby. As Mom and Meridith looked over the chocolates at the counter, and Meridith found a large chipotle-accented pickle in a pouch, I decided to go over there and get my quesadilla, but after standing in line for a few minutes, I had a closer look in the kitchen, and it didn't look all that great. Not that it wasn't safely made, but it didn't look like my kind of quesadilla.

After Mom, Dad and Meridith came out of the candy store, Meridith told me she had the pickle pouch sent for package pickup. Meridith's always been one to do the most wonderfully weird things, and this was one of them. A school bus and a pickle at package pickup. I still smile at that.

Dad remembered that Guillermo, one of the teachers at his school, works part-time at the Mexican food counter in the food court building near Goliath, so we trekked over here, walking under the part of the Superman track, that shattering noise out and about again, and Mom covered her ears as we walked under it. We got to the food court, and no Guillermo, as well as no quesadillas. Just burritos. Then, Mom decided on something better: Because of my generosity in buying the toys that we donated to get the free tickets, we'd stop at Chronic Tacos to pick up dinner on the way home. This meant a guaranteed great quesadilla for me, and I was thinking about a chicken-and-cheese one.

We crossed the courtyard near which is a three-point basket contest setup with prizes such as jerseys, and finally went into DC Universe for the roasted corn that we all worship. But first, The Flash: Speed Force, in which you sit in connected vehicles that spin around and around and around, the G-forces growing and pressing you against the left side of your vehicle. It used to be Atom Smasher back when the area was called Gotham City Backlot, and the two rides at the front (including what is now called Wonder Woman's Golden Lasso of Truth) were themed to Looney Tunes. It looks a lot better now with the DC Comics theming, brighter, with much more to see, and ever since refurbishing the Flash ride, it's a lot smoother.

The roasted corn stand was remodeled and expanded, and is now called Kent Farms, after Clark Kent and his earth parents. There's a large oven on the right side, the top door of which can be opened, revealing a revolving rack of corn in their husks, the ends of the husks blackened. The person behind the counter tears off the husk, and it's a beautiful, slightly crunchy, oh-so-good sight, especially when the corn is wrapped in paper, the majority of it dipped in butter, and many options with which to season it, including lemon-pepper seasoning, salt, pepper, barbecue seasoning (That one was new to me), as much as you want.

We were behind someone ordering, and the guy behind the counter opened the lid of a rectangular storage fridge, putting something on the corn, but I couldn't tell what. All I cared about at that moment was that the lemon-pepper seasoning was on the side counter and I needed it right away. Once we got our corn, and Meridith went to find out what Dad wanted on his (At the circular table we found with the Superman logo on it, across from Green Lantern: First Flight, so we got to watch the craziness of the spinning double seating), that's exactly where I went, but first surprised to find barbecue seasoning, and suddenly conflicted. Did I want lemon-pepper seasoning all over my corn this time? How much barbecue seasoning? I soon decided on half-and-half by the time Meridith came back and told me that Dad wanted seasoning salt and pepper on his, and Mom wanted part lemon-pepper, part barbecue seasoning. Meridith had lemon-pepper, and became very full by the time she was done with her corn, and I decided I wanted another.

After deciding to get one for Dad too (When he looks like he wants something, he always says "No, I don't want it," though I have no idea why and I don't have ample time in my world to analyze that one), I asked the guy at the counter what it was he dipped into for those other customers, and he said it was parmesan cheese. The kind you shake out of the container onto pizza and pasta, and what was going to make Meridith's jaw drop, because after she had seen parmesan cheese on roasted corn on some kind of food truck show, she wanted it, and said that if this roasted corn stand had parmesan cheese, she'd dump it all over her corn, give back the container, and say that they ran out and to refill it, after which she'd do it again.

The lemon-pepper seasoning wasn't as appealing to me now as it had been last year, so I asked for parmesan cheese on my corn. The guy poured it on, I asked him how much he was able to put on, and he replied, "As much as you want." I'm not as greedy as Meridith would be in such a situation (Though her greed is justified since she loves cheese as much as I love books), so I asked for it to the end of the corn and that was it. After I got back to our table, I showed Meridith what I had found, she asked shocked questions about where it was, and I let her have as much as she wanted, which wasn't much, since she was full.

And oh god was it wonderful! The roasted corn was still hot enough that the sprinkle parmesan cheese melted on it and in between the kernels, and while I knew that the parmesan cheese had not been available at the roasted corn stand's previous incarnation, I wish it had been, because I would have gone for this every time. Quite fitting for a final visit to Magic Mountain to discover the really good stuff. Only when we're getting ready to move do we get the nice things. It happened in Florida too. That's not to say that Florida was an awful state to live in (I will forever love it for growing up partly at Walt Disney World, and to be a dreamer where dreamers are always welcome), but we'd always find what hadn't been apparent when we'd lived in a particular area for a few years.

It was beginning to get dark, and I told Meridith I wanted her to have a picture in front of the Superman: Escape from Krypton logo before nightfall. We all trekked up the steep hill leading to Samurai Summit, which took longer for Mom and Dad, so Meridith and I hustled up the hill, and reached the Superman area. There were kids climbing on the fake ice crystals directly underneath the sign, where I wanted her to stand, so she stood in front of one of the ice crystals, almost under the Superman sign. I took a picture with her cell phone camera, and then she stood next to one of the red S logos which are on either side of the area in front of the ride. Then a picture of the huge "S" on the ground, and we were done. Time for the Sky Tower.

This time, it was getting darker when we got to the Sky Tower, where the elevator ride up takes 5-6 minutes, and this was the first time we had been up there at dusk. It has always been in the daytime, bright enough to see absolutely everything throughout the park, and there was the symbolism of our time in Santa Clarita hopefully ending. Inside the tower is the museum, which features costumes and maps and props from Magic Mountain in decades' past, including a time where there were many shows, such as a dolphin show, animal show, and many comedy shows. Had they kept all that, it would be a much better park than it is, more to do for others who don't want to ride rollercoasters all the time.

I looked out all the windows at all the sections of the park, paying special attention to where Ninja was located. If I had had a season pass this year, I would have been able to enjoy this sight all the time, get a different perspective, and see the Santa Clarita Valley differently, at least in location in the distance. My feelings on it wouldn't have changed, but to get a skewed sort of view of it would have helped me tolerate it more.

(I worked again today, and am feeling bushed. Final part of this day tomorrow.)

Bliss for the Next Two Years

2011-12-14T21:28:00.000-08:00

With a lot of time to walk around the La Mesa campus as a substitute campus supervisor, there's a lot of time to think.

I did a lot of that today, and you should forget what I said before about the next book I was working on (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/11/can-i-write-books-like-this-forever.html). That won't be my next book, because even those I was excited about it at that moment, I never acted much on the research. One week, then two, then three passed, and still I was reading what I wanted to read and not what I had to read for that project. I may still write it one day, but I need this one to determine where I go as a writer, what else I want to do, and to reacquaint myself with detailed research, which will happen often.

When I did research for What If They Lived?, I couldn't read any books about Brad Renfro, Aaliyah and Heath Ledger because there were none. Every fact in those essays came from newspaper and magazine articles I found online. I loved putting the puzzle pieces together, which today is just like sweeping up garbage on the campus grounds after brunch and lunch (One of the things the La Mesa campus supervisors are required to do), and organizing my DVD collection into a binder, which I did all day and most of the evening Monday and still ran out of room in that binder. I have to get another 400-slot binder the next time we go to Fry's.

I want to put more puzzle pieces together. With this project, I've found the opportunity because very little is likely to come from books. Maybe for background, such as with some actors who died in the early '90s after very long lives, but mostly, my research has to come from interviews, and these interviews will be bigger than what I did before. It's going to require a lot more finesse, and hope that the people I want to contact are willing to be interviewed about this particular point in their lives. There'll be nothing untoward about this and I'm not seeking anything controversial to juice up my book. I'm planning a straightforward history of the making of a series of movies I was obsessed with when I was a teenager.

Over the years, there are bits and pieces I've learned about this particular series that I filed away, and a memoir by an actor who was in all of those movies revealed yet another tidbit that was the impetus for this project. It stuck in my mind until today when it spread faster and faster through my mind, showing me that if I want to be published again by the time I'm 30, I have to be happy with what I'm writing. There is no greater motivation than that. This is that book. I know I'm being very vague about it, but I can't be more specific until I'm well into research and interviews. And even then I can give only little tidbits because I want to keep this close to myself. I have no publisher. It's just me now. But I know that I can write a pitch letter for this one. I can see many of the thoughts in that letter already about why a publisher should bring my book into the world. I'm really excited about this, and that helps the most in telling people what I set out to do with this book, for them to want to know more, to want to see the manuscript.

The next two years are going to be a lot of fun, and to kick off the research for this project, I get to watch that movie series again, taking notes this time to determine what questions I want to ask the actors, directors (One died in 2003, but his son is a director), screenwriters, production designers, composers (The music in the opening scene of one of the movies is an ominous, metallic throb that I love and I want to know how this composer did that), special effects people, and others who participated in the production of these movies. There's a story in all of it. I know it and I can feel it stronger than anything else I recently considered writing. I'm ready.

Day 2, Part 1 of a Four-Week Pleasure Cruise: Would It Have Been Better If...?

2011-12-13T16:32:00.000-08:00

The prevalent question during my Saturday at Six Flags Magic Mountain was: Would it have been better if I had gotten a season pass this year, readily able to disconnect myself from this valley? I'm not as incensed by the vapidness and plasticity of Santa Clarita as I used to be because you eventually resign yourself to this being what there is. It'll never change. What once may have been unique in this valley, whatever that might be, was paved over long ago.

Had I gotten the season pass, I wouldn't have needed to ride the rollercoasters all the time, because there is so much else to explore. There's the perpetually empty Golden Bear Theatre, of which I can see a section of the rows of rising benches while walking nearby. There's the front facade, a much smaller stage, with swinging saloon doors, and a reddish curtain behind that, what may have been suitable for comedy acts, or singers, or any other kind of act that the park used to have often a few decades ago, but no more. The rollercoasters will suffice.

There's also the trees all around, a lot to look at. Not only those that zoom by while riding Ninja, but also the ones you see while you walk up Samurai Summit and a relative nature-centered stretch of them while walking to the stairs that lead to just under the loading station of Tatsu where you can watch the trains being dispatched. It's also a shortcut to Ninja without having to walk the steep Samurai Summit hill. If you ever walk that hill, don't trip. You'll just keep rolling.

I stopped a few times on my way to those stairs, just looking at those thick and thin trees, thinking that I might be a better writer if I had had that scenery around me as often as I wanted, whenever the park was open. I felt completely at peace there, finding it remarkable that the only thing Six Flags Magic Mountain shares with the Santa Clarita Valley is its Valencia designation. That's part of its address, but that's it. No plasticity. Nothing shallow. What you see is what you get, from the cracks in the sidewalk, to Superman: Escape from Krypton running one track and train, and only later upon becoming more crowded, running both tracks and trains. It's a welcome change from when the previous Superman: The Escape used to run only one train and the adjacent track was used for storage. Back then, those trains were the most rickety things you could ever ride in an amusement park. Fortunately, times change.

After Mom, Dad, Meridith and I had given the toys over to the Toys for Tots toy drive, gotten our tickets, and walked through the metal detectors, the park gates opened (10:30 a.m. exactly) and Meridith wanted her funnel cake right away at the bakery right near the gate. I had had breakfast before we left, and so I began my trek to Ninja, first with a detour at the biggest souvenir shop near the main gates to get a Superman cape. Last year, I wore a Batman cape just because it was a cape and who wouldn't want to be a superhero for a day? My deepening interest in Superman in recent weeks compelled me to get the right cape this time, and $10 immediately went to Magic Mountain without hesitation. It was apparently a cape that played music if you pushed a button on it, but I noticed no button and nothing slightly bulky to indicate one. I thought that the paper tag that indicated that there was music was just put there for no reason at all. Maybe a mistake in the packing, but there was the same tag on the other Superman capes in the same section. Logic didn't apply at this moment because I just wanted to get to Ninja.

On the path to the shortcut of stairs past Tatsu and into Samurai Summit, I saw that Viper looked empty. No line jutting out on the stairs leading up to the loading station. One more time then. One more time so I could say goodbye.

Viper is a rollercoaster that's secure with itself. It has two vertical loops, a corkscrew toward the end, and it takes all of this in stride. The ride up the hill before the first major dip is easygoing, and even if you're toward the back, where it's expected to go faster because the cars in front of you have already gone over it, there's still that one moment of calm for all before the speed begins. Yet, it's not a frightening oh god-oh-god-please-make-it-stop-or-just-pluck-me-from-this-earth-so-I-don't-have-to-suffer-through-this-anymore speed, not like the hell I experienced twice, mid-afternoon and early evening. Going through the vertical loops is like gliding through an intersection. It doesn't seem that way when you're watching it from the ground, but it has that effect up there. This rollercoaster's just glad to have your time and if you want to go on it, it'll be here. I loved it for a few years because it was honest about what it was. Still is, but my tastes changed.

After the ride ended back in the loading station, I got out, gave it a farewell pat, and that was it. On to Ninja.

While walking to the shortcut to Samurai Summit, I thought about the season pass question, and it would have been nice to have one just because I would have been able to go on Ninja as many times as I wanted. I love Ninja because, as a suspended rollercoaster, it gives off a kind-of, sort-of effect of gliding through a forest. Tatsu gives the full effect of flying, but I could never do it like that, facing downward. All I need is to pass the trees, not look down on them.

As if it was apparent why I was there, I came to a completely empty loading station. I was the only one on the train for my first ride. No screaming from fellow riders. Just me rushing past the trees, enjoying that cold breeze coming off the waters of Jetstream, a water ride that Ninja seems to barely pass right over.

All in all, I rode Ninja seven times in a row, never screaming like the other riders, because I know it so well. I know where the two tight G-Force-laden turns are that trip the same pleasure center in the brain that produces the orgasm. I look forward to those every time, though strangely, those are the ones that evoke screams from fellow riders. After the seventh time, I needed a break, intending to go back on later in the day.

I needed my legs back, and definitely a restroom. I found it near Superman: Escape from Krypton, went quickly, and discovered that it didn't look like much of a line for Superman. This ride shoots you out of the loading station at 100mph, up the tower, and then back down, simulating the storyline of the infant Kal-El escaping from the exploding planet Krypton. Oh, and the ride vehicles launch backwards, so once you get to the highest point on the tower, you're looking down. Way down, before the vehicle speeds down and back into the station. This is also the loudest ride in the park, close to being a sonic boom without the actual boom. When you pass under the track while walking from the Colossus County Fair area that houses Goliath, you have to close your ears quickly if you hear it approaching. So yes, I'd do this. For Superman. It would undoubtedly be much safer than its previous incarnation which looked so run down, and without the red-and-blue paint scheme the tower now has. Before, it was white.

A few feet away from the entrance is a huge "S" shield. Across from it, on either side, are benches. With a season pass, I could have sat on one of those benches, watching people head to Superman, the line sometimes getting longer, interested in how long people are willing to wait for a ride that lasts 28 seconds. Strapping yourself in and waiting for the attendants to make sure everyone is strapped in takes longer.

Entering the Superman: Escape from Krypton structure is entering the Fortress of Solitude. That's the theming, with lighting that glows green above the doors that open into the loading station. Four people per row, three in the front row, for a total of 15 people in one vehicle. It takes some serious waiting for this.

I eventually reached the door to the second row, still wearing my Superman cape. Before I continue, I should say that I apparently have this effect on people that makes them want to talk to me. Whether it's by way of a calming presence or just something that they sense about me that they're curious about, I don't know. But it's always been there.

When I wait in a line somewhere, or I'm just walking past people, or supervising kids at La Mesa during brunch and lunch, I'm always listening. I hear snatches of conversations, weighing whether they benefit me in any way, possibly something to include in a book or a play one day, or something to include in a novel if I ever decide to write one. Hence, in those situations, I have become really good at listening without making it seem like I'm listening.

Behind me, two guys and a girl were chatting. I didn't listen much to their conversation, and in fact, I can't remember a thing from it. But my attention perked up when I heard, "Look, a new Superman," a reference to my cape. I felt a tap on my shoulder, turned around, and the guy who had tapped me joked that he had Kryptonite. "Circumcision after birth is a Jewish person's Kryptonite," I joked back. I meant it as if a person got it done long after their birth. Mine was done barely a few days after I arrived.

Then he asked me why Superman, and I told him that Batman doesn't interest me because he's gloomy, depressed, and Gotham City is just gray and joyless, whereas Superman came from a different planet, has to discover who he is and where he fits in, and to me, there's more of a story in that, more to explore. The guy reminded me that Bruce Wayne lost both his parents on the same day, and I jokingly replied, "Eventually, a therapist." We also talked about if Bruce Wayne has any relatives, and I said the only person who comes close to being a relative is Alfred.

The friend of his chimed in occasionally, as good-natured as he was, but I didn't notice much compared to that girl, who must have been his friend's girlfriend. She was incredibly beautiful, with a soft face and demeanor about her, who could easily joke with the guys. Many comments and jokes I made got her smiling, reminding me of Emmy Rossum. Truly, the female sex can surprise you when you're not looking.

When the doors opened and we got into the ride vehicle, she had to put her pocketbook on the other side, and I didn't mind getting up and standing to the side at all. Sitting next to her was an honor, though I didn't let on about it. I'm subtle in my appreciations, not so subtle in my appreciation for a much better restraint system in this new incarnation. This time, the ride vehicle has over-the-shoulder restraints that are very heavy, and therefore a bit of a chore to put down, though very necessary so no one flies out. And once that restraint is resting on you (I was at the end of my row, so there was the added bonus of more protection next to me, like half a box made of fabric and metal, which sounds strange, but is the only way I can think of describing it), you take the seat belt buckle hanging down and insert it into the clasp, which is located right over your crotch. Like I said, excellent protection.

I don't have any fear of looking down 415 feet below me. It only lasts for about four seconds, and the way down is smooth. No jerks, no curves. I agreeably felt the wind rushing past me, and then the slowdown into the station, and that was it.

I didn't make a new set of friends with those three. It was one of those conversations that only lasts as long as you're waiting. Lucky guy with that girl. I could also tell that they were avid readers, not only by that same guy noticing my t-shirt, which says, "All You Need is Books," and commenting, "So true, and so many problems could be avoided if that were commonplace." Comments on wars and presidents inevitably followed. Plus, the girl obviously had a vast collection of books where she lives. There's just that look, sharpened, amused, passionate. She had it.

Next, I found out that Mom, Dad and Meridith were heading for Cyclone Bay, where there's bungee jumping ($35 for a single person, $25 for double, $20 for three people, who all can fit in one harness), go karts, and a few lost-looking carnival games, including throwing something into the hole of a vase that turns out to be very far away (It always seems that way), and hitting the circular platform with the mallet to try to make the bell ring.

I wasn't going to start out for Cyclone Bay so fast. I was hungry, and I needed french fries, one reason I had been excited about this day. There's nothing particularly remarkable about the fries served up at the Fresh-Cut Fries stand in Colossus County Fair plaza, but it's just that they're there, served nacho style with cheese and salsa and jalapenos, or spicier styles, or plain, that makes them appealing.

I ordered the half-pound of regular fries, not minding paying $5.29, and when the guy at the counter put ketchup packets on top of the fries, I told him I didn't need them, because there were mustard packets sitting there. I grabbed a handful, went to a table next to the stand and sat down, focused solely on my fries. I opened packet after packet of mustard to squirt on the fries, made a mess of a few packets, wiped the mess off the table, and dove in.

When I'm eating something I really like, it's only me and the food, as it was with these fries. A steady stream of people were walking out of Colossus County plaza across from me, and I hardly noticed. I had french fries and that's all that mattered. And the mustard. Rarely do I eat fries without mustard; well, fries that aren't from McDonald's or In-N-Out.

Before reaching the french fry stand, I stopped at the food stands at Water Tower Plaza, across from the Gold Rusher rollercoaster, curious about if they sold french fries as well, and whatever else was there. In the order window was an ad for pumpkin pie, $3.25 a slice. Pumpkin pie is my favorite, so I immediately wanted it (especially since the frozen pumpkin pie we put in the oven for Thanksgiving was shoddy, and only mildly good after being refrigerated), but not before I had my fries. I'd have my fries first, and then walk back for pumpkin pie.

(More tomorrow. I was a working man today and I'm a working man again tomorrow, with a shot at a full night's sleep tonight instead of the four and a half hours I got before the automated sub system called with the job at 7 this morning.)

A Sign Pointing Firmly to the Future

2011-12-11T21:00:00.000-08:00

Still not ready to write about a weekend that could rival any of my future weekends in Las Vegas and Henderson. Tentacles of pain are still reaching inward from the sides of my feet, the result of basically walking for three days straight (Friday was work, remember), and after I'm done compiling job listings for that freelance writing newsletter, I don't want to move until at least mid-morning tomorrow. I've got three episodes of Jeopardy! Tivo'd (Two from Game Show Network, Saturday and today at 6 in the morning that originally aired a few years ago, and a rerun on my local ABC station last night) and I'm looking forward to vegging out while calling out answers I'm surprised I knew. But this I must mention.

Before going to IKEA, we stopped at Fry's, where Mom and Meridith wanted to look at waffle makers. I thought only about the DVD section, which is a lot of fun to go through because they stock DVDs that you'll never find at Best Buy, such as The Straight Story, and the Ethan Hawke Hamlet for $6. I stood where that DVD was, with that in my left hand, and the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet, starring David Tennant and Patrick Stewart, released by the BBC, and therefore $14.27, though for a three-hour production, it was somewhat understandable. But if I was to buy either of these, and possibly not like them (I'm nuts for the Kenneth Branagh-directed version, though that wouldn't color my view of either of the other two), then I'm out $20. I can take that risk with books because that's who I am. But for DVDs right now, until I have a library card again, I prefer to only buy DVDs I know I can benefit from because they tap into some interest or that I need back in my DVD collection, such as Dick Tracy, the Warren Beatty one, which I bought. I'll wait for those versions of Hamlet, when I can also have the resource of finding other Shakespearean productions on DVD wherever those libraries have DVDs available.

I stopped in the documentary section of DVDs, finding one called Over Florida that's entirely of footage shot from the air. I was born and happily raised there, with much in the state that fired my imagination and led me to who I am now, who I'm looking to be as a writer. Perhaps it would be nice to watch that footage and remember those landmarks that were so important to me.

That didn't happen. As I always do, I slightly shook the DVD case up and down to make sure the DVD was securely in place and this one wasn't. It rattled. At the same time I decided not to risk $9.95 on a DVD that may be completely scratched up, I found a two-disc DVD set called Vegas: The City the Mob Made, 10 episodes about the history of Las Vegas. Shaking that DVD case, I found that those DVDs didn't move.

I bought it, because from this comes everything else I'd want to read about Las Vegas history. I want to know everything. I will leave nothing out. And it was definitely a sign, not to forget Florida entirely, but to leave it behind now and focus on what will come and make me happy every day. It's like my favorite song from the '90s: Runaway by Janet Jackson. The memories it evokes of growing up in the '90s are still active in my mind, but the impact has faded. I think it's to make room for what's ahead, to be where I truly want to be, and what it can fan out to include, such as my desire to travel to New Mexico, and my eventual presidential library travels. By finally having a home base again, I can add more to what I am in reading, writing, and in living.

My Very First Royalty Check

2011-12-10T21:54:00.001-08:00

I'm too tired to write anything about my day at Six Flags Magic Mountain, except to say that I'm done with rollercoasters, save for my personal requirement of riding Desperado when we reach Primm just across the state line into Nevada from California (Home state pride!). Some people are cut out for roller coaster enthusiasm well into their thirties. I won't be one of them, not after the double hell that was Apocalypse and Colossus. But more on that either later Sunday evening or Monday.

The day itself was incredible, everything I expected. Then I came home, got the mail (including the complete series DVD set of Nero Wolfe, starring Maury Chaykin, one of my favorite actors, and Timothy Hutton), and found something momentous: My very first royalty check! This was for What If They Lived?, and it's quite a coincidence because while walking throughout Magic Mountain, I thought about how I don't want to let What If They Lived? be my only book. I have to start moving more swiftly on what I want to write. And then after getting off Colossus and ending my interest in rollercoasters, I thought about how not only am I gradually reaching 30, but I will be getting older and older and I don't want to let the years pass without having books to show for them.

When I saw the envelope in the mail and had an inkling that that's what it might be, I thought to myself, "There's a kick in the ass when you need one." After I showed it to Mom, Dad and Meridith, I loved that feeling not only of them being proud of me, but amazed that after all the work I did, here is this check. Here is money for my work. It's not a bizarro, I-can't-believe-they-pay-me-this-much-for-words amount, but it does make me want to write lots more. It'd be nice to see my name on more checks related to my work.

For now, work. More work. Still more work. It's the only way I'll get to that point again.

A Friday with Pay and Then Rollercoasters

2011-12-09T07:39:00.000-08:00

This morning was a surprise. I went to bed toward 3, completely failing at trying to get to bed much earlier on Wednesday night and Thursday night so I could ease into getting up early tomorrow morning for Six Flags Magic Mountain.

Mom woke me up at 10 minutes before 6. John, the head campus supervisor, put a call into the automated sub system, which called me. He needed a sub. Did I want the job?

I always want the job, no matter who I'm subbing for, because there's money. I need money. I love money. I need to let my savings account rise more, and I love buying books (at least until Henderson, when I'll have a library to go to again).

I wish John had decided this last night so I could have had time to get lunch ready and to get to bed earlier. That's not how this always works, though, so I went to the dining room table to get Lady Luck's Map of Vegas by Barbara Samuel (I finished The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue a little after 1 this morning), went back to my room, saw that my clock said 5:52, and got back into bed for a few minutes. I was fully awake, but knew that I have to take it easy today. I'll do the job as professionally as I always do (I'm at the school right now), but I'll walk around the campus a little less during the class periods when there's not any calls to answer on the radio. I need my exercise, and I'll get that, but I also need to be sharp for the brunch and lunch periods, supervising the kids, since I'll be walking around. It's not like subbing for Alex and Carmen, standing near the lunch lines, making sure no one cuts in at the front of the line.

I didn't open Lady Luck's Map of Vegas. I just lay there wondering how I was going to make it through the day on little sleep, but I remembered that I had slept nine hours the previous day, and when I'm at home during the school week, I do a few chores after I get up, then spend my time on the couch reading, as I did yesterday. So there's not a whole lot of exertion there. That serves me well today.

I looked over at the clock again, saw that it was 6, and thought about if I should wait to take a shower after I got home, which actually wouldn't be until after we come home from school, pick up Meridith, go to $5 Friday at Pavilions (in which many items are $5 each, including fried chicken this week), and go home again. That wasn't going to work. It was time to just get it done. I don't think I would be able to think about one after all that activity, and I needed one.

What a relief a shower is when you're trying to wake up. It sets up a good mood for the rest of the day. I don't consume caffeine anymore, so I needed this.

During the shower, I remembered that today is the holiday luncheon for faculty and staff in the library. No need to make lunch to bring with me. Just three oatmeal raisin granola bars and three bottles of Arrowhead water. I had breakfast before Dad and I left the house. I hope for egg nog during this luncheon, but I doubt it. That reminds me that I still want my one carton of regular egg nog for the year. I've been drinking Silk Nog occasionally from the end of October to now, and I'll only partake of regular egg nog once this year. Copious amounts of regular egg nog, even the low-fat kind, is part of what got me fat over the years. Not again. Total moderation.

John's hours are 8:30-4:30, and even though it's later than I usually work, I'm very happy with it. 8 hours instead of 6. Money earned, and then Six Flags Magic Mountain tomorrow. It works out perfectly because I'll definitely crash later tonight and then be up by 7:30 or 8 tomorrow morning, well ahead of 10:30 when the park opens. We're all going anyway, not just Meridith and I, so we'll need to find a parking spot too. The weather is going to be warmer tomorrow, which means I can wear my "All You Need is Books" t-shirt (http://www.unshelved.com/store/Shirts/AllYouNeedIsBooks) with a white t-shirt underneath and a jacket.

So now I can buy my slightly overpriced Superman t-shirt tomorrow without feeling like I'm pushing my financial limit. And if they have a t-shirt that actually has the Ninja rollercoaster on it and not just an outline of a section of the park (as it is with the Ninja t-shirt I already have), I'll grab that too.

I just remembered that the Sky Tower Museum is open as well, in which you take an elevator up that orange tower to the first floor (The second floor is for storage, I imagine, though I heard rumors that there's a kitchen up there too) and there's memorabilia from decades past at Magic Mountain, in glass cases, on hangers, and even an old ride vehicle from one rollercoaster and a seat from another. It's a tradition of sorts for all of us, and before that, when that floor was entirely devoid of anything, we'd just go up there to see the view of the Santa Clarita Valley, which looks far better than the reality. We'll still do that, because that's really the main reason to go up there, and for me to see the Ninja track obscured by trees.

It's just like our tradition to go on "It's a Small World" together whenever we go to Disneyland, though that's not likely to happen again before we move because those tickets are so damn expensive now. When we went to Walt Disney World every weekend when I was a tyke, we went on "It's a Small World" often, and that carried over to when we visited the Magic Kingdom once in a while when we lived in South Florida years later. (Never EPCOT or then-Disney-MGM Studios. Magic Kingdom had enough for all of us, including Tomorrowland for me with Space Mountain (my favorite attraction there), Tomorrowland Transit Authority, and Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress. I only needed those, and the arcade next to Space Mountain, and I stayed there the entire day.)

Work is good, especially this work which lets me read at lunch, completely unperturbed. With Magic Mountain tomorrow, it's even nicer.

(Addendum at 8:11 a.m.: Dad came back from the office before going coffee-hunting to tell me that I have Alex's hours of 9:30-3:30. On days when John is absent, Alex takes his hours. I'm not disappointed, because 6 hours is better than no hours. Plus, that gives me an hour to lay on the couch upstairs in the teachers' lounge and rest up and read before I have to start. I think I'll be better, more awake than I thought I'd be when we got here.)

Banana Splits and Advice for the Next Generation

2011-12-08T13:25:00.000-08:00

For me, a perfect day at work is having a lot of time to walk the La Mesa campus, a lull in between calls, an opportunity to read while at lunch, and spending most of the time by myself, save for supervising the kids at brunch and lunch and making sure they get to class in between periods. I don't talk much with my fellow campus supervisors because there's not that much to say. I'm there to do a job well, to get paid, and go home. And I still love that once the day's work is done, it's done. There's no overtime, nothing to think about at home. I have the rest of the day and night for myself, to read and to write.

Yesterday was a perfect day because of all of that and more. I was subbing for Carmen, who had to take her daughter to a few appointments, since her husband had done it the past few times. I'll take any hours I can get, though Carmen's aren't my favorite because it's five hours and 30 minutes, and not a full six hours as I get with one of the two Alexes and Liz.

Nevertheless, it felt like a Friday, looking straight at the weekend, even though it was a Wednesday. It had that easygoing feeling that aligned the universe. Plus, Meridith was working too as a substitute in the kitchen. The last time she and I were at the same school was a year at Riverside Elementary in Coral Springs, Florida, when I was in fifth grade and she was in kindergarten.

Meridith and I graduated high school in 2007 (Valencia High) and 2002 (Hollywood High), respectively, and spent a few years each at College of the Canyons. We're at a campus again because we don't have to learn anything anymore. We have jobs that are a requirement on a middle-school level (and elementary and high school, though neither of us want to work at a high school): Kids have to eat and there needs to be supervision. In fact, once we get to Henderson, Meridith's thinking about working in the cafeteria of an elementary school, since she loves little kids. I want to stay on the middle school level because in high school, to drag out the moldy cliche (though it is true, I know), those students so obviously know everything. I like to be in that gray, in-between area, which middle school is. There's room for more ambiguity than there is in high school. Plus, it appeals to one of my major interests in my writing: Self-contained worlds. La Mesa is part of a school district, but it is by itself during school hours. No actions by any other middle school can affect it. Tom Flores, one of the assistant principals, splits his time between there and Sierra Vista, but the dynamics in each campus are most assuredly different.

Plus, with weekends off, holidays off, and teacher workdays off, no other job can possibly match that. And because Meridith and I have been at Silver Trail as students when Dad taught there, and just in general when he had to be there at night for various happenings such as open houses; and I have been at Flanagan High and Hollywood Hills High as a student when Mom worked at each campus, we know all about the inner workings of administrations, what helps the school run. From student to employee, it was an easy transition for us to make.

In the kitchen yesterday, there was also a birthday celebration for one of the women, so at one point in the day, Meridith was making banana splits for them. I had come in just when I had started my shift to say hello to Meridith, and then before lunch, I popped in again before the rush began and Meridith asked if I wanted a banana split. Mindful of the roasted corn and french fries to come at Six Flags Magic Mountain on Saturday (I may have one order of each or more than one. I'm not sure yet), I said no, but Meridith is deaf to the word "No" unless you keep remaining firm enough to show that you don't want whatever's being offered. So she said, "Ok, I'll make you one," and who am I to argue when a banana split is being offered on a Wednesday afternoon during work hours.

After lunch was over and I had swept my share of the campus free of lunch debris (La Mesa is the only campus in the district in which the campus supervisors also sweep up trash after brunch and lunch. If a custodial job involved only sweeping, I'd apply for it, but I don't want to do all else that's involved, such as shampooing carpets, staying late into the evening, and sometimes cleaning up puke. So a campus supervisor I'll happily be), I went into the kitchen, Meridith gave me my banana split, and when I took it from her, I was floored because that freezer in that kitchen works so much better than what we've got at home. I know it's an industrial freezer and it has to work properly for reasons of food safety, but even so, while I was taking my banana split to my favorite spot toward the back of the school to sit down and have it, there was no threat of it melting, even with the day having become warmer.

In this banana split were three long sections of banana, chocolate and vanilla ice cream, and walnuts. The walnuts were an unexpected surprise, since I don't see walnuts that often anyway because of how much they cost in the bulk aisles at Sprouts.

I sat down, tucked under the bowl the napkins Meridith gave me, and tucked in. Imagine that anywhere else: Eating a banana split on a Wednesday afternoon at work. The radio was quiet, no one to pick up to bring to the office, so I had plenty of time to eat the entire banana split. I know there probably won't be banana splits at whatever middle school in the Clark County School District will have me as a full-time campus supervisor, not very often anyway, but this is truly the job for me, for moments like this that are so incongruous to what we think of as work during the day. But you know, a job's a job because it brings in a paycheck. It pays the bills. At least for this weekend, part of it gets me a slightly overpriced Superman t-shirt at Six Flags (From the check I deposited yesterday that was from two days of work a few weeks ago).

Before the banana split, at about 11:30, I went to lunch. Carmen's hours, as well as Liz's, and one of the Alexes, puts lunch at 11:30-12:15, which gives a 19-minute leeway before lunch begins for the kids.

I keep my lunch in my dad's fridge in his classroom (in a small room off the classroom, where he also keeps boxes of crackers in a cabinet and assorted other snacks), and I wish I didn't have to. The temperature control in that fridge is so out of whack that spinach and shredded carrots I store in there in a plastic container are always frozen whenever I open it up in the teachers' lounge upstairs. I can eat a few leaves and a few carrots, but have to wait until nearly the end of lunch for the rest of it to defrost. Fortunately, I'm the sort who can go from dessert back to lunch, and since I always have a banana for dessert, it makes no difference. But it's still plenty annoying when there's 45 minutes for lunch that I don't want to rush through at any point.

Later in the day, the head of the kitchen said to Meridith that whenever I'm working, I can have whatever I want from the kitchen. I wondered if this meant I could put my lunch in one of those fridges so I don't have to chisel spinach leaves apart. Yet, I'm iffy about taking advantage of such an offer when Meridith's not working in the kitchen. I don't feel it polite to impose if I don't have a connection to the kitchen. I don't take advantage of that connection anyway, since I have my own lunch, but it just seems easier to go about it when Meridith's there.

Dad's classroom. Lunchtime. I walked in, going to the tote bag I kept under the table near Dad's desk, getting out the plastic shopping bags in which I brought my lunch, to bring to the fridge and load it up. Dad saw me, stopped me, and said he wanted to introduce me to a student, and was going to have me paged on the radio if I hadn't shown up.

The student he introduced me to wanted to write books and poetry, and he told me to talk to her and give her some advice. It was a brand-new situation for me. I've always been on my own with my writing. I've never imparted any experience of mine to anyone curious about what I do, because there's been no one curious about what I do. Yet, here was someone.

She told me that she wanted to write poems of sadness and despair. I don't know if any aspect of her life brought her to want to write those, nor was I going to ask. I figured that maybe she thought those were deep poems, and therefore more likely to be remembered. That didn't matter to me, because she asked, and that was most important to me.

I told her to read often and read a lot. Read enough poetry to get a feel for how others do it, how they form their thoughts into whatever style they choose. Type out favorite poems to get a deeper feeling for them. Always try.

She asked for poets that matched what she wanted to write. On the computer she was using, I steered her to Sylvia Plath. In Google, I typed "sadness and despair poems" and told her to read through those, and if she found a poet she liked, to read everything that poet wrote. It's most important that she follows what interests her. I emphasized over and over to her the importance of reading, that in order to write well, you have to read. You have to know what has come before and from there, you can figure out what you want to do, but also never to be intimidated by what came before that seems great, because you can still do it too.

She went back to Dad later in the day to say thank you, because I had changed her life. What she had learned from me was much, much more than any guidance department or set of English teachers so far had done for her. I hope in high school, she has an English teacher like Roberta Little, who I had in 11th grade, who introduced me to Tennessee Williams through The Glass Menagerie (My favorite play), who showed Mark Twain Tonight! starring Hal Holbrook in conjunction with a unit about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and which I not only bought on DVD years later, but I saw Holbrook perform it live at the College of the Canyons Performing Arts Center. She sought our opinions about works, fostered great discussions, and never believed her own opinion to be greater than any of ours. In literature, we were all on an equal level, all exploring together.

By the way, she's 12. There's a potentially good future for this country.

I had done my mitzvah for the day. Totally unexpected, and it's best that the young ones learn what those of us in the trenches have done so far and apply it to how they want to do it.

None of the rest of my day compared to that, though it was just as peaceful as it had been from the start. At one point, Mr. Kerman, one of the guidance counselors called at five-minute intervals to bring three girls into the office of Mr. Patterson, one of the assistant principals. I answered all three calls, figuring something had transpired that took some time to sort out. Not my place to know and I didn't want to know. I'm there to help make the day run a little bit smoother for the administration and the running of the school, and that's enough for me.

Today, there's been a new development. There will be five days in the four-week pleasure cruise instead of four. Dad got a call today that an influential bigwig at K12, the online school he works for, is flying to Burbank for business and wants to meet him on Sunday. This means going to Burbank, where Dad will likely drop us off at IKEA, before meeting this guy at whatever restaurant he chooses. This is most important because it could bring us closer to becoming residents of Henderson, being that the job Dad's seeking at K12 is in Las Vegas.

For Mom, Meridith and I, this means Swedish meatballs at IKEA, plus there's a mall within walking distance where Mom's wanted to go to the Macy's, but there's never been enough time on past visits. There's also Barnes & Noble across the street from IKEA, but I don't feel an urge to buy any books since I've been ordering the ones I want online. Yet I say that without having been there yet, and with a burgeoning interest in Steampunk and a deepening interest in Superman. Plus, they've got a vast collection of magazines, and it was at that Barnes & Noble that I discovered The Normal School (http://www.thenormalschool.com/index.html), a literary magazine run from the Fresno campus of California State University. Just from the issue I found there (http://www.thenormalschool.com/images/TNS5_FrontCover.gif), I went to the website, found out where to send a check for a subscription, wrote one, and sent it off. And I will happily renew my subscription once the third issue in my four-issue subscription arrives. They publish twice a year in the spring and the fall, so I have time.

I've also been thinking about the $1-only used bookstore that we went to in downtown Burbank in January (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/01/lost-my-dream-girl-i-hope-theres.html), but considering how many books there already are in my room, that may not be wise. And yet, there may be an author there I've never discovered before who I just have to read. And yet, I already have many of those in my room. And yet, maybe there's one or a few there who could inspire me further as I work on my second book. And yet, maybe it's best to shrink some of the stacks first before I go nuts again for more. And yet, isn't that what being a bibliophile is about? For the sake of space, no. For the love of reading, yes.

Besides, Dad's meeting is happening later in the day, so by the time he's done, we'll have to get home anyway because Dad has to go to work on Monday. It's no great loss to me if we don't, but there's always something about those used bookstores, going in, not knowing what you're looking for, but always finding it.

I've also found immense pleasure in The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue by Barbara Samuel, who writes as Barbara O'Neal now, and whose The Secret of Everything makes me want to visit New Mexico one day. I'm impatiently waiting for her The Garden of Happy Endings, which is coming out in April, so I ordered this, Lady Luck's Map of Vegas (which arrived today), and A Piece of Heaven, to pass some of the time until April when I can finally dive into that one. I haven't yet ordered No Place Like Home and Madame Mirabou's School of Love because I wanted to see how these first three go, but just on page 146 of The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue, I'm seriously thinking about bringing those two in. I can't go wrong with any of her works. Plus, I intend to re-read The Secret of Everything before April.

The pleasure cruise continues.