Tag Archives: Comedy

Adventures In Meeting Your Childhood Heroes

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I lost two of my childhood heroes in the last year:

Robin Williams and Gene Wilder.

I met Robin Williams when I was 10 years old.

Robin Williams was the The Pied Piper of my hometown, Marin County.

He was my fellow Redwood Giant.

I used to memorize his stand-up routines in high school and perform them for friends.

He tried teaching me to do a wheelie once on the set of “Jack” down the street from my house. I failed miserably.

He picked me back up and smiled and wheelied away with a cackle, sending me a photo and a note in the mail a few weeks later.

He was always so generous and so kind.

I met Gene Wilder about 5 years ago.

I was the bartender in the Presidential Suite at the US Open. (Never mind that at the time, I had never made a drink in my life – for myself let alone celebrities and international heads of state. But still, with a bit of mischief, I said sure, I can do that.)

It was a loud, boisterous scene. Mr. Wilder, one of my top five childhood idols, approached me. Quietly. Slowly. He walked with a cane, but no surprise tumbles were to come.

I want to say he ordered a soda water.

He kept his eyes on me as I made him his drink. Quietly. Intently. I’m no good at making conversation with my heroes, so I responded in the same manner. Quietly. Intently.

Images flashed across my mind. 7 year old me on stage, playing Grandpa Joe in Willy Wonka. 9 year old me at home, wearing out VHS tapes of Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles.

I handed him his beverage. He promptly took his wallet out of his pocket.

I said, “Oh no, sir. That won’t be necessary.” Tips were prohibited.

He paused to smile at me. A Mona Lisa smile. It felt as if he was studying me, discovering me. Or maybe he was letting me discover him.

He slowly turned his wallet upside down, holding it high above the bar. Then, he opened it wide. A few singles fell like feathers. Silence. He paused and smiled a little wider. He maintained eye contact with me. I was locked in his gaze.

Then, a few coins dropped out. Plop, Plop. Plop….Plop.

It was like a clown routine. Grace and perfect timing never eluded him.

He put his wallet back in his pocket, took my hand, then held it in his own.

“Sir, that won’t be necessary,” I repeated.

He glanced down for a moment, but only to look at my name tag. He looked back up.

“Michael. It’s very necessary.”

I could barely breathe. In his hands I felt play, vitality, honor, mischief. Great, lovely, wonderful mischief.

He released my hand, pushed $4.63 across the bar, nodded his head, then walked away.

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Thank you, Mr. Wilder.
We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.
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Thank you, Mr. Williams.
All my love to you, poppet.

…Adventures In Getting Back On

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Previously, On The Adventure Addict…

Mike fell off a bike in Aspen last Summer.

He hurt himself pretty bad.

His friends and family helped him heal quickly.

For that, he’s incredibly grateful.

Six months later, he finally hopped on a bike again.

But what happened next proved to be AN EVEN GREATER BIKING DISASTER.

*******************

In the months following my bike accident, I slowly graduated from physical therapy to running, weight lifting and yoga. But I had avoided getting back on a bicycle until I made it to the six-month mark, at which time, about 50% of people with titanium collar bones get their plates removed due to discomfort or complications.

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I’ve been fortunate to spend much of the Winter writing in San Francisco. It’s been 72 degrees and sunny nearly every day since I’ve been here. (Great for sunbathers and tourists and those who suffer from seasonal affective disorder. Bad for livestock, flora, fauna, produce, and romantic couples hoping to recreate rainy scenes from The Notebook.) But I’ve been in isolation a great deal, living by myself in an empty house in Pacific Heights.

So the other day, I walked around outside to get me some Vitamin D. It turns out that I’ve been staying right next door to a certain well-known cycling studio that’s good for your soul. I’ve frequented the spin classes at my New York gym over the last few years. It’s a stimulating, invigorating workout for someone like me who finds the gym boring but also enjoys ice cream nightly at 3 am. So I signed up for a class…

Upon arrival, I navigate through the throngs of PR princesses and Lululemon lovers to my seat.

Overheard conversation:

“We’re just having casual sex. Bonobos have casual sex too ya know.”

“Yea but Trish, bonobos also eat their babies.”

Unaccustomed to wearing specialty spin shoes and clipless pedals, I ask a nice dude to my left named Buck to help me out. Buck! I teyl Buck that we don’ wear special shoes at mah speen class back in New Yawk. I’m just not used to bein’ locked een. What if they’res a fahr and I need to escape?

The leggy blonde in front of me turned around and coos, “Why would you ever need to escape? Enjoy your ride.” She smiles, winks, and turns back around.

Oh this’ll be interesting.

At $30/class, spinning at Unnamed Cycling Studio That’s Good For Your Soul sure is different from all those other spin classes. They have grapefruit scented candles burning during your ride. And motivational wisdom shared through loud speakers, courtesy of instructors with glistening torsos and exciting names like Tiffany and Chad.

We start out easy enough. Dimmed lights and a midtempo groove take my mind away from the fact that I’m rubbing sweaty elbows in a walk in closet with sixty other people.

But then Chad turns off the lights. And it quickly gets hot. Like, really hot. And the scent of mass quantities of perspiration do not mix well with grapefruit. And then the music gets louder. Like, really loud. And the mid tempo soul quickly moves into a hard dubstep. (For you more seasoned readers, dubstep is the sound of robots fucking and murdering each other at the same time.)

Chad, in his v-neck tank, yells, “I need you to sweat! I need you to clear out your pores!” I’m sorry, but I’ll sweat in my own way, thanks Chad. I didn’t ask for forced pore cleansing. This is pore rape.

And then it gets worse. We move on to saddle jumps, where you alternate between seated riding and riding up “out of the saddle”. Well remember that leggy blonde in front of me? Like, two inches in front of me? As she rides up out of the saddle, she straight up bullhorns a three second anal symphony right in my face.

Now when I was a little boy, my father convinced me that girls neither shat nor farted. And that when ladies went to the bathroom, they emitted tiny pink packages wrapped with ribbon and string. So either I had a few moments of disbelief, or her frothy flatulence impaired my judgment like a stun gun.

Suddenly we move on to two count jumps. And this lady in front of me straight up Bippity Boppity Boo’s each time she lifts up! 1. 2. Fhwat. 3. 4. Hoot! 5. 6. Schwat. 7. 8. Toot! And now this studio coffin reeks of grapefruit and sweat AND intestines. People, this is not a fruit salad you would ever want to order!

Dubstep and darkness and fire and farts. If Hitler were alive today, this is surely how he would do me in. My feet are locked in place. The chamber’s quickly filling up with poisonous gas. Chad starts yelling “motivations”: Open yourself up! Release! Take a risk! Why keep it in when you can let it go! In my head, the demon bitch from spinning hell in front of me cackles, “Why would you ever need to escape?” No, like, her eyes are turning red and horns are sprouting from her temples and she’s screaming like Megadeth, “WHY WOULD YOU EVER NEED TO ESCAPE? MWAHAHA. MWAHAHA.”

The scent becomes increasingly nauseating. Then I notice my buddy Buck start to sway in circles. Then I see his eyes roll back. Then Buck falls off his bike!

MAN DOWN. WE HAVE A MAN DOWN.

With his feet still locked in, Buck’s legs twist the bike to a stop. But it’s nearly pitch black and our eardrums are being assaulted so nobody else even notices.

Thankfully Buck’s OK. Oh thank God. He swiftly gets back on his bike and continues riding as I intermittently hold my breath and tremor like a bad Kevin Bacon movie. As the ride winds down, Chad offers up a few more lines of inspiration from the likes of Buddha and Dame Taylor Swift. He admits that before class, he ate a big lunch of Mexican food. After his hearty meal, he felt scared to lead class today. But since life is all about taking risks, he pushed through.

Clearly, Chad pushed through hard.

So. Was Chad the guilty party all along? Did his lethal dose of Salagadoo Lamechickaboo merely inhibit my sense of direction? Or were both he and the lady in front of me guilty parties? OR. Did this all happen Murder On The Orient Express style, where EVERYONE was out to make me the first case in history of Death By Stench?

As we exit the Spinning Sauna of Doom, Imagine Dragons  “Radioactive” so appropriately echoes through the speakers.

The point of relaying all this nonsense is that I survived. I fell off a bike. I got back on. And though evil forces tried to bring me down again, with a little help from my friends, I kept pedaling through. What an old valuable lesson for a promising new year.

Take risks. Let go. Push through.

Unless you had Mexican food for lunch.

THEN DON’T TEACH A FUCKING SPIN CLASS.

*******************

Now watch THIS.

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I’ve had safer experiences JUMPING OFF CLIFFS IN RIO than riding bicycles in suburbia.

Adventures In Handing Out Pasta Sauce Packets At The Children’s Leukemia Jazz Street Festival

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When I first moved to New York, I enjoyed, and did not enjoy, a multitude of side jobs. A side job is a gig that supports your primary job. It should remain on the side, as noted by it’s straightforward title. Catering, Bartending, Promo Modeling, Filing, Mannying – You name it. I’ve done it. All in support of my primary career, as a theatre maker and filmmaker.

The promo jobs are usually the most eccentric. I say, you haven’t lived life fully until you’ve stood on a hot, muggy corner in Herald Square for 9 hours next to the hysterically screaming Black Israelites, handing out little toy dogs with oversized anuses that poop out chocolate flavored jelly beans. Or dressed up as a Viking at 4 am and posed for photos with celebrities that end up in the Second Look section of People Magazine.

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No, I wasn’t kidding.

Now I am a relatively mild mannered guy. But sometimes, a side job comes along that is so strange, and so eccentric, that it leaves the periphery of your life and instead consumes any and all sides, cracks and corners it can get it’s greasy little hands on. Then manners get spicy fast. Most of these jobs involve A) The Hamptons, or B) The Upper East Side, two magical lands where money has no price, and apparently, neither dignity nor good taste. Easy targets, I know. But this particular adventure was written 5 years ago, during much snarkier (and long-winded) times. It is set in Times Square, around a U-HAUL truck filled with one very special product…

I think I found Unnamed Marketing Company on Craigslist when I first moved to New York. I had good experience as a brand ambassador and promotional model, or “live model” as I like to say, because it can only infer that all other types of modeling involve dead people. I heard from Unnamed Marketing Company a couple times, but no opportunities arose. Then one day, I was suddenly asked to participate in an Unnamed Pasta Sauce Promotion. We were to give away free plastic bags of pasta sauce on 53rd Street in Midtown at the Children’s Leukemia Jazz Street Festival. (Because the thing jazz loving kids with Leukemia crave the most is a plastic bag of Vodka Sauce.) I was only available for one of the two dates, so I thought no dice. Then, a few days prior to the second date, I got an e-mail from the marketing company simply stating, “Call Me”. (Simply placing a call to me directly would clearly have been too difficult.)

They still needed someone for the second date of the promotion, Sunday, July 26th. The dead of Summer. In fact, they needed a manager. And I needed money. So I said yes, without hesitation. I learned that my managerial duties would include picking up the product and bringing it to site, and then supervising my very own “live models”. Sounded great for the resume. I was so game.

I had a catering gig scheduled the night before the promotion, so I told the Unnamed Marketing Company that I would pick up the vehicle and the product on Friday. I had never driven a U-HAUL in New York City before. Oh yea, that’s right, I had never DRIVEN in New York City before. That’s OK. I’m a good driver, and we should all do one thing every day that scares us, right? So I picked up the vehicle in Chelsea, 45 minutes after convincing U-HAUL that I wouldn’t offer my personal credit card information, and that they could charge the company’s corporate account instead, and then went on my merry way.

The storage unit with the pasta sauce was located at the beginning of Spring Street, that small one-way street right next to the Holland Tunnel. It was 4 pm on a Friday, and New Jersey was apparently the hottest destination in town. I was not offered specific driving instructions from the company. So I used Map Quest instead, that website that doesn’t care what city you’re in or what traffic conditions are like, you’ll still make it down a few blocks in 8 minutes or less. So I headed down the West Side Highway – my first time driving in New York City. And. Skip to 90 minutes later, after 6 near death experiences and one scraped Lexus convertible on MacDougal. (I am SO sorry, sir.)

I met up with my manager, Sam, and loaded about 550 boxes of pasta sauce into the van. Each box contained 6 packets, which equaled about 3,300 packets of sauce. For once in my life, I could be underestimating a figure. I headed home to the Upper West Side, where I could park the vehicle for the next two nights. After leaving a plum parking spot on the street directly in front of my apartment (because Sam feared someone might steal all of the product – HE FEARED SOMEONE MIGHT STEAL 3,300 PACKETS OF PASTA SAUCE), I convinced a parking garage nearby to take the van. They were hesitant, but as I soon learned, you can always barter any non-Italians with pre-made pasta sauce.

Sunday morning: The day of the promotion. A lovely morning – birds chirping, sun glistening. I pay the garage $160 total for parking. (The marketing company didn’t offer me any petty cash, but promised they would later reimburse me. Never heard that one before…) I head downtown, but wait. Broadway is closed off. (Thanks for letting us know about the Triathlon, NYPD!) I head two avenues East, and Columbus is closed off as well. Some busses collided. Or something. So I head four avenues West to Riverside Drive, which is also closed. Streets are marked off with yellow tape and police officers can be seen running in and out of a brownstone. So I stop and ask a police officer how I can possibly get downtown.

“Well, the West Side Highway is closed off for the Triathlon, ya know?”

“Yes, I learned this just two minutes ago. Thanks for assuming I knew, go on.”

“Your best bet is to cross over to the East Side at 86th Street and head down.”

“10-4.”

Sure enough. 86th Street was also closed. The next police officer I stop tells me 96th Street will work. You guessed it. Closed. The final police officer I stop simply looks at me and says, “I have no idea.” While I appreciate his honesty, I must offer apologies to my dearly departed grandfather, a noble New York City Police Officer himself, when I say, Why don’t these guys know what the fuck is going on?!

So I drive all the way up to Harlem, above the park, cross over to the East Side, and head down to midtown. Sam assures me that I will find street parking. Aw Sam, ever the optimist. 30 minutes go by, and no such luck. I text my two female live model assistants to be on the look out, but they say they’re going to stay put in the air conditioned Hilton Hotel lobby, so as to avoid any mix-ups. I pull over outside the hotel, rendezvous with the two ladies (one a last minute replacement, both of whom turn out to be great sports), and load up a few bags of pasta sauce so that they can start the promotion as I continue to look for parking. (Random Side Note: One of the girls finishes EVERY sentence with “Cool Beans”. Every Sentence. EVERY SENTENCE.)

Another 40 minutes pass, and I soon realize, how can I possibly parallel park a U-HAUL by myself in the Times Square area, especially on a day when half of the city seems blocked off? I start looking for parking garages, and of course, none of them accept trucks or commercial vehicles. I return to the Hilton Hotel, and remembering my incredible pasta sauce bartering skills, convince the guys to keep the U-HAUL near the entrance for a few hours while I engage in Operation: Get All The Fucking Pasta Sauce Out Of The Fucking Truck As Quickly As Possible.

Now this is when the fun starts. Unloading the pasta sauce takes a lot of work. You have to open every cardboard box with scissors, and then remove the pasta sauce packets from another smaller box within each box. Both boxes then need to be compacted and put in to a trash bag. I was given two trash bags, which were able to hold about 2% of the total cardboard. (In exchange for 6 more sauce packets, the garage attendants give me a few more garbage bags. God Bless the Polish. Every one.) Next, the sauce packets have to go into the trash bags, which are to be carried to the site. Pasta sauce is not light, and the trash bags all tear open en route.

Giving away the pasta sauce itself is a tricky endeavor as well. Street Fair in Midtown = Tourists. Tourists have very little use for a plastic bag of pasta sauce that can easily puncture and can’t travel home with them. I call Sam up and express my concern having only two promo models getting rid of all the pasta sauce, as I continue to stay with the U-HAUL, opening and compacting the boxes.

Sam tells me, “I only care that you get a few good pictures of families with the product to show the client. Just figure out a way to get rid of all the sauce.”

“Get rid of all the sauce?” I say. “I have an already extended 4 pm deadline to return the U-HAUL, and only 2 hours left to get rid of a truck load of pasta sauce. I just don’t think this is possible. With eight assistants spread out around town, maybe, but with two, and with THIS much product?”

“Why don’t you just drive down to Union Square and give it all away? There’s always big crowds in Union Square.”

Never mind that there is no parking in Union Square. Never mind the time constraints. Never mind that it would be impossible to unload all the product there, another tourist dense locale.

“As long as you get a few good pictures, I don’t care how you get rid of the sauce. Just get rid. of. The Sauce.”

Click.

I now have 90 minutes left before the U-HAUL is due. I try calling them to extend our deadline once again, but U-HAUL seems to only let you talk to their out of state headquarters, and the operator I got was NOT in a good mood.

Only about 20% of the product has been given away at this point. It’s hot and it’s humid and I’m dressed in all black. I haven’t eaten, and my bladder feels fuller than a bag of fucking pasta sauce.

The cops won’t take the sauce.

“We can’t take anything with vodka in it.”

Again, REALLY NYPD?!

WACA. WACA. WACA.

The cab drivers won’t take the sauce.

“I don’t have a microwave in the car, sorry.”

Really Cab Driver? REALLY?! I’m sure your dashboard in this heat would do mighty fine just about now. I can find you a fucking straw!

The Soup Kitchens are closed, and it’s illegal to dump all this product on the side of the road. As I text my two assistants to quickly reconvene at the van to come up with Plan B, I notice them fast approaching.

“We were kicked off the street. We don’t have a permit. The other vendors are complaining and we’re not allowed to give away the pasta sauce anymore.”

With ginormous sweat beads dripping off my face, I let out a maniacal laugh and start punching babies in Times Square.

I breathe. I smile. I fill them in. Cool Beans Girl proposes, “I think if we just drive up to Harlem and open up the back doors, all the black people will come and take all the pasta sauce.”

As tempting as her ridiculously racist idea is, there isn’t enough time. So she calls one of the head supervisors at the Unnamed Marketing Company, the one who got me the job in the first place, and explains our predicament.

New Plan. We are to drive a little uptown, pick up the storage unit keys from employees working a different promotion, head to Union Square and get rid of as much product as we can, and then head back downtown to return all the remaining product to the storage unit. Fine. FIIIIIIIINE.

We grab a quick bite, take some pictures with the Parking Garage Attendants (How about THEM Family Pictures, Sam), pay for parking (which is discounted by half because the guys initially give me the keys, and the ticket, of a more recently arrived U-HAUL), head up town, pick up the storage unit keys, completely BYPASS Union Square because I have 45 minutes left and no time for such a preposterous idea, fill up the gas tank so the van is ready to return, and then head straight for the storage unit on Spring Street, the safest little nook in all of New York City barring any appearances from U-HAUL driving neophytes.

The three of us form a line and unload hundreds of boxes of pasta sauce onto 3 dollies. We head to the elevator, and the towering boxes all fall off the carts. We reassemble, head down to the basement, and again, the boxes all fall off the carts. We unload 2 carts worth into the unit. I head upstairs, and leave the last cart to them. Make way, ladies! I’ve got a sauce-free U-HAUL to return! The storage unit attendant tells me he’ll charge me $35 to leave my four trash bags with him. I tell him to go fuck himself. Which I don’t really say. I really just smile and tell him, “Thank-you so much kind, sweet sir.” I load the trash bags back on to the truck and head back to the U-HAUL Center in Chelsea.

The rental return entrance makes no sense, so I mistakenly get back on my favorite street, the West Side Highway, make a quick U-turn, because returning a vehicle has never sounded so much like nirvana and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get rid of it, and head back to the rental return. I leave the trash bags on the corner like lonely hookers in the night and head inside. I ignore the long line and head straight to the manager and ask what else I need to do to get this God forsaken truck off my hands.

“I’m just going to need the e-mail on the account, sir, for verification and receipt.”

What E-mail. What. E-mail. I call Sam. No answer. I call Sam. No. Answer. I call Sam. He picks up. I get the e-mail.

He asks, “Cool. So I heard you put the rest of the product back in storage. Great. Ya know, I thought you might run into a couple problems today. But it seems like you guys got everything taken care of. How did you feel the day went?”

“Great, Sam. Just great…I’m tired…I’m hungry…I’m going to go home and take a nap…Thank-you so much for this opportunity…I’ll be sure to write up a little report and send it to you tonight.”

“Oh, no worries. Take the night off. You can send it to me tomorrow.”

“Oh, that’s so kind of you…Thanks…Talk soon.”

I’d love to tell you that I walked off into the sunset. I’d love to say that I got the money, Cool Bean Girl and I settled down and started a family, and everything worked out great in the end. Truth is, the day was only half over, and I looked like such a hot, sweaty mess in my all black uniform that the Orthodox Jews spoke Hebrew to me my entire subway ride home.

Life will always provide you with great challenges. My idiotic and vivacious tapestry of experiences can only muster so much wisdom. In the end, only you will be able to figure out how to navigate the ebbs and flows of your own life’s hardships. There is one thing, however, that I can so sagely impart: If you can, lay off the sauce.

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Adventures In Making Sense Of Your Childhood, Or, What Happens When You Listen More Closely To The Verve Pipe’s 1997 Seminal Hit “The Freshman”

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What excites us changes over time. 15 years ago, when The White Power Ranger & The Pink Power Ranger finally hooked up? So cool. When Mortal Kombat: The Movie” used brand new characters from “Mortal Kombat II: The Video Game”? Thrilling beyond belief. Unlimited rides on The Big Dipper rollercoaster at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk? Best thing ever. These days, excitement comes in the form of paying bills without an accelerated heart rate and severe dry mouth, finding public restrooms in the middle of the day that are just sanitary enough to remove your contact lenses in, or making it through one New York City subway ride without being groped.

Our adult brains have the ability to give old experiences new context, which sometimes make for sudden realizations about random things from our childhood. These moments most often happen in very banal ways, like realizing that Mickey Rourke and Mickey Rooney are not the same person.

Or sometimes they happen in more meaningful ways. I recently received the following message on Facebook from a kid I went to middle school with – someone I have not spoken to in over 15 years. “Hey man, I know it was a really long time ago but I just want to apoligize for the way I treated you when we were growing up. It was really stupid of me and I sincerely apologize.” So. 12 Steps? Did he convert and miss Yom Kippur? I don’t know. Did I appreciate the gut punches and Jew jokes at the time? Not exactly. But by looking at those difficult times with my now super handy adult brain, how could I not thank him for ultimately teaching me resilience and fortitude? So I wrote back and simply said, “Thanks. You spelled apologize wrong.” Adult brains: Good for logic, reason, and being an asshole.

When I was a young child, my mother would sing me to sleep under a canopy of glow and the dark stars with “Michael row your boat ashore, hallelujah,” thus the name of my production company and accompanying e-mail address, Boat Ashore. Beyond my love of all things nautical, and the metaphorical references intrinsic in constantly trying to “row one’s boat ashore”, the phrase today evokes my childhood. It reminds me why I’m here and why I’m doing what I do. But I recently discovered that my beloved “Boat Ashore” isn’t some sea shanty hymn – it is in fact an old African-American spiritual about death and going to be with Jesus.

Well I never had much luck with religious songs anyways. When I was 10, I played Mordechai in the Purim story at Hebrew School. A singing and tap dancing Mordechai, but still, it was a pretty authentic portrayal. My opening number was to the tune of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”. It went, “Ooooo, I bet cha wondering how I knew, about your plans to kill the Jews….” It wasn’t until last year that I realized those weren’t the original lyrics. Now I understand why I got so many strange looks when I was singing along to the musical Motown on Broadway. I wasn’t so off-key after all! #SilverLining

As adults, we listen to lyrics differently than when we were kids. When the ball dropped on New Years in 2000, I was in high school. My mother and I happily sang along with Sting as he crooned “Brand New Day”. 13 years later, I’m horrified of the notion that I once sang to my mother in public, “I’m the train and you’re the station. I’m the flagpole to your nation.” But sometimes, we want our childhood understanding of songs to remain true. Who wants Third Eyes Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life” to be about crystal meth? IT’S ABOUT 8TH GRADE.

On a recent walk home at 1 am after a long day’s work, I was jamming out to my mid 90’s alt-rock playlist – because I can’t remember the last time I heard an actual rock song on the Top 40 radio – when listening to The Verve Pipe’s “Freshmen” suddenly gave me great pause. “I can’t be held responsible. She was touching her face…I can not believe we’d ever die for these sins. We were merely freshmen.” …WHAT is he talking about?! And more importantly, WHAT DID HE DO HIS FRESHMAN YEAR?!

Now I could be misinterpreting things, but we often have surprising moments that force us to re-evaluate the past, whether it be something as meaningful as an event or a relationship, or as seemingly meaningless as an old song lyric. For better or for worse, it’s a daily practice for many of us. But perhaps it is these inconsequential moments in pop culture from years ago, like finally understanding why Brenda had every reason to be so angry with Dylan and Kelly when she came back from Paris at the start of Senior year on Beverly Hills, 90210, or what Jareth’s want for teenage Sarah to be his Goblin Queen might really entail in Labyrinth, or that, yes, “Semi-Charmed Life” is in fact a rock song about crystal meth, not middle school melancholia, that have the power to make us re-evaluate our childhoods as a whole.

There’s a reason the famed performing arts camp Stagedoor Manor doesn’t allow past campers to return as (out-of-work) counselors. There’s a reason Disneyland doesn’t want you peeking behind the scenes to see Mickey Mouse with his head detached smoking an E-Cigarette and quickly skimming through audition notices in Backstage West on his 20-minute lunch break. Our childhoods and our adulthoods, due to the proven laws of relativity and the long debated laws of romanticism, must remain two separate halves of the whole. If our adult selves could fully make sense of our child selves, we’d rewrite history and replace every moment of horror with a sense of wonder. And if our child selves truly knew what was to come, we’d have never gotten out of bed and gone to school every morning. It turns out that endless childhood nights in suburbia of gazing at the glow in the dark constellations intricately strung out across the ceiling while we dreamt of infinite future possibility was the healthiest daily practice we ever had.

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A late 90’s high school made collage of my favorite pop culture at the time that still hangs on the wall in my childhood bedroom. Note the tangled glow-in-the-dark stars that hang upon then top left thumbtack.