Surviving L.A. - Oh the Horror!

Some people think their jobs are horror-ible. Think your job leaves you in the dark? Think co-workers are stabbing you in the back? Are there days you just want to kill your boss?



The next time you think your 9-5 sucks and you think life would be great if only you were a Hollywood actor/actress....consider those wannabe thesbians entertaining Richard and I (and our friends Bob and Leslie). So we took in Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights.....an evening where the 'Entertainment Capital of the World' turns goulish and tries to scare all the people more than the fact that they paid $50 to get get in.


I have been to Halloween Horror Nights before. My best friend, Scott, used to coherse a bunch of us into going every year in Orlando. But the last time I went was probably 1995, and I am extremely happy to announce that the productions have improved significantly in the last 13 years. (13....ooooooo).


At 7 p.m. we stood in the wanna-be-TSA security line to enter the park, when in many of the attractions had been spiked with a ghastly theme to celebrate the season. In addition to blood-spiked waredrobe thrown into their regular attractions, they had haunted houses around the park, and roaming zombies and psychopaths hiding in dark corners ready to scare all high-school aged-girls into the arms of their boyfriends.

We started on the "Back Lot" Tour, which capitalized on a few of their horror movie sets. Universal did, afterall, give us Psycho and the never-should-have-been-made-with-Tom-Cruise War of the Worlds. The only good thing about the War of the Worlds remake was the opportunity to turn the airplane crash set into a gory accident scene complete with freshly placed corpses....including passengers in still strapped to seats 22 A &B - now hanging out the side of the airplane - giving new meaning to the term "exit row".

In this, and the other haunted houses in the park, were employed people who should make you thankful for your day job....even on the most mundane of days. Imagine, for a moment, that you are an aspiring actress looking for your big break. Would your resume be enhanced by Halloween Horror Nights? Perhaps, if you could spend 5 hours in the front seat of a VW bug constantly pretending to try to turn on the car and escape from the other aspiring actor in the room who's stint as Jason (the beloved villan of Friday the 13th movies) means he spends 5 hours stabbing a fake knife through the top of the VW in an attempt to make passers-by believe he would have you dead. 5 hours. Day after day. How exactly do you sell that skill to a Hollywood talent scout?

And I am not sure which is worse, faking that kind of monotonous activity for five hours, or doing a convincing job in the face of people like Richard, Bob, Leslie and I, who were so rapt by the fake murderous scene unfolding (repeatedly) in front of us that we devolved into a discussion of exactly what the building we were in was when it was not inhabited by the special HHNs exhibit. So engrossed were we in the need to solve this crime (much to the disappointment of the girl trying to escape in the non-working VW) that we turned to the other Universal employee in the room.....who was probably stunned that Bob was talking to her.

You see, there might be a patron or two either caught up in trying to protect someone or trying to prove something that they might strike out against the actors trying to make you urinate involuntarily...and that patron might try to become part of the pseudo-action. In the dark, in the midst of their 5-hour shift, is a park employee responsible for the safety of the actors in the room. You can walk by and be plenty scared, but you may not touch the actors/actresses. These individuals stand, in near dark, ready to jump on you if you disobey the code of conduct. I think this girl jumped quite a bit when Bob turned to her and asked "what is this exhibit normally?"

Who knows, it may have been the highlight of her night.

But Halloween Horror Nights was a highlight of our October.....and it is helping us survive L.A.

Surviving L.A. - Oh the Irony!

So....for years I said I could never live in CA - and definitely not L.A.....and so my husband, of course, gets an amazing job opportunity in L.A. [:(]

I said I could never live there for many reasons....most of all the earthquakes. Within 7 months of living here....earthquake. [:S]

So last week some of you were kindly expressing concern for those of us dealing with wildfires.
They are no where near me...I said....don't worry.

This morning I was lying in bed awake at 4 a.m. Decided to turn on the TV. There is a wildfire burning about 3 miles from my house. [:]

Mind you, it would still have to burn through a ton of concrete to get to me....but still.....I'm starting to take this personally!

So I am trying a new tact....

I could never live over seas. Being an Ex Pat would be horrible. I would HATE to have to move to England. Or Sweden. Or Australia. I could never live there.......[:D]

Surviving L.A. - Takes Magic

We had a magical evening recently and Walt would be disappointed to know it had nothing to do with Disney. We were lucky enough to score an invitation to the Magic Castle, the private club for magicians.

Hogwarts it is not, but it has a magical allure all its own. The house in Hollywood was built in 1909, and in the 1960s was bought by "Truth or Consequences" writer Milt Larsen. Milt's father, William, had been a magician and had dreamed of having a private club for magicians. In honor of his father, Milt turned the castle into just that.
http://www.magiccastle.com/about/index.cfm

Once a month, aspiring magicians can have a 15-minute audition to prove they have the gift. Admission to the club is an internationally recognized achievement, and membership has its privileges, such as access to a library of books on magic in the basement of the castle. I'm curious if it includes an edition of a "History of Hogwarts." There are also regular classes taught at the club, though Dumbledor was no where in sight. But perhaps the greatest benefit for the young illusionist is the opportunity to perform in one of the theaters, bars, parlours or dark corners available in the maze of the castle.

For those of us who's slight of hand couldn't trick the Vega dog, we must wait for an invitation to come from someone who is a member or in some way affiliated with the club. Friends of ours were lucky enough to secure an invitation, and they were kind enough to, in turn, invite us to join them.

Admittedly, we initially had no idea what we were getting into. We just knew it wasn't something you could just decide to do on any random Saturday night, so we jumped at the opportunity. Of course, Richard and I are both magic junkies, (ask him sometime about being eyeball to shoelace with David Copperfield) so that spurred our interest as well. But the evening was almost over before it began as Richard perused their website and saw that the evening came with a dress code - coat and tie for men. Better for the magicians to hide things on unsuspecting audience members, but nearly a deal-killer for dear Richard.

We arrived at 5:00 p.m. and were treated by a club Knight to a lovely tour of the castle, which proved extremely valuable later. The place is a maze and it would be easy to miss a lot of the nooks that contain magicians. (They are also quick to point out the locations of all the bars, indicating the alcohol makes many of the magicians better. It did not however, help improve the jokes, which must be taught in a special class...because many of the magicians we saw had the same canned material in attempts to make lady audience members giggle about the size of their wands....) The house is filled with fabulous memorabilia that, as the guide was quick to point out, would be an incredible loss if anything were to ever destroy the castle. We could visit 6 times and probably not see everything in the house.

We sat for dinner at 6. The magic is not in the food. But apparently if you know the magic words, you can have Merlin deliver your birthday cake.

We finished dinner at 7:30 and headed for the first show. At 7:45 we heckled a poor young man who was doing his first-ever night trying to impress people at the club. (He was a good sport.) We had tickets for the 8:30 p.m. main show. By 1:00 a.m., we still had not seen every magician in the place.

In addition to the main show on a main stage, there were several smaller theaters (some allowing only 20 people) with 2 magicians doing multiple 15-minute shows each evening. We saw at least 5 other magicians sitting in random spots around the castle, and we know we missed more. The skill levels ran the gamut (you could tell by how much light the magician worked in!) but everyone provided some level of entertainment.

The setting, aside from being a gorgeous castle, is an excellent venue for those of us who love to watch magicians closely. We both participated in many of the tricks (pick a card, show it to the audience), and Richard even got to inspect the knots of a lovely, large-busted escape artist. It was such a burden, I know.

Richard, with all of his charms, tried to cast a spell on one magician and may just conjure another invitation to return. I'm trying to figure out the magic words to get him to take me again. (The best of which would probably be: "they changed the dress code.")

So we're surviving L.A. - by putting a little magic in our lives.