In the days when The DZA lived out here in Goldville (actually, a few years before that) we once thought back to what seems to be the last time we respectively had fun back in the great white north. And that was a summer that's now 10 years old. A decade is a long time, and a look back will show great disparity to how life is now. But it also shows how far we've come.
For me (as with most) The Golden State was still that goal - the one thing that was in the way of everything else. But you can't come out here unprepared. If you do, you usually end up becoming a lady of the evening or selling socks at an intersection within 3 months. So, part by part you put it together until the Lincoln Continental is ready to roll. That's what this summer did for me. But it's totally incorrect to look at it that clinically, because that's not what it was about in sum.
I came home thinking my summer job would be learning how to work audio at the Twins games. Did I have any real interest in this? Not really. But a couple contacts brought it up casually and it paid. All I can say about it was this - it wasn't at the stadium. It was some faceless production studio in the "warehouse district" where this group did the pre-game show. As a very polite man showed me over and over and over again how to set up the board before you even do anything, I quickly realized I'd never see dollar one from this job. (I wasn't going to be paid until I started working on my own anyway). It was boring as shit. When Mike Max shows up and is also bored, that's all I needed to know.
But hell, it wasn't even the end of May. I went to a party and met two ladies who went to school with me & I'd never met. They lived in St. Paul, which is key for part two. This contact also got me a job interning at KTCA on a public affairs show. NOW we're getting somewhere. You don't know how much work atmosphere can differ until you go to public television. And hey, this place was in an area of the cities where I'd never really been. Not only did that open up interesting dives and people, it was more blitzed nights. Triple Margaritas at 1AM is one way to go through life. And if you don't have much of a care for the world, I suggest it. Those post-show Friday summer nights with them were usually a chase for such excitement.
And even then I needed cash. I eventually ended up as a host in a swanky Bloomington restaurant that no longer exists. Built to service the travelers in to visit Met Stadium, this place decided to stop decorating in 1978. Good for me and them. So the menu hadn't updated in 20 years. Who cares? But my other job that occasionally paid was a trip to no man's land. It was a weekly drive on Mondays to Maple Grove. Monday was wrestling night then, and it was at a man's house where promos were shot for a new minor-league wrestling company. One man, armed with phone numbers of everyone who's anyone, made the deals. Another guy (think Kurt from Boogie Nights) turned his RV into a production truck, with his basement wired. Plug it in, and we go. Some could have laughed at how lowdown this was, but it was also a testament to "against all odds." One of their big summer blowouts was at a county fair somewhere in south east Minnesota. "Would you be able to go?" Where's the keys?
On a Thursday morning I drove the late, lamented Olds Custom Cruiser to wherever the hell this was, about 2 hours south. Right on the river. By 11AM I was helping him set up cameras while others set up the ring. At noon I munched on sandwiches made by gorgeous farm girls who seemed ready to get me into a hayloft and even more ready into trouble with their father's rifle. But I had the whole day to clown around in the ring, talk to animals, and look at the rundown of who won & when. To my surprise, I was going to direct half the matches. News to me...and with zero rehearsal no less. But right as I talked to the camera men (1 of his friends and his two kids) I unknowingly made the mistake of telling jokes just to lighten the mood. (How was I supposed to know he'd hear this feed?) Anyway, as the matches were about to start we noticed there were no turnbuckles. Armed with only duct tape from a farmer and my speed into the ring surrounded by crowd of about 500 (a highlight of the summer) they were secured so that these men could be tossed into the corner. The crowd couldn't figure out the difference.
There were other moments, too. I remember sitting on a roof on July 4th yelling pro-USA statements to confused onlookers on the street. (I can and can't remember how I could be put into such a state to do that.) Throwing bags of chips to beach-goers while Nim Nam Gnam drove the KQRS van with 70's Heart songs blaring. Having the real "Spaulding Smails" call me long distance to ask for my new phone number (the one he just called; life imitating art there). Selling Darneys amidst the mania and madness. Filming Rise, which was as much an excuse to go to my old neighborhood as it was to celebrate Herb Alpert.
We all know when things are hitting. It's even more fun when it's the unexpected. And it was an early-afternoon drive in St. Paul, as the only car on Shepherd Road, listening to J.P. Walk and thinking of the classic film Angels Live in My Town did I realize that it was all happening. The beginning of gold. And it is a long road, and no, it's not easy. But when you see gold in the distance, it's all you need to keep on truckin'.
