The Magic of…Gilligan’s Island

Posted on January 17, 2021January 17, 2021

I found myself thinking about Gilligan’s Island this afternoon (for no sensible reason I can discern), and remembering watching the endless re-runs on television as a kid.

Being little, it honestly never occurred to me that they were somewhere on a sound stage in Hollywood. It was Gilligan’s Island; they’d film it on an island, naturally.

Because when you’re that age, whatever is presented to you just is. Just like I never noticed the Brady siblings had no toilet in their awkwardly-shared bathroom.

As a parent now, particularly of my nine-year-old son, I am re-noticing the things that he does . . . well, notice. We have talked more than once (before scary movies, in particular) that everything on screen is just pretend, and he always seemed to accept that. I don’t think he believes that there’s a real King Kong wandering about.

It’s the job of storytellers like me to make our worlds as real to you as that desert island was to me, no matter how old our readers or viewers. It’s no small task, writing and crafting stories well enough that you can get utterly lost in them, lose track of time, or even–from time to time–gloss over a few hiccups. (How did Ginger and the Howells store all their clothes on that tiny boat?)

With every new story, it’s a new challenge. “Worlds” aren’t just about fantasy or science fiction or horror; Zero’s 1990s-era Phoenix is just as much a world as Tanin’s magical, monster-infested land of Kassia. Each time I set out to tell a new story, I’m hoping to create a place and time that feel authentic to my readers. To forget the reality of that sound stage and just enjoy a new adventure.

There are so many more worlds to create. I think I’ll get started!

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale…

Then I’ll BE unhappy! – Heroes, TV, and Ron Perlman

Posted on June 6, 2015March 17, 2024

(This is her world. A world apart from mine.)

So there was this show in the late eighties that in retrospect was kind of doofy, but perhaps only by today’s cynical standards: Beauty and the Beast, starring Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman. I’ll admit it—I loved the show. I thought Perlman’s performances as Vincent were amazing. Vincent was everything I was, wasn’t, and wanted to be.

Was, because I felt like an outsider and a monster, too.
Wasn’t, because he was strong and fearless and could kick some ass when some ass needed kicking.
Wanted to be, because he also had an amazing voice, presence, and loved fully and passionately.

These were all part of my early-teen psyche. In the very first episode, when Vincent’s adoptive father declares, in reference to Hamilton’s Katherine character, “She can only bring you unhappiness,” Vincent snarls back, “Then I’ll be unhappy!”

Lo, how oft I quoted those lines to myself whilst pining away for she who I could never obtain! No kidding, I actually have this line quoted in one of my old journals. One of the reviews of MANICPIXIEDREAMGIRL references my protagonist, Tyler, as “trying hard to break his own heart.” It’s my favorite review line ever, because it is true in the novel and it was true for me in high school, and Vincent—half lion, half man; half human, half monster—encapsulated my crazy emotions in those years. So much so, in fact, that when I had the chance to jump into a tabletop role-playing game with some friends, I based my character off Vincent. I went on to play that character for about 20 years. In so doing, playing with some very gifted storytellers and actors, my writing skills quietly got better and better in the background. (I later wrote a descriptive essay about that character and was accused of plagiarism because my writing “far exceeded the abilities of a comp 101 student.” True quote! Uh…my bad?)

(From the moment I saw her, she captured my heart with her beauty, her warmth, and her courage.)

So when I finally, after some 25 years, got to meet Ron Perlman in person at Phoenix ComiCon 2015, I just hoped I wouldn’t start bawling when I got to his table. (I didn’t.) Getting to shake his hand and explain that his storytelling, his character work in the show, inspired me in my own writing and that now I had books published by the likes of Random House, Abrams, and Simon & Schuster…it was just one of those I’m-meeting-my-rock-star! moments.

I gave the guy who played Vincent one of my novels. This is full-circle on a level that’s hard to explain.

He won’t read the thing; none of the people I’ve given my books to do, will, or have, I don’t reckon; and that’s okay, that’s not why I give them. I give them because it’s important to me to tell them how much their work mattered in my life. It’s important to me to show some tangible proof of my gratitude.

Because those stories do matter.

A lot of people don’t get all worked up over meeting celebrities, and I think that’s great. Some of us get riled up about celebrities not because they are special or powerful or whatever. They’re people. They go to work. Their work might seem glamorous, but I know just enough about the biz to know it’s anything but that a lot of the time (four hours in a make-up chair? Glamorous!). But still we get shook up when we meet them because they were the visible part of telling a story that perhaps said things we couldn’t.

“I am a monster, and I can never have what I really want because of it.” This was Vincent’s fate, and he knew it, and he let it get the better of him, and that is what I needed to see every week when I was 14. I don’t want to feel better, I want to feel whatever it is I am feeling right now, to the absolute fullest. Why do I write YA? Because so much of it, the real “it,” is exactly like that, and it’s a heady, breathtaking place to live for a little while.

In hindsight, Vincent and Katherine’s love affair, such as it was, wasn’t terribly mature. It couldn’t be, because good TV isn’t generally made about healthy relationships; conflict by necessity must be at a story’s core. I wouldn’t trade my awesome marriage for Vincent’s super strength and enhanced senses or his poetic pining; no thanks! But then I’m not 14 anymore, either. At 14? Oh hell yeah, that’s exactly what I needed to hear and see—that this monster knew what I was going through. So when I get a chance to meet the man who made that character come alive? A character who so deeply impacted my life and, in a roundabout way, my career?

Yeah. I’ll get a little choked up, all right? I can own that.

(I knew then as I know now that she would change my life forever.)

“It’s a TV show, dammit! It’s just a TV show!” barked William Shatner in a classic SNL skit. He’s right of course. It’s just a TV show.

But TV shows, movies, novels, poems, plays, songs…these things reveal to us and for us many things we can’t often express, even to ourselves. So I have no problem with anyone getting excited over meeting a person whose work has impacted them. Standing in line at Con this May, watching the thrilled, happy faces of fans after having met one of their favorite actors (or authors, or artists)…it’s a good thing. A very good thing, for everyone involved. Whether that person is an actor, athlete, musician, director, writer, artist, chef—whoever—it’s a noble thing they do, and I think a noble thing for us to say thank you. If what they did or do keeps us going one more day, then gratitude is the only reasonable reaction.

“Thanks for watching!”

Posted on July 23, 2014November 19, 2015

My heroes.

“DID YOU KNOW…?!” ~ The Wizard

State Fair, early nineties. The Gin Blossoms – local boys make good! – are riding a wave of popularity rivaling the entire grunge movement of the day. But it’s hot. Phoenix hot. And half a dozen friends and I are crammed into this indoor venue with thousands of other hot and cranky young adults. Tempers are flaring. Yeah yeah, we’re here for the band, shut up. Things are getting tense. Where the hell are the Blossoms, anyway? God but it’s hot in here.

Then this music starts. Only it’s not the Blossoms. What the hell, man? This is like…like some kind of jangly pop thing they’re piping in over the sound system, a happy dirge, if there be such a thing. Is that . . . is that a flute? What is going on here?

Then it dawns on us all. We know this song. We can sing this song. Simplest, best chorus ever:

Ho ho, ha ha, hee hee, ha ha.

Everyone’s looking around at everyone else. If this is some kind of joke, it’s in bad taste. The Gin Blossoms are from Tempe, man, they should know better than to play the theme song to the TV show every single last damn one of us grew up with. This is tacky. Tacky.

Until . . .

No way.

No way!

Down on the stage, the first thing we see is the tall gray top hat. Before we even see his face, we know who this is.

Ladmo.

“Hi, everybody!” our hero cries, and man . . . we lose it. We cheer ourselves hoarse, the roof damn near collapses. It’s Ladmo.

Then comes the greatest sentence ever spoken on God’s green earth, as far as we are concerned:

“I have a seating chart!”

I’ve seen Pink Floyd live, from the sixth row. I’ve seen Social D more times than I can remember, and loved every second of every show. I even saw them on a double bill with the Ramones once. But Ladmo’s got a seating chart, and me and thousands of other guys and girls just like me are completely and utterly losing our shit. A seating chart can only mean one thing:

Someone’s getting a Ladmo Bag.

Ladmo Bags are paper sacks filled with Twinkies, candy, coupons for Slurpees . . . everything a growing boy needs. I never got one myself – one of my great life disappointments – but not long from this night, I won’t mind so much, because history is being made right in front of me.

It’s the last public appearance Ladmo will ever make. He passed away not long after. And it hurt. It hurt hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of us here in Arizona.

This was some twenty years ago. It was just a few month ago that I got one of The Wallace & Ladmo Show triumvirate’s autographs on an 8 x 10 black and white: Pat McMahon. It was years ago that I got to meet Wallace, the other third of this uniquely Arizonan trinity. Arizona makes headlines a lot on The Daily Show, and with good reason, but we got one thing absolutely, perfectly right: We got The Wallace & Ladmo Show.

This children’s show lasted some thirty-five years in the Valley of the Sun, and made television history along the way. My feeling has always been that if there’s a Heaven, Ladmo will be easy to find in it because that’s where all the world’s children are going to flock. And if he’s not there, then I don’t want to go anyway.

Now the show can start up again in whatever Heaven there may be. I just found out we lost Wallace. I can’t – yeah, I can’t write this without goddam bawling because these three guys – Wallboy, Ladmo, and Pat a.k.a. Gerald and a dozen other characters – they raised me. They raised a lot of us. A lot. If I want to come up with happy memories of my dad, they start with Wallace & Ladmo.

When I met Pat McMahon a few months ago, I got to tell him (and I hope he heard me) that I get to talk to young people now as part of my job, and I hope I can do at least half as good a job as he and Wallace and Ladmo did during all those years. I hope I can love those students as much as the three of them all loved all of us; kids, adults, black white and brown, smart and not so smart, rich and not so rich. Wallace and Ladmo leveled the field in a singular way, a way I’m afraid will never be seen again in my or anyone’s lifetime.

But I’m sure going to try. It’s the least I can do. It’s the only way I can really say thanks.

Thank you, Wallace.

Thank you, Ladmo.

We sure could use you around here. Now more than ever.

Thanks for tuning in.

(If you’re not a native, please take a look at this article from the Arizona Republic, which does a better job with the history than I’m doing here. To give you an idea of how big a deal this guys are, their parody band Hub Kapp & The Wheels outsold the Beatles…only in Phoenix. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/07/23/wallace-ladmo-bill-thompson-dies/13016035/)