While looking for something entirely-unrelated, I came across this old post from 2006. I read the entire post that it's excerpted from on , but this part made me smile, so it gets its own spot right here on my bloggy-blog-blog:
Though I've been there for several auditions, I haven't been on the Universal Studio Tour since A-Team and Knight Rider were in prime time.
I can mark that particular period of time with this degree of certainty, because I clearly recall talking with KITT, and wanting to ask it if it ever raced the A-Team van around the back lot, but actually asking something stupid about how fast it could go.
I also recall taking a scratch off game with me on the tour tram, where we were supposed to look for A-Team characters in various places, and scratch off the appropriate image on the map, with the promise of a prize for kids who turned in correctly completed games. I can't remember all of them, but Mr. T — well, a model of Mr. T's head, anyway — was in this out of control train that was supposed to come within inches of crashing into the tram, and I was so busy trying to figure out how they did it, I forgot to scratch him off . . . until the tour guide reminded all us kids to scratch off that circle on our map.
"That's stupid," I told my mom, "if they're just going to tell everyone where the A-Team is, why should we even look?"
"Maybe you can just enjoy the tour," she said.
2006 was a fantastic year for me as a writer. When I go through the 2005-2006 archives, I see a lot of creative writing and narrative non-fiction that I recall having a lot of fun writing, which remains a lot of fun for me to read today. I'm not entirely sure why that is, but I suspect a lot of it has to do with how much I was allowing myself to simply enjoy the tour.
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Hi Wil,
Thanks for the vault post – a good reminder to just enjoy what’s happening.
S
Thanks for the Vault post Wil. To enter a state of flow is a creative persons ever elusive endeavor. The last time I saw flow in all its glory was the spring of 09. I’ve flirted a bit with it over the past few months but I am not quite back yet.
I suggest a new show called Flow Trek: Flow State the final frontier theses are the voyages….
To trying to enjoy the tour!
Wil Thanks for the Vault post: Sometimes with all artist there is a time of laps and creative thought along with will. I know it comes and goes. Then there is a parents way of thinking, and now that you are, you can relay the same thing that your mother said to you “Maybe you can just enjoy the tour,” Have a great New Year Kid-O
Sometimes it is good to forget all the press junk and just write as if you were on top of a mountain looking down on the world below. Your writing captures that sense of nostalgia in all of us. This is why I am a huge fan of yours!
Tell me, what was KITT like?? I always wanted a car like that…haha. Kind of like a pre-GPS system huh? Take care my friend:)
Out of curiosity, roughly when in 2006 was this? I listened to the reading of this on RFB, and it made me think of one of the old episodes of RFB (6 or 7, back when you were trying a 10 minute a day experiment). You lamented how unhappy you were with the state of things, your writing, your site, etc.
Tis a fine barn, but sure tis no Mr. T, English.
Would help if I’d finish my thought š
In subsequent podcasts, you seemed a lot more upbeat. I’m glad that 2006 seems to have turned around for you. š
Thanks, Wil- I needed that one! It seems like half my winter break (I’m a teacher) I’ve been fretting about there being “ONLY ___ many more days of the break left!!”. I know it’s silly. I’ve got to just sit back and ENJOY THE TOUR.
I remember doing that tour back in ’83, although the scratchy thing was E.T. Also Jaws wasn’t working so they took us up around the hill behind, but we could see the sharkineers working on him – what, you thought he was real?
Upvoted for "sharkineers."
It’s hard to just enjoy it, though. My wife and I always laugh when Jim Parsons’ character Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory would do something exactly like I do. Sometimes I wonder if they’ve been secretly recording me interacting with other people š
Then I saw the recent Big Bang tv ad where they call him “The Most Annoying Man in the World”.
Ouchers. It’s hard to just enjoy it, sometimes š
My little brother (currently 12) is *obsessed* with A-Team. Our local ABC sister station shows old stuff like that between the 6 and 11 o’clock news, so it’s still on during prime time here! And lil bro finally believes my parents that shows were better back then, and “they don’t make ’em like they used to” š