Blast From the Past
It’s hot, Valley hot, and I’m driving over the speed limit one midsummer Saturday afternoon, looking for a place to cool my jets.
On the side of a building off Magnolia Boulevard, I spot a mural covered in 1980s pop culture icons. Marty McFly stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Darth Vader. The heroes and villains of my youth, lined up for a yearbook photo.
The place is Blast From the Past, a retro collectibles store in Burbank featuring action figures, comic books, and movie posters. Totems of a bygone era when I still carried a lunchbox and woke up early Saturday mornings to watch cartoons. Stepping inside is like seeing my childhood memories preserved in amber.
A few minutes later, I’m flipping through a collection of vintage sci-fi magazines when suddenly, my eyes go wide. Starlog #98. The issue with the kid from Explorers on the cover - the one who isn’t River Phoenix or Ethan Hawke. You know, the other kid, the one who befriends the aliens first.
The magazine brings back a flood of memories. I can vividly recall the day my Mom bought me my first issue of Starlog magazine while we were shopping at Washington Square Mall in Indianapolis, when I would have been 9-years old. I still remember poring over every page until the ink smudged my fingers. It was this issue.
Yup. This was the issue.
Growing up in Indiana, I lived thousands of miles from the nearest person who made their living working on movies like Explorers. But inside the pages of Starlog, I could read behind the scenes stories from the artists, writers, filmmakers and actors responsible for creating some of my favorite films and TV shows. Soon, a dream would take hold of my imagination. Maybe, one day, I too could make it in Hollywood.
And now here I am, thirty-plus years later, standing inside a retro collectibles store off Magnolia on a Valley hot afternoon, thumbing through the yellowed pages of the same sci-fi magazine that helped ignite the dream.
Why am I sharing all of this? Because I want to offer some insight into why I’ve chosen to start blogging…
Actually, it was a trip to Los Angeles with my family when I was seven years old that was the spark that lit the fire that brought me to Hollywood. Starlog planted the seed for what I would want to do with my life when I got here.
I moved to LA and graduated from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts with a degree in Critical Studies, focusing on film theory, film language and critical analysis. Critical Studies is considered the best course of study for people who want to become writers or producers or critics, because you graduate with an understanding of how to both construct and deconstruct visual narratives.
Today, I’ve been working in television for twenty years as a writer, a producer, and (primarily) as a development executive. I’ve been through multiple feast and famine cycles in my career, yet I haven’t lost my passion for the industry. Through it all, I’ve had the privilege to work alongside some awesome talents and help create some great series. It’s been an unforgettable ride so far.
By blogging, I hope to share more of my personal stories and career experiences, and to write about moments from pop culture that inspired me then – and inspire me now. I’ve been drafting a number of future blog titles like –
What Stranger Things Gets Right (and Wrong) About Growing Up Geeky in the 1980s
Explaining the Development Process for a TV Series
Netflix’s Bandersnatch and the Promise of Interactive TV
The Role of Nostalgia in Reboot Culture
The late, great Roger Ebert’s Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of film reviews has been another influence during my journey. Ebert often wrote about films while injecting anecdotes about his life and memories and experiences. He had a point of view. His work was always thoughtful, considered, and insightful; after reading one of his reviews, you wouldn’t look at a movie the same way. Ebert once said, “In my reviews, I feel it’s important to make it clear that I’m not proposing objective truth, but subjective reactions; a review should reflect the immediate experience.” Like Ebert, I will endeavor to write from a place of subjective experience, while also drawing upon outside sources and influences to contextualize my perspective and construct my arguments.
With that said, I hope my blog topics will provoke conversations, not arguments. Toxic internet culture has sometimes discouraged me from speaking up and sharing my own creative works. But I do have a story to tell and something to say.
I’m a 40-something year old man who got married for the first time earlier this year. I have concern for the world we are leaving behind to future generations, as most of us do. I won’t be afraid to offer my perspective on controversial subjects, but I will err on the side of being constructive rather than being provocative. Because you can take the Hoosier out of the Midwest, but you can’t take the Midwest out of the Hoosier.
Then maybe, one day, some wide-eyed Midwestern kid will read my blog and think to him or herself, Hey, I bet I can do that too.
And so without further delay, welcome to my blog and thanks for reading.
JW
