I arrived in L.A. at about 7am, we were either an hour early, we'd changed two time zones, or the daylight savings thing was screwing with my mind. I'm actually still not sure which of those is correct. I'd been drifting in and out of consciousness all through the journey so I'm not sure I got any proper sleep. I had a couple of granola bars to keep me going and then got on the red line of the subway. It wasn't long until I was laughing to myself when I realised this was the line that Speed took place on. Then we actually went through Pershing Square station and I was riding along chuckling to myself (I was tired and rather happy). It was only about 8am when I got to the Hollywood hostel and I couldn't check in until 11am. The receptionist let me leave my bag there and I had a quick look around the hostel before deciding I should use the time wisely and go thrift shopping for my 50s outfit for that night. The crazies were out in force but I was just glad to be away from the cold of Flagstaff. I've decided I love heat, mainly so I can wear shorts when I'm out at night, maybe I'd get fed up of it after a while but I think it would take at least a year. A couple of vintage shops I'd looked up weren't open until 11am so I hit Goodwill and spent a good couple of hours in there. Eventually I decided upon some garments and spent about $45 on what I thought were some pretty decent looking 50s style clothes. I also went to stock up on toiletries and noticed that there were security guards in every shop. Walking back to the hostel I realised there were no Speed buses, they had a new fleet, I was actually quite annoyed at this. I checked into the hostel just after 11am and my room was pretty cool. There were only two bunk beds in each room and we had a bathroom and kitchen between eight of us. There was a Japanese dude still asleep in my room when I arrived so I woke him up and we had a chat. His name was Shintaro and he was from Nagoya. I caught up with some stuff online and at 3pm I did some laundry. It was the first laundry I'd done in almost two weeks but somehow I had three sets of underwear left... I set my laundry going and popped out to get some food. There was actually a Thai vegan place just across the road from the hostel so I thought I'd check that out. They had a really cheap menu, lots of stuff for $7 and all vegan. I had some chow mein which was probably the best meal I ended up having there (I ate there at least three more times). It was around 5pm when I started getting ready for the Back To The Future event, while I was getting dressed an Australian girl named Kim showed up. I didn't realise our dorm was mixed until then, cool. Andy had actually raised $200+ on the "Get Merk To The Fish Under The Sea Dance" Facebook page so even though I'd had no sleep I was going to make sure I made the most of it...
I'll quickly set up the event. In the movie Back To The Future Marty has to make sure that his parents get together at the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance otherwise he'll never be born. That dance was being re-created in the same venue where it was filmed and they were inviting some cast and crew to sign autographs, take photos and generally just mingle with us fans. I chose to walk to the Hollywood United Methodist Church where the event was being held and I didn't feel too out of place in crazy garb walking down Hollywood Boulevard. I knew I was in the right place when I saw two Deloreans in the car lot and another one arriving. Two were done up like the second movie and one was not modded at all. After hanging around outside for a while, chatting to some random people, and getting some photos we were finally let inside. One of the guys I was chatting to outside was Marvin from San Diego and we did a walk around the hall together. He had a poster that he was getting signed for his two year old son, I thought that was quite sweet. Some of the guests were charging for autographs which I thought was a bit much, especially on top of the $275/$300 entry fee. I got no autographs but managed to meet most of the guests just by shaking their hand, explaining my trip and also explaining the donation side of things, it was a good angle and they were all willing to chat a little bit. I met Bob Gale (co-creator of BTTF), Harry Waters Jr (Marvin Berry), Donald Fullilove (Goldie Wilson), Courtney Gains (ginger kid, also in The 'burbs), Bob Yerkes (did Doc's zip-wire stunt and is a legendary Hollywood stuntman), Jeffrey Weissman (George McFly in Parts 2 and 3), Wesley Mann (kid who says "he took that guy's wallet"), Shawn Kerkhoff (Sound editor on American Dad). Jeff Weissman was really friendly and I chatted to him about an event in Milton Keynes that we'd both been at, Shawn Kerkhoff confirmed Seth MacFarlane's 9/11 story (look it up). I didn't get to meet Claudia Wells, she had the most people crowding around her and to be honest I just couldn't be bothered. Half way through the night a random guy grabbed me and asked if I wanted to do an interview for his documentary, I was up for that. It was easy enough, just the usual kinds of questions and I layed the accent on thick so I reckon I'll get on there. During the night there were dressed up fans posing for photos and recreating scenes from the movie. Towards the end of the night Harry Waters got on stage with a bandage on his hand and put the spotlight on a guy near the front of the dance-floor. This guy then proposed to his girlfriend, she said yes and then Harry Waters dedicated Earth Angel to them. It was a really good performance of the song. He then recited lines from the movie and introduced the guy who has done the voice of Marty for the new BTTF video game. He played guitar and sang Johnny B Goode in the style of Marty, again a very good performance. I like to fault things and I really couldn't fault it. For some reason we were all told to go outside and they did the raffle in the parking lot. I'd snagged some free raffle tickets from one of the organisers but I didn't win. During the raffle my camera died and I quoted The Goonies with "Only problem is batteries don't last so long, guys", nobody knew the quote and I was very disappointed. The winning of the hoverboard was quite interesting. One guy came forward and said that he knew it was his number but he'd lost the ticket, then another guy said he had the ticket and that he'd found it on the floor, he gave the ticket back to its rightful owner and the cockles were warmed in everyone's hearts when he collected his prize.... except mine... I was two numbers out and I wanted that bloody hoverboard!..... and that was the night over...
I hung around in the car park for quite a while because there were now five Deloreans to take photos of and everybody else seemed to be loitering too. There was a slightly odd bloke dressed as Doc Brown standing on his own and beat-boxing, he worried me a little. I met some guys from Bristol who were trying to rally a bunch of people to go to a bar but first I had the mission of finding somebody that Damon knows. Eventually I found him and had a little chat, he said he is to Ghostbusters what Damon is to The Goonies. Then some Deloreans started driving out of the lot so I had to film that. It was about midnight before me, the Bristolians, another English dude called Julian, a French girl and one of the event organisers left to go for a drink. We tried one hotel but they didn't have a good bar so we went to The Roosevelt instead. We all got a drink and then some more people turned up, a couple of people I can't remember the name of plus Caroline from Santa Monica and Bob Schmelzer (Eric Stoltz's skateboard double when he was playing Marty in BTTF). I chatted to Bob and Caroline for a bit. Bob was really cool, he told some great stories of his time on set and said if I was ever in San Jose to check out his skateboard shop and then we could head up to San Francisco for the night. After one drink everybody except Bob wanted to go for food, I think he stayed at the hotel because he liked the wine they had and he wanted to pick up chicks. They all went to Mel's Diner and I decided it was time to call it a night. On the walk back to the hostel at about 1am I was getting various heckles. One drunk guy thought I looked like Jeremy Piven from Entourage but most of the shouts were of "Pee-wee Herman!"
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