I haven’t been much for keeping up the movie reviews on here.  Let’s just say, that was a means to keeping my sanity during tough times over the past two years.  However, I finally got a chance to see Trick r Treat last night and I highly recommend anyone who is a fan of the holiday Halloween, rent this movie.  It had this fun feel to it that reminded me of Tales From The Crypt.  Scary but fun at the same time.

The other night I was watching TV and found myself intrigued by the preview for the new movie The Box

I sat there for a minute with this weird case of deja vu.  The idea looks cool but reaked of a 1980s Stephen King movie to me.  My first thought was, I wrote a short story that had a similar premise.  But that thought quickly left me…I was a kid in the 80’s.  I read a lot of Stephen King in the 80’s.  I knew I was on the right track.

That’s when it hit me.

The new Twilight Zone series which was shortly lived in the 80’s had an episode called “Button, Button”

Blatant ripoff?  Or did they decide to resurrect this idea and make it a movie?

-Update-

Upon further research, I found info on Wikipedia that suggests the movie is based on the short story that The Twilight Zone episode was based on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button,_Button_(The_Twilight_Zone)

So I guess….it’s not a blatant ripoff….

Demon clown, face crusty and painted

Young boy’s eyes closed, dreams so tainted

The skin is ice white and eyes unroyally blue

His toothy cracked smile beckons to you

He comes closer, claws toy with your hair

Flicks at your lobes with split goblin tongue

Out of the shadow he steps, his form unbearably bare

His toothy cracked smile beckons to you

The drip of a tap becomes louder too soon

The glint of light hits the floor of the room

Razor blade kindess whispers from the floor

His toothy cracked smile shows what’s in store

He whispers in your ear horrors to fear

Eyeball to painted eyeball, a contest of stares

There’s a destination beyond these four walls

The baby’s cries still echo across the halls

The light from the floor is getting brighter

Reflected glint off broken mirror shard

This heavy sleeved shirt is getting tighter

Awaking from these dreams get quite hard

The mirror on the floor, stuck like glue

You bend down to inspect and over you fall

The reflection greets you, eyes unroyally blue

His toothy cracked smile beckons to you

-AP 9/28/2009

Click This:

http://stereogum.com/archives/new-thom-yorke-feeling-pulled-apart-by-horsesthe-hollow-earth_090951.html

I started my weekend in a great way.  Saturday afternoon was spent getting tacos and margaritas with good friends.  After wards, I came home and fell asleep.  At around 7, I was awoken and invited to my other friends’ house to watch a movie and play video games.  I went over there and had a pretty good time even though it was tough to get myself up and awake.

At around midnight, I left their house and headed home.  When I turned on my street, I found myself driving through some water.  I thought nothing of it until I reached my block and my car started sinking into the water.  There were a number of firetrucks blocking my apartment building so I turned around and parked four blocks away.

In walking to my building, I counted something like 30 fire trucks all along Ventura Blvd.  I asked one of the firefighters what the problem was and was informed that a water main had burst in Studio City.

I finally got to my building after climbing over a parked car to avoid the flooded street.  There were something like 10 fire men in front of my building.  Two trucks blocked the driveway that leads to the carport where I park behind my building.   It turns out the building next to mine was their main focus.

There were spectators on the front lawn of my building, some people taking pictures of the water and fire trucks, and some just standing there drinking wine and laughing.  My next door neighbor’s building was being bombarded with gallons of water.  We were downhill from the water main break and their underground garage was completely submerged to the ceiling with water.  All the cars parked in there were ruined.  So what these firefighters were doing were connecting a hose to suck out the water and spray it into the L.A. river across the street while all the while, a river of water was rushing underneath the truck into the same river.  It seemed pointless.

I live in a small building that looks like it was built in the 70s in between two modern apartment complex buildings.  At that point, I asked one of the firefighters if I should find somewhere to stay that night or if I have anything to worry about.  He smiled and told me my building was fine and I should just go upstairs and go to sleep.

Yeah…right…that didn’t sound like a good plan to me.

I went upstairs and proceeded to pack an emergency bag.  But, before I was going to take the bag and walk through four blocks of river back to my car, I decided to go back downstairs and get a second opinion.  I left the bag by the door in my rushed state.

Before I could ask any other firefighter about the stability of my building, I noticed the trickle of water that was coming down our driveway had now turned into a substantial about of water.  I followed the water back to where I normally would park and saw a small hole had formed in the carport wall and water was coming through that and the cracks that formed around it.  I walked over to the separation wall which separates my building from the next door one I spoke of earlier.  About four feet of water was collecting in the back area and directly in the middle of that water is a telephone pole.  Above my carport are power lines.

Of course, the first thing I thought to do was get into my storage area in the carport since I put all my cds, baseball cards from childhood, commercials I’ve done, and important paperwork there.  They were in boxes from the move and were supposed to remain there temporarily.  I struggled with the storage door to open and it was stuck shut.

It was that moment that I realized there was a wall of water just beyond this wall and the pressure was making it impossible to open this door.  My second realization was if I stayed standing there, I could die.

I walked quickly to grab a fire fighter to tell them of my concern regarding the carport coming down.  He walked leisurely back there with me and pretty much told me that I had nothing to worry about.  Soon five more fire fighters went back and looked at it.  They strolled back joking saying the same thing.

I stood at the front of my building talking to the neighbors in my building and the ones from the nearby buildings telling them repeatedly that I thought it would fall and no one is listening to me.  I kinda felt like I was in that movie Final Destination.

Roughly 20 minutes after I showed them the carport, I was standing at the foot of the driveway watching them run around trying to continue the damage control on the submerged garage.  That was when we heard this loud cracking sound.  It sounded like bones breaking but was very very loud.

It really felt like it happened in slow motion.  The cracking was followed by a creaking sound and then one really thunderous thud followed by a second one.  The carport had collapsed and sounded like it broke in two.  That wasn’t the case, as I found out a day later.

I had no time to think.  As soon as it busted, a huge wall of water rushed our way, pushing four cars which were parked in my carport towards us.  They were all crashed in a row, hitting first floor apartments and coming at us fast.  All I could do is yell for others to run and do exactly that.  It was pretty much insane.

As soon as this happened, the firefighters decided that now my building was in danger.  They kicked in doors and evacuated.  I was not allowed to go back up because…hey….remember that emergency bag I told you about?  Yeah, still in the apartment with my cell phone charger.

So I quickly ran to my car through the water and headed back over to my friends’ house where they charged my phone for me and let me borrow dry socks and shoes.  I then tried to sleep on my mother’s couch but could not.

The next morning, still not finding much on the news about this, I finally heard back from my landlord.  I drove down to the building and found it taped off.  Police were there making sure no one looted the building.  They told me that building foundation was damaged and the building would be condemned.  All the damaged cars were still in the driveway and I saw my stuff from storage all over the street, in the front yard, under cars, and in the area next to the wash where the L.A. River is.  I was advised to go to the shelter that was set up for the building.

I did.  It was at a Middle School not far from where I live.  It was quite surreal that this shelter was just set up for my building.  It seemed like I waited forever but we were finally briefed by The Red Cross, DWP, Fire Dept, and Police at about 1pm Sunday afternoon.  We were informed the building was yellow ticketed which meant they still needed to inspect it but said there was no structural damage.

Seriously?  That shocked me because that night when this happened, I thought the building was destroyed and was panicking that all I had left was the clothes I was wearing and my car.  Really having the fear is unpleasant.  But then that followed up with the other sobering realization that I could have been killed by that carport.

We were allowed to go back to the building and grab essentials.  I assessed my losses and they supplied us with big plastic bags to put our destroyed items in.  Compared my my other neighbors, I was pretty lucky.  I still had a car and the second floor apartments were fine.  Well except for the doors being kicked in.  Did I mention my door was unlocked and they busted it down anyway?  Yeah, lame.

The DWP person handling claims put most of my neighbors including myself into The Sportsman’s Lodge for Sunday and Monday.  Once I got there with my stuff, all I really wanted to do was take a shower and go to sleep.  I was, at that point, awake for 30 hours.

So here I was, in my undies in the bathroom, shower on, and then my phone rings.  It’s Marvin, my landlord.  He asks me if I am in touch with my neighbors and my first reaction was…’Oh God, what happened!?’  But then he followed it up with, “How would you like to meet The Mayor?”

“I’m sorry, what?” I said.

“How would you like to meet The Mayor? He came to view the apartment building and is headed to the hotel.  He wants to meet you.”

“Um…I’m kinda not dressed.  I just want to take a shower.” I said.

“You don’t need to get pretty for the mayor.  He’s waiting in the lobby.”

Oh Sweet Jesus…I seriously did not want to deal with this.  First the News shows up at the shelter and now this.

I head to the lobby and I’m the first of my neighbors there.  I see every important person from the briefing, photographers, a camera man, etc.  They then see me and out of some random corner walked Antonio Villaragosa.  The man is much shorter than he looks on TV.  We’re introduced and he asks about the experience and how I’m doing.  I tell him about how I warned several firemen about the possibility of the carport coming down.  He did not look pleased.

After ten minutes, I thanked him, shook hands and headed back to my hotel room.  I got no more than 20 feet when I was bombarded by a guy from ABC who wanted to interview me.

“I just want to take a shower.”  I said.

And then they asked me for my room number.  I declined to interview them.  So annoying.

I spent two nights in the hotel and was finally cleared to come back to my apartment yesterday.  I’m one of five lucky tenants who still have a place to live.  The first floor tenants, I found out today, will be relocated for temporary housing which may be for up to two to three months.  They suffered four feet of water flooding.  I kinda feel like a jerk.  Here they lost their cars and place of residence.  I lost material items and keepsakes.

Right now they are working on the new front door they installed in my place.  I am typing this at The Coffee Bean across the street.  I’m still quite exhausted but thankful for what I have and to be alive.  I’m about to head back to offer any more help I can.

Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to sleep better.  Between this and taking inventory of my damaged items, while also working from home is quite exhausting.

Here’s the link to the news story:

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=7001973&status=ok