“30 YEARS IN 30 DAYS”
YEAR ONE: MARCH 26, 1993 – December 31, 1993
By Michael Sean McHale
The night before I left for Los Angeles, I had dinner with my friend Heather from my job on the stock market. She was really scared for me because I only knew one person, Craig DeSilva, out in LA. She tried to be positive about it and said that at least I was going to get to meet so many celebrities and stars out in Hollywood. I shrugged it off and told her point blank that there were only two celebrities that I was interested in meeting and they were Dee Wallace Stone and Dan Gauthier. Of course her reaction was “Who’s Dan Gauthier?” (heavy sigh). Hello??? Brad from TEEN WITCH!!!? I had it in my head that on the west coast, Dee was my ideal Hollywood Mom and Dan was my ideal Hollywood brother. You’ll find out in the years ahead that I did in fact meet and become friends with both of them in unique ways.
So my first year in Los Angeles was not without lots of laughter, drama and adventures.
My friend Craig had offered me his place to sublet while he went to New York for three months but that all changed just before my move so he set up multiple places for me to check out when I arrived.
My first celebrity sighting was in fact Elizabeth Perkins aka: Wilma Flintstone. I was at Wells Fargo Bank in Larchmont Village to open up an account with them and there she was right in front of me. She smiled at me and I told her how much I loved BIG. Just a few days later Wells Fargo closed my account because of ‘fraud’. This is when I found out that an ex roommate of mine from the North End of Boston, Eric O., had stolen my identity and took out a $50,000.00 loan in MY name with MY social security number…this was back in the day that you social security was on your drivers license. So within a week I discovered that my credit was not so good because of this thieving ex roommate. In the later years I would discover that he did something else with my identity as well….but I digress. I will write about that when it’s time.
I had moved in with my mom 8 months before my move so I could put away a substantial amount of money. I also cashed out my 401K with the stock market to fund my move. My big plan was to not work for the first year in Los Angeles and make some connections, meet people and write…Yes. I am primarily a writer, acting was never something that I was interested in back then at all. I studied some acting back in Boston, but I have been writing my entire life. Writing has always been my passion. I had even been corresponding with Michael J. Fox’ people about a wonderful animated story I created called THE MESSENGERS! He expressed some interest in portraying the lead character Stanley, the Stamp. I even wrote a treatment for an episode of my new favorite show DEEP SPACE NINE before the move and was excited to show it to someone. My main goal coming to Los Angeles was to hopefully make a difference in children’s programming as a writer.
Well…. the Universe had MUCH different plans for me. I moved into my first apartment near Larchmont Village on Norton Ave on April 1st, 1993 and my new landlord sold me my very first car; a 1968 Orange Chevy Nova. He told me it ran great but it needed a tune up as soon as possible. Now, never having owned a car before, to me ‘as soon as possible’ meant…you know…’sometime’ in the future…OY VEY!
You can guess what happened next. In May, while driving on the 5 freeway near the city of Industry, my Nova died and now I was carless because I was careless 🙁 and my ‘year off’ turned into just 2 months off and I needed to find work pronto! I had two opportunities, one was to be the Manager of a gay restaurant called BASIX, the other was to perform at children’s parties for a children’s party company….guess which one I ended up with? 🙂
My friend Craig did parties and got me in the door and my first gig in Los Angeles was as a clown at a car dealership in the city of Duarte over Memorial Day weekend. I had a crash course in balloon animals and makeup by the owner of the company and off I went. I was booked for two days at the dealership. My first day I terrified the kids because my makeup was melting and I looked like a VERY very scary clown. I wept in the new used car a new friend had found for me. I was ready to quit but my gut whispered “Stay.” The 2nd day everything was wonderful and no face melting was present. LOL! The next gig however…AYE YI YI!!!!
My 2nd gig (which I was sure would be my last), I was playing the Penguin to another actors’ Batman…Well……Batman was shorter than me so I had to spend the entire 2 hour party crouched down so I would be shorter than him. I was SOOOOOOO done! On the elevator ride down in this gorgeous complex on Wilshire Blvd in Westwood (I still cringe when I drive by it), I said out loud to God and probably the security guard watching on the elevator camera, “That’s it! I’m NEVER going to do kids parties EVER AGAIN!” But again, I heard a quiet whisper “Stay. Just wait.” I groaned and threw my hands up in defeat. “FINE! I’ll give it ONE more chance!”
Well, NOW my life was about to take a mind-blowing turn that I NEVER expected in my wildest dreams. Soon after the Penguin debacle, the owner asked me if I knew of anyone who would be interested in working full time in the office, talking to clients and booking the gigs…being the new office Manager as her current office manager was getting married and moving to the San Francisco area. My heart jumped as I proclaimed to her “ME! ME! ME!” She hired me on the spot and I ran the office until February of 1995. And as a running joke I had MY headshot up every week for employee of the month. It was funny…until it wasn’t….but THAT comes up in 1994. Muwahahahaha.
The moral of the story is this, even if your first car breaks down two months after you moved to a strange land because you were careless and now carless, the Universe will take care of you and provide a way. NEVER GIVE UP! And always, ALWAYS listen to your gut! If I didn’t, I would probably be restaurant manager somewhere now. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 😊
For the rest of the year, I played Barney the Dinosaur HUNDREDS of times along with Mickey and Aladdin 287 times over the years and Power Rangers also hundreds of times which came in handy in year 1998 heeeeheeeeheeee.
The first pets I had were two black headed finches Heckle & Jeckle and a beautiful fluffy orange and white cat named Mississippi. My two cats from home, MISS ONLY & MISS TILLY would be arriving in November of that year when my mother, Ellen Sue Garvey flew out to stay with me for a month to celebrate Thanksgiving with me. I have to sadly report that Heckle and Jeckle did not make it to December with three cats conspiring against them. ☹
During this time I did many parties for some famous people including Chevy Chase (five parties total) including an Aladdin show (see photo) and the great Wayne Gretzky…also about five parties including a HUGE Christmas party and of course Barney the Dinosaur. 😊 I also made some incredible friends along the way, some that I am still in contact with including Jordan Monks, RoseAnn Kelley, Eric Sharp and Scotty Martin.
I was originally going to write each post from March to March of each year but decided I would do it year by year instead so “I” wouldn’t get confused. lol. So for now I leave you at the end of 1993. Having been in Los Angeles for a little over nine months things were going pretty great. I had a job that I loved. I even had a writing Agent and I had written my very first spec script for THE SIMPSONS that I think is pretty freaking awesome! (I STILL want them to make it so if anyone has any connections…), however, things were about to SHAKE UP in 1994 in the very first month…Stay tuned. 😊
