I’m running through the streets of industrial Los Angeles cursing to myself. My eyes are searching, desperately scanning the sidewalk and disintegrating asphalt for a coat hanger. The sun beats down on me, I’m sweating profusely, and behind me my car is parked with the engine running and the keys locked inside it. Welcome to L.A., baby.

If there is a Horatio Alger rite-of-passage story in my life, it takes place during the summer of 1991. For three months I worked as an intern for Alterian Studios, a special effects company in Hollywood. I was a 21-year-old kid — or at least I felt like a kid.

My mother and I spent three and a half days driving across the country in the 1987 Plymouth Horizon given to me that spring. The red four-door hatchback was an automatic with crank windows, no AC, FM/AM stereo and under a thousand miles on it. A great little car, it was the perfect vehicle for navigating the L.A. freeways. Upon arrival, my mom hovered over me protectively as if I wouldn’t survive in the big city. As much as I love her, I was relieved when she boarded the plane back to Ohio. This was my big chance to be on my own — sort of. I’d be crashing at the apartment my brother, Budd, shared with his fiancée, Karyn. Still, with the two of them busy with their own lives, I would be free to explore the west coast and figure out who I wanted to be. (more…)