The universe from Universal

So, what have you missed? Well, first let me tell you about Universal. We're now safe and well in San Diego, in a place that really reminds me of Mississauga, Toronto (where my friend Howard and his particularly gorgeous wife Sharon used to live). We're at a lovely campsite in Chula Vista, but more of San Diego later (first prize to anyone who can tell me what San Diego means).

The journey to Universal was similarly fraught with trouble, as I mentioned in my last post. Seriously, navigating LA in an RV (I'm initialling myself out of existence here, LOL) is a NIGHTMARE. Dad and I had a bit of a spat on arrival, but I'm starting to think that this is part of the journey, and certainly part of living the dream. The fact that we talk about it afterwards and make it up, and most importantly, laugh is the fact that really counts. The fact that sometimes we want to abandon each other by the side of the freeway is incidental. Anyhoo, we arrived at Universal Studios and all was full of love. That might be one of the benefits of having such a terrible time navigating, by the time you get anywhere, you're so relieved to actually be there that you're pretty much guaranteed to have a good time!

The first place we headed to was Van Helsing's Vampire Walk, which is like a ride, except you walk through it. This was good for me on one hand because it meant that I didn't have to go on a ride (Monkee Phil, you KNOW what I'm talking about!), but bad on the other hand, because it means that the actors 'get' at you good and proper, and I don't mean in a kinky way. Amy and I were terrible drama queens, though I think I take the Oscar for most authentic screams of terror (there's a reason for that...), and we kept shoving Dad ahead of us so that the actors could get him first. He spent most of the time laughing at us and cracking bad jokes at them - nerves of steel, that man. There was a bloody eight foot wolf attacking people on the way out IN THE DARK (trying to convey the terror to you here), and Dad wasn't bothered at all, I think he was trying to work out how the guy in the costume did it (he did figure it out, too - the wolf was on stilts, let me make that clear, he was wearing them under the costume), but it took me and Amy a good five minutes of standing the other side of the door to work ourselves up to RUN through screaming at the top of our lungs. I think the wolf was more afraid of us, to be honest, he just kind of shrank back as the crazy English women bolted past.

Then we moved onto a show called Fear Factor, which I seem to remember we have back home. This was quite honestly unbelievable - not in the sense that the show exists, but that anyone would go on it. The contestants apply to go on it, some of them get turned down (imagine that: "I'm sorry you're just not eligible for being humiliated, frightened and forced to do gross things in public. Maybe next time.") but the successful ones get to appear on the next live show. These people endured a weird variety of endurance tests: being suspended fifty feet in the air, hanging on to a pole; grabbing flags out of tanks of eels; self-delivering electric shocks; and, for me the worst of all, eating a smoothie made out of rotten fish, pig parts (eyes, snout and skin) and live cockroaches, which they blended on stage - you'd never get away with that in England. I spent most of the time with my hands over my eyes and mouth and Dad spent most of the time laughing at me.

We saw a show called Backdraft - Matt, you secret arsonist, you would have loved it - they put you in a reconstruction of the last scene, which is a burning warehouse, and there's real fire. Oh yes. Scared the crap out of me. I screamed in that one as well. Well, honestly, real fire. It's a bit too much for anyone (although the toddlers in the audience seemed ok with it).

There was a great show called Behind the Scenes: Special Effects, which was great. This lasted for about an hour and was all about the way that they make the effects in films like King Kong. The two presenters were brilliant and a really good comedy double act. They showed us loads of stuff about how sound effects are done, how so many special effects are produced in miniature and loads of stuff about animatronics. It was one of my favourite parts of the experience and the one show that didn't make me scream.

The last thing we went on before we went and checked out the shops (Lisa Clark I got you something fabulous in Universal City, which is a kind of mall outside the theme park) was the Universal Studios Tour. This was without a doubt my favourite part of the day, because it was a cross between a ride and a show.

They showed us the live sets first, but they can only show you from the outside because obviously people are filming in there. However, they were filming Desperate Housewives and Pirates of the Caribbean 3, so there was a rather poignant moment when we all stopped to think about Johnny Depp. Aaah, hold that thought. We went around some of the live sets, too, including Wisteria Lane (see picture, it wasn't actually crooked in real life but something went wrong with the camera on that one, it was nothing to do with anything I did) but we weren’t allowed to go down there as they were expected to film that day. We saw some of the old sets from movies and tv shows, including the Psycho Bates Motel and spooky house on the hill (Nyeee! Nyeee! Nyee! See the pic below) and the outdoor set of Murder She Wrote. The sets where they film scenes for western films or tv shows was definitely the weirdest because they make everything fractionally smaller than it should be so that the cowboys and cowgirls look bigger and tougher than they really are!

Then were the parts of the tour that were like a ride in themselves. I enjoyed all of these except for one, the one that made me scream, predictably. See if you can guess out of these options which one it was. We saw some cars from Too Fast Too Furious on these huge robotic arms, which thrust the cars at great speed towards the tour tram cars and made it look as though they were going to hit the trams, but the arms stopped them just in time. Then we saw how weather effects in films are created when we saw a flash flood re-enacted (I have this on film, so if I can find out how to upload it somewhere I’ll share it online – if anyone knows a way that I can do this, please let me know). But the humdinger was when we went to Amity Beach, and the tram collapsed into the water and then……der da……der da….. der da, der da der da…….JAWS appeared. I didn’t look at it and neither did Amy, we were both too busy screaming and trying desperately to get to the other side of the tram car. I know it’s not real, but what can I say, this is why I don’t like rides. Sometimes I get really quite hysterical about it, although I know you’ll all find that really hard to believe.

We’d managed to catch the last studio tour of the day, which lasted about an hour, and by the time we came out it was almost time for the park to close. So we decided to go back out to Universal City, which is a sort of shopping mall for visitors to Universal Studios. I bought some fab stuff there (Lisa Clark, you’re going to love the present I bought for you) and we had a look at the cinema stage for a while, they were about to show the Princess Bride, but it was getting late and we needed to get home. Actually, given the fact that we got so hopelessly lost, it was just as well that we left when we did!

I had a really good afternoon at Universal Studios (I think all-in, we spent about 6 hours there) and I think everyone did. I loved the parts of the park that told you about the history of movie-making most of all, and about how the ‘magic of the movies’ is created. Any of you who know me well can hear the ‘but’ coming…..



When we reached the highest section of the park, overlooking the studios down in the valley, I could see for miles, beyond the studio sets, beyond the walls of Universal, beyond the city animal itself, to the actual land underlying it all. The shape of the landscape and the furrowed brows of the San Gabriel mountains suddenly made me feel as though I was waking up from a dream or even an enchantment that the Universal Studios cast upon their visitors. The mountains are literally rather than colloquially awesome and I suddenly felt a little ashamed of myself to have been taken in by all that twinkle and glitter of the movies. I looked around the park and it looked a bit gaudy and, I’m struggling to describe my sense of it here, but the closest I can come to it is that the whole thing seemed rather unnecessary.

And actually, that’s a pretty good description of so much that comes out of Hollywood, churning out as it does blockbuster after blockbuster, none of it art really, in my book little of it even entertainment! In fact, there is a better metaphor, the theme park is a bit like casual sex – it feels good when you’re actually doing it, even exciting, but when you wake up you often feel cheap and a bit soiled and embarrassed.

The drive we took yesterday from LA to San Diego on the Interstate 15 made me think about this even more: the relationship we humans have with the environment, the planet, the land (I know, in a parallel universe, 1969 is waiting for me to return). I’ll write more about it later but the Interstate 15 has many sections where you are so close to just the land, bare horizon, no buildings , no malls, no humans, and given the temperature outside and the rough cut of the landscape, it’s no surprise.

What does it mean about humans that we have to construct this sort of ‘entertainment’ for ourselves? And I’m not bitching that we do (ok, I am a little but, but I’m a purist) but increasingly it seems to me that in creating all these ‘things to do’ we have forgotten, as Hicks put it, that ‘It’s just a ride’. Hollywood, these theme parks, the endless bloody malls, it’s like a self-perpetuating myth that the world, as it is, as it always was (as it won’t be for much longer), is not enough: we need more, we need something else: we need new trainers, we need another DVD we won’t watch, we neeeeeeeeeed. And increasingly, we need to simulate so much in order to stimulate our excitement.

And yet, there is so much natural beauty everywhere, and in LA, it is, literally, all around you. So much of our contemporary civilisation seems based on these sorts of hollow constructions, and I don’t just mean entertainment – what about the concept of money itself? Talk about an invention that came to rule its inventor. I can almost hear gorgeous Lisa now – Jeez , Sarah Louise, don’t you ever just stop and relax? Probably not, no, but you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Thanks again to the constant Commentors (like Dementors but better and not so fatal) on the blog, can’t tell you how much it means to read your stuff each day. Great to see you Bilbo, well done on mastering the techno stuff! Don’t forget to go back and have a look at the comments everyone, because I often write individual answers to people there, too.

This is a long old post, so apologies if anyone’s brain hurts! Skip the writing if you like and check out King Kong. That bugger was huge. I deliberately got a shot with those people’s heads in so that you would have some perspective. Honest.