THERE WILL BE HALLOWEENS

Thirty years ago tomorrow, I took my first step into Manhattan. Seems like a dream, a long time ago, and yesterday. I had just graduated from San Jose State University, done summer theatre at the Barn Theatre in Michigan, gotten my Equity card, done a show in Japan, and taken a cross country trek from my home state of California to New York. I took the PATH train in from Jersey, and got out at 34th Street. 

It was the most excited and terrified I had ever been up to that moment. 

Ever since seeing the original King Kong on Creature Features when I was five or so, I had this unquenchable thirst to drink in the air of Gotham. I don't know why. Maybe a past life, or my guiding angels, my tribe of spirit guides who I've always relied on. Maybe it was the fact that I was a theatre major, an aspiring actor who wanted to make it on the stage, and NYC was, and still is, the city in America for live theatre. Yes, there are regionals theatres, and tons of good theatre all over the country. But NYC is the one place where you can see a show every day of the year with no repeats, and at least half will not be terrible. 

So off to NYC I went. 

That first night, Halloween 1990, was magic. But it was a coarse magic, wild and unpredictable. My future room mate, a guy I had worked with over the summer, was my tour guide that day. He turned out to not be the best room mate, but I was glad to have him with me that day. He lived in Jersey, and knew the city fairly well. We of course went to the Empire State Building, to see where Kong fell. Then down to Union Square, where we met up with another friend from the summer, a young actress who was in her senior year at NYU and lived in a dorm. The plan was to dump our stuff at her place, roam the city, and then meet up later to go to the Halloween parade. And of course, being in our early 20s, to drink a lot. 

Which we did. 

I remember Blackberry Kamikazees at a joint in the village called Rock Around the Clock. And getting cheap Japanese food at Dojo's on St. Marks. And feeling like I was in a dream or movie or hallucination. I was in NYC! I was leaping into the unknown. Besides a handful of people I had met over the summer, I didn't know a single person who live there. I didn't have a job. I didn't have a ton of money. I didn't have an apartment. 

And I didn't care. I was alive, and doing what I wanted to with my life. 

We drank and wandered all over, a bit tipsy and very ecstatic. It felt like the entire world was my personal Disneyland. The parade was magnificent, strange, and to this day the best I have ever been to. And there were these giant skeleton puppets of blue whales that were truly amazing.

Then we all went back to our friends apartment. And things go funky, a lovers quarrel broke out, and at around 6 in the morning, we were asked to leave. 

Wandering though NYC in the early hours after Halloween is a surreal experience. Felt like I was in a dystopian 1970s movie. I was hung over, tired, and hungry.

And I was alive.

And it was glorious.

There will be more days and nights and mornings like that. There will be new cities, and situations, and parties and parades. 

There will be Halloweens.

And there will be more dreams for all of us to follow.