Guest Blogger

The guest blogger today is my son, Eric. This is a composition that he wrote for his English class. The assignment was to write about a personal incident where he had to make a decision. Since I've been wanting to write about some of our "Hollywood" experiences I thought I'd let him tell this one:

A Memorable Decision

When I was 12 years old I faced a difficult decision. I was sitting in a restaurant in Canyon Country, eating breakfast with my mom. We were planning a fun day at Universal Studios, when her cell phone rang. My heart sank. I knew immediately who it was. I waited impatiently for her to get off the phone; she was writing details on a piece of paper. “I have some bad news and some good news”, she said, “The bad news is we won’t be able to go to Universal Studios today. The good news is you have an audition for a national commercial and you get to skateboard for the audition.” “Mom”, I said, “call her back and tell her I can’t do it today.” I was really looking forward to going to Universal Studios. But turning down an audition wasn’t really a good idea, so I reluctantly decided to go.

When we went in for the audition there were so many kids it took hours to finally get in to see the casting people. The whole time I was waiting I was thinking that I could be having fun at Universal Studios. When I got inside the audition, I had to skateboard and drink Sunny D. Those were two things I enjoyed at the time and I was pretty good at both of them, if I do say so myself. They really liked me and I did really well in the audition. The next morning I got a phone call from my agent telling me I got the part. I was really happy and excited because I got to get paid to skateboard and drink Sunny D. I was so glad I had decided to go to the audition.

They were filming it at house in an LA neighborhood. Out in front of the house there was a huge catering truck that had food out the whole time I was there. They had donuts and sandwiches and every other kind of food you can imagine. I was in my proverbial heaven. I soon learned that I was doing the commercial with another kid. That made me happy because I had someone to hangout with we soon became friends. Before we shot the commercial we had to get our wardrobes they dressed us up kind of dorky but I didn’t care. It was worth it. After we got fitted and dressed we went right to work.

The first thing they wanted us to do was act like we were really bad at skateboarding. We had to fall and not land any tricks. One time I fell kind of hard on my face but I was ok. It was starting to get really hot and they made us fall for at least two hours. I was so relieved when the director finally said, “lunch time”. I took off my helmet and my hair was soaking wet. It was gross. I didn’t care. It was time to eat. I filled my plate with everything on the menu and I filled my stomach with everything on the plate. It was so good. The director gave us an hour for lunch.

When that hour was finally over we had to do the drinking the Sunny D scene. I was happy because we didn’t have to fall on our skateboards anymore. I soon found out that I didn’t have to do the drinking scene right away. I thought I was going to have a break while my new friend had to do his drinking scene. At least that’s what I thought until the studio teacher showed up and made me do school work I had almost finished all of my school work by the time he was done. It was back to work but now I actually got to land tricks. The theme of the commercial was that we were bad at skateboarding until we drank Sunny D and then we became good. It was supposed to give you energy.

Then it was my turn to do the drinking scene. I was happy because I didn’t have to be outside anymore. This scene would scar me for life. It would make me hate something I had loved. In this scene I had to reach in the refrigerator and grab a bottle of Sunny D and chug the whole bottle. Sounds like fun? Well it’s not that fun when you do 34 or more takes. I did literally 34 takes. In the middle of takes they would spray me with mist so I would look sweaty. I haven’t drunk Sunny D since that day.

The day was finally over and so was the shoot. I was relieved and sad. I would miss my friends I made there but I was also happy because I didn’t have to drink any more Sunny D. Even though I was “scarred for life” by drinking so much Sunny D, I was glad I made the right decision.