I just finished working on a music video for the Lithuanian rock band Steel Wolf where the concluding scene has the bandmates showering each other with champagne after a performance. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a shot of a cork shooting out of one of the bottles. When asked if I could “add one in,” I thought for a moment, worked out how I could make it happen in my head and I did.
I’m no special effects genius, but somehow, I’ve always been able to make improbable things happen on screen from making people disappear from photos to making the sun rise where it never rose before. For some reason, it surprised me how effortlessly I figured out how to make that cork pop. How did I do that? It goes back to my childhood, where my resourcefulness was born.
Some of my earliest memories were watching the launches of the last manned Apollo missions to the moon on TV when I was four. I also vaguely remember clearing out the cabinet under the bathroom sink, lying on my back and closing the doors like I was in a space capsule. My mother has confirmed that memory on many occasions. A few years later, I went on deep space missions in the basement by putting an armchair on its back, used my father’s work light to illuminate the capsule area and tied an extension cord to my belt loop for my lifeline when I went for space walks in the darkness of the basement.
When “Star Wars” captured the imagination of millions in 1977, it also put my resourcefulness in overdrive to satisfy a need; a need to create a universe for my new “Star Wars” figures. There were wonderful vehicles and playsets, but my parents just couldn’t afford them. So my brother’s tape recorder became Luke’s land speeder. A Crest toothpaste box with cardboard wings glued to it made a fine X-Wing and three cardboard boxes taped together and decorated served as the Death Star with a “working” laser bridge made of yellow construction paper that extended across the chasm. All the extras I created made neighbors who owned the actual Death Star play station want to come over and use mine! Since I didn’t own a Han Solo figure, he was always on a mission in another galaxy, but talked to Luke through a “communication screen” made from cardboard frame that held one of my Han Solo bubblegum cards.
My brother’s tape recorder made a great landspeeder.
As the “Star Wars” saga continued, so did the creations out of household items. A Light saber made from a vacuum cleaner pipe, showerhead, rubber washers and a UHF TV knob. An X-wing helmet fashioned over a real helmet with plastic plates on the sides and rubber bumper from a VW bug. Then in 1984, a new movie came to town.
Helmet created in 1984 . Light Sabre created in 1983.
“Ghostbusters” was the summer hit of 1984 and a city wide costume contest judged by Ray Parker Jr., the singer of the chart climbing theme song, was scheduled in Times Square with a top prize of one of the most coveted items in 1984: a top loading VHS video cassette player! Once again, a need had to be satisfied and I had two weeks, so I went to work.
Some crucial facts need to be understood at this point. This was 1984. There was no image search, no internet, no line of detailed replica toys or costumes or schematics of the proton pack. All I had to work with was my memory from seeing the movie, some grainy newspaper images and glimpses when I caught the TV commercial promoting the movie. So I took the box my Atari 2600 came in, painted it black and went through my father’s tool room and the basement to find anything I could to stick on the back of that box. Model parts, tape recorder parts, lamp parts, a toy laser gun I found in the garbage and a tin cooking pot. I arranged the items in a way that made sense and added blue and red Christmas lights powered by nine volt batteries to accent the pack as if it was really powered.
The Proton Pack made in 1984. Still in decent shape after 32 years.
To my surprise, I was the only Ghostbuster there. Everyone else dressed as ghosts, ghouls, Dracula, etc. So when I stepped out, the place went crazy, hundreds of people outside the store cheering through the floor to ceiling windows and Ray Parker Jr.’s eyes bulged! “You made that?” “Yes I did,” I proudly replied. That day my resourcefulness made me a winner and for a brief moment, a celebrity. I can’t remember how many delighted tourists I posed with for pictures (one elderly lady thought I was Dan Aykroyd), but that experience and a busload of summer camp kids screaming in unison, “Who you gonna call?” showed me that my imagination and resourcefulness can generate an emotional response, bring joy. And at 16 years old, that felt amazing!
Moments after winning the Ghostbuster Costume Contest. Sam Goody, Times Square, NY, July, 1984 Photo courtesy of Getty Images and the Michael Ochs Archives.
Next week: Steve’s “Bag o’ Tricks.”
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