I stayed at CEI again that night so I could receive the forklift when it arrived the next morning. Thursday morning while waiting on the rental, I worked out a more exact map on how to pack up the truck... as in, which crates needed be loaded in which order and what items could be packed above the character crates. It all looked good on paper, and I was hopeful that the measurements we made were accurate and that things would actually fit as planned. I also dug out a Rolfe crate that had all of the costumes, as the first couple had been pillaged sometime in the past (which is why we hadn't dragged Rolfe up to the street the night before).
The forklift rental and Aaron arrived around noon and we got right to work. The rental was larger than the one we used the day before and this one had a clutch - which meant Aaron had to do all the driving since that's one thing I'm embarrased to say I've never been able to drive. Everything was going good until the forklift died fairly quickly after we tried to get started. After the trauma of the previous day I wasn't in the mood for a slew of new problems - luckily it was only an empty propane tank which was easily replaced. The only slip-up that occured while loading the truck was when we brought up the Rolfe crate from the basement using the new forklift. Once he was up on the street, Aaron hit a dip in the pavement and the crate went toppling over. We actually got that little incident on video - maybe sometime in the future Aaron will post that online. A slight blip to an otherwise smooth packing. Took a good six hours though to get everything in a finished up. But after the way the last few days had gone I wasn't going to complain one bit.
That night Air and I went to eat at a nearby IHOP which was a really nice relaxing meal, and the real joy was getting to drink some Coke. I'm not sure wheteher everyone knows or not, but for me, caffeine is one of the major food groups and prior to this, I had been without it for most of my time in Florida. It's not that sweet tea and ice water aren't both great in their own right.... it's just that baby needs his medecine. So that was nice. We went back to CEI after dinner and had one last errand for the night - to move an old scrap piece of machinery from the basement to the storage yard beside CEI.
Seemed like an easy enough task, being that we still had use of the bigger forklift. After some initial thinking we decided it would be best to get behind the heavy soldier machine and 'push' it up the ramp, since the angle would have prevented us from pulling it up backwards. Getting that heavy, bulky thing onto the forks wasn't as easy as it sounds since all the weight of the melted soldier was one one side of it. With some twists and turns we were able to get it moved into position and Aaron began pushing it up the ramp. Now earlier, while manually pushing crates up the ramp we were thinking that it got steeper as it inclined. This little trip made that a bit clearer. About halfway up, the forward momentem just about stopped and Aaron was only able to push the machine forward an inch or so at a time - which was by riding the clutch. Seemed like it was going to work out until that poor clutch burned up and smoke went billowing out of the back. Now you'd think that since the garage door leading out to the open air was wide open, all of the smoke would have gone that way. Instead it all flowed down back into CEI's basement. So Aaron stopped the forklift, which was now stuck halfway up a ramp, behind a huge machine. Since it wasn't going anywhere and they'd be picking it up in the morning with a tow truck, we figured we'd just wait until the tow got there to help up try to pull that mess out.
That night I again stayed at CEI, bedroom door shut tight, as the entire building now smelled of burnt rubber. In the morning I drew out a more accurate map for loading the truck now that we had actually saw how best to pack it in, and took a quick stroll down to Kinkos to copy some documentation. When I came back the ABF trailer had been picked up. A bit later Aaron arrived and the guy who came to pick up the forklift also showed up. We showed him the situation at hand and he was able to help us out. We got that on video too, which turned out to be quite comical. As luck would have it, right when the tow driver was getting his truck into position to tug us out of there it began to pour outside. He got the forklift up to the street and was able to get the machine moved out to the storage yard and the forklift up on the truck bed fairly easy. Personally I think the rain was coming down hard enough to muffle the smoke from the forklift and the smell of the torn-up clutch just long enough to get it out of our hands. Hopefully that made it look like we didn't break it ourselves.
Air was soaked from head to foot, so after changing we went to eat that evening at a local BBQ restaurant which was really good. We got to chat a bit with the stress of the week now completely behind us which was nice. After we ate we went back to Aaron's house and watched an episode of South Park and some old home movies that he had come across recently. One of them was, apparently, the only known footage of the 2nd generation Dook. The video shows the tech guys working down at CEI testing out the new mech and running it through a series of movements. Even just seeing the bare mech without cosmetics, it was clear how incredible of an addition the new Dook would have made to the Rock-afire stage. The 2nd generation mech played a large drum set, and he could swivel at the waist to hit different drums in front of him. His arm could even cross over the other one and hit a cymbal on the other side of him. More impressive still, he could tilt back and hit 2 different cymbals that were hovering above his head on both sides.
Aaron brought out some popcorn and we got to watch another video where he had set up a camera in his house, as the group interviewed a woman named Monique to take over the voice of Mitzi. The tape was from 1982 and captured a brief moment in time where Aaron was giving up the voice of Mitzi and just a few weeks before Shalisa was discovered. To see Aaron, Sal, and Jeff hanging out and reading a script in progress was surreal. They seemed like just a bunch of friends hanging out together and screwing around - which is the way I always pictured the creative process behind the Rock-afire showtapes. Monique was selected to play the part of Mitzi because of the way she was in real life - prim and proper, just inviting the ridicule of others. This really comes across in their conversation with her, as she unwittingly becomes the butt of much of their joking. And that was the way Mitzi was to be developed as a character, however, when Monique began reading lines it all fell apart. She became something else, and all of the traits about her they wanted to capture dissapeared. Long story short, Monique never worked out and only recorded a couple of songs with the band. In the video Aaron mentions his plans to go to a robotics convention the next week, and it was during his trip that Burt and Duke discovered Shalisa.
It's hard to rattle off all of the neat little instances contained in that video because it went on for literally 3 hours and was packed with behind the scenes stuff. At one point Burt Wilson's making coffee in Air's kitchen and he pulls out a colander from the cupboard and puts it on his head - wears it for awhile and after nobody seems to notice, he quietly puts it away. At one point Jeff and Burt leave the room and in the background you can hear him playing 'Lousiana' - and you can tell he was still working out some of the chords, as he was playing this new song for Jeff. When it become apparent that Monique wasn't going to work out for Mitzi, Aaron's debating with Jeff about what they should do from here - if they should change the whole idea of the band picking on Mitzi - he mentions how Chuck E. Cheese is always picking on Harmony Howlette and how they should go in a different direction from that.
Getting to watch those videos that night was the best part of the trip. Of all the memories to take home, that was the most cherished. To be able to sit down with Aaron and watch all those old videos, and laugh and talk as friends was worth more than even owning that show I went down there to buy. We had met twice in the past, but had never had a chance to sit and talk, not really anyway. It gave us a chance to get to know each other and better understand why things are as they are with the ShowBiz community of fans - to see how what once was had been transformed into what it is now. I was able to let him know why I even bother spending so much time and money out of my own pocket to keep SP.com running, and I honestly feel that Aaron sees the value in that. That he appreciates those of us who have hung around all these years and still see the magic in what should otherwise be long dead and forgotten.
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