and thin legs covered in opaque black tights wearing mid-calf Doc Martins. Oh my. 'Hi. My name is Marol. You must be Michael.' Wo. We ended up really hitting it off. (Not that I'm anything like a hipster or was ever drawn to 'punk' as social cache – well alright, I did, still do, get off on X and The Clash but not so much the style.) We got to be good buds over the short life of the teevee commercial project. She was interested in what I told her I'd like to do in the future, what I had done to make myself more useful to the luck-of-the-draw opportunities that would occasionally tap me here in Phoenix. 'You should come to L.A. Knock on doors! I could tell you who to see, who to avoid. Do it!' So, as I had a best friend who lives there willing to let me come stay whenever I wanted, I decided to put together a best-of dog-and-pony-show mini-portfolio of some really, really cool places I had in my files. I penned an uncharacteristically brief letter of introduction and together with a boarded copy of one of my best locations sent little packages off to all the HOP's and Executive Producers Marol suggested had the best stable of directors to work with, promising to give them a call when I came to town a couple of weeks later. Then I hit the road.

I gave myself a week to make calls, arrange meetings and nail down some beach time if I could and was a bit surprised at how receptive people were to my call-backs. Many were really, really busy. (Of course.) But I kept at it and ended up seeing nearly everyone I set out to meet! 'I'd never been contacted by a location scout before to show me their work and pitch their services', I heard more often than I can count. I never made it to the beach.

When I look back now at the people I met, the level of individual at the top of the food-chain I was able to arrange spending a bit of their valuable time with, I am amazed to this day. I probably wouldn't even attempt so audacious a plan now. But that was then, and sometimes the less you know about The Big Picture the better off you are, the more successful you will be at realizing your dreams and aspirations. Marol was so pleased with my tenacity, I guess, she offered to share her office space with me for the couple of years I decided to live part-time in L.A., bouncing back and forth between that anthill and Phoenix, where my real life is. I came to know Marol Butcher as, not just 'the production goddess' (so many people I met referred to her as), someone who seemed to know absolutely-everyone, but one of the most genuinely beautiful and incredibly cool (without being crass and snotty about it) people I have ever met. I could go on about her but I won't. She wouldn't feel comfortable with all the goo-goo-praise and all. (Such an anomaly in this business!)

During one of several marketing blitzes I engaged in over those early years, at one meeting where I sat down with two of the three executive producers at a