I was standing like a meet-and-greet stiff in the airport terminal with a clip-board holding a sign scribbled in magic marker when I caught site of a punk version Olive Oyl stepping purposely through the jet-way door wearing a pair of transparent red plastic-framed dark, dark sunglasses – dyed-black China-girl hair, alabaster skin, bright red lipstick, loose black t-shirt over short black skirt 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.