Here we are with my second of many installments sure to come about the business of
entertaining people. To dive right in from the start, my earliest memories are of
beating on pots and pans with wooden spoons pretending to be “The Cat-Man” Peter Criss
of KISS. As a child growing up on rock music, Kiss were the ultimate super heroes and
I wanted to be just like them. I guess I got my way, having played drums in several
rock bands as well as wearing a costume and makeup whilst claiming to be a super hero.
Just not at the same time. Maybe I’ll get into the whole super hero bit some other time
as it’s quite ridiculous.

I knew as a young child that settling for a regular 9 to 5 office job just wasn’t for
me. The next bug that bit me came when I was 6 or 7 tears old when I saw the movie
“Poltergeist”. To this day, I can’t remember being so scared. I had an old, half dead
apple tree in my back yard that looked all too much like the one that attacked the
little boy in the movie. How could something of pure fantasy illicit such a strong
emotion as fear? I’m still not sure I have a good answer for that one, but I’ve certainly
learned to recreate that feeling in others. Through the years after that, I became
increasingly fascinated with the genres of horror and scifi. I watched every horror movie
and TV show that I could find. Everything from “The Twilight Zone” and “Tales From the Darkside”
to the gore soaked classics like “Day of the Dead” and “The Thing”. My fascination evolved
quickly from fear to the art of creating monsters.

I would get my opportunity to try my hand at both soon enough. When I was in 8th
grade my school had a tradition of putting on a haunted house on Halloween to help
finance a field trip. Myself and a group of friends were charged with putting the
spookshow together. I wonder if the school district had any idea what kind of monster
they were feeding. With a big help from my dad, some cardboard, paint and a whole lot
of inspiration, we pulled it off rather well. Now 19 years later I couldn’t fathom doing
anything else during the Halloween season. Welcome to the haunted attractions business!

Lots more to come very soon……..

Arnie