SWEET VALLEY HIGH FOREVER

Long ago I had a crush who told me that during her tween years she loved reading the Sweet Valley High books. Imagine tenacious detective Nancy Drew as twin sisters who solve zero mysteries and attend a rich kid high school in SoCal, where every girl is a cheerleader, every guy is the star quarterback, and everyone is blonde.

Inspired by love for a girl I hardly knew, I created an entire radio play using Sweet Valley High characters. I wrote it, scored it, built a multi-layered SFX landscape, AND I performed all the voices. This was a massive effort, took me countless hours to finish. Then, in one of the all-time Misguided Romantic Gestures, I copied the file to a thumb drive, tied it with a red bow and handed it to the girl, certain that she’d jump for joy and marry me on the spot.

Never heard from her again. At the time I was actually surprised, but that was ages ago. To this day I’m proud of my creation, although it was a dismal aphrodisiac.

LARRY & SAL

Larry & Sal are shark puppets. Larry is smart. Sal is weapons-grade stupid. My wife and I invented Larry & Sal to keep our young daughter entertained. Pretty soon we were making videos we claimed for the kid, but were really for us — two Gen-Xers who worship Henson and Oz. My wife & I improvised the dialogue and I edited all episodes myself.

THE SAL-9000

YOGA

DAY AT THE MUSEUM