#the milpitas monster (1975)

[haveyouseenthishorrormovie]

SUMMARY: Rampant pollution gives birth to a vengeful monstrosity which terrorizes the residents of Milpitas, Calif.

[if-i-am-not-for-me]

I'm watching a movie called "The Milpitas Monster". It was written, filmed, acted, and partially produced by high school students between 1973 and 1975. It started as an extra credit project.

It's about a 50+ ft garbage creature created from pollution, terrorizing Milpitas, CA.

Its honestly of a very similar, if not better, quality to contemporary B-movies.

This is amazing! Milpitas is near where I grew up and where my parents grew up, at the same time. My mother even recognized the voice of a local radio anchor who made an audio cameo.

As I'm watching all I can think is, "whose dad is that? Whose little sister? Whose house?" Its a damn delight!

[vickypritchard]

Case Studies

The following are case studies I have found of sound workers that work within the Film industry;

Doc Kane - Audio Engineer https://www.disneydigitalstudio.com/meet-doc-kane/

Doc Kane is an American audio engineer and is one of the most well known, well experienced engineers in the industry. He has worked on nearly 350 films since the start of his career in 1984, with many famous actors and actresses including Johnny Depp, Ellen DeGeneres and Robin Williams. He is most known for his audio work in Disney films, working in the ‘Stage B’ studio. Stage B, also known as Disney’s premier “Dialogue Stage” is an audio studio, specialising in character voices, work here has mainly featured in classic Disney animated films such as -  Lady and the Tramp, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and The Jungle Book. Since the classic animation Disney films, Doc Kane has continued working for the company, moving to audio work in the recent CGI and animated films, including Frozen 2 (2019), Avengers Endgame (2019) and Onward (2020).  Before his career, his love for music began when he was young and was a drummer for a band at his high school. He began experimenting with music using his Dads old tape deck and learnt how to duplicate and dub music. He has said that learning this technique then opened up an interest to sound recording and production. Since then he began to learn how to read and write music and began to experiment more with ideas and new pieces of music. During his time at high school, a teacher he had was good friends with the head of Post Production at Paramount Studios, every Friday afternoon he would drive to Paramount, here he gained experience in sound and began to create an understanding of the industry. After a while, he joined a training programme for sound in films, and was offered a job after graduating.  Advice Doc Kane would give is to experiment with ideas as much as possible, no matter the result, it is better to go through trial and error, rather than never trying and never learning or succeeding.  After being offered a job, Doc began to make his way up the hierarchy of sound in the film industry, and was able to get a job at Warner Hollywood. After a while there, he was offered various part time jobs in Disney studios, and eventually managed to work his way into a full time Disney sound engineer job. Skills Doc Kane has were mainly taught through the industry during work experience and his training program. Although he was able to find a lot of new techniques that were useful through experimenting on his own outside of the studios and then applying them to sound professionally.  Doc Kane has been nominated for 32 awards overall, winning 8 of them. The awards he has won are as followed; 

ACCA - “Best Sound” - ALADDIN (1992)

Golden Reel Award - “Best Sound Editing - Animated Feature” - IRON GIANT (2000) 

OFTA Film Award - “Best Sound Mixing” - THE INCREDIBLES (2005)

Gold Derby Award - “Sound Editing/Effects” - THE INCREDIBLES (2005)

C.A.S Award - “Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Motion Pictures - Animated” - FINDING DORY (2016)

C.A.S Award - “Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Motion Pictures - Animated” - INSIDE OUT (2016)

C.A.S Award - “Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Motion Pictures - Live Action”- DOCTOR STRANGE (2017) 

Golden Reel Award - “Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing - Sound Effects, Foley, Music, Dialogue and ADR for Special Venue” - CARNE Y ARENA (2017)

Social Media:  https://staffmeup.com/profile/4373360-Doc-Kane   Although Doc doesn���t use any ‘traditional’ social media that would normally be found for this industry, such as Twitter or Instagram, he does use “Staff me up”. Staff me up is a social media platform similar to LinkedIn, where you can list your career achievements and credits, a summary bio about you and find connections to the industry you want to work in to promote yourself. I do not feel the need to make a ‘Staff me up’ social media account because I have made a LinkedIn account, which has a very similar concept and layout to Staff me up. LinkedIn is slightly more beneficial as you can add more information to it allowing employers and connections to know more about you. 

John Dykstra - Recording Engineer https://www.technicolor.com/john-dykstra 

John Dykstra is a Canadian recording engineer based at Technicolor Toronto, one of Canada's leading visual effects, audio and video post services for film, TV shows, and commercial productions. He has worked on over 100 film and television productions since his career began in 1995 and has worked his way up the industry gaining knowledge and experience along the way, starting out as an assistant Foley engineer and currently working as a lead mixer - he has specialised and focused most of his career on mixing. He has worked alongside many famous actors and actresses including; Thomas Craig, Charlotte Arnold, Hugh Dillon and Ben Bass.  John has worked on a number of films and television shows in various roles, the roles are - he was lead mixer for Status Update (2018), Army of One (2016) Digrassi: Next Class (2016/2017), Murdoch Mysteries (2008). He has also been a sound effects mixer for Hemlock Grove (2013/2015) and a re-recorder mixer for Christmas at Grand Valley (2018), The Holiday Calendar (2018), Open Heart (2015) and The L.A. Complex (2012). A variety of roles in this industry is a great way to not only know what your best strengths are and what your weaknesses are, but it is a good way to explore and gain knowledge in a range of skills that are needed for the industry.  John began his sound career over 20 years ago starting out at a company called ‘Masters Workshop’ as an audio assistant. In 1999 he then joined Technicolor Toronto as a Foley/ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) recorder. He continued his career at Technicolor and began mixing sound in 2005, after six years working as a mixer, he was promoted to senior mixer.  John began playing guitar at a young age and gained his knowledge and understanding of music in both writing and reading through his practice and performing. Playing guitar allowed John to learn about music structures and what makes a piece pleasing to listen to which allowed him to develop his music editing both in his own time and in his job, this then allowed him to widen his range in mixing and recording in the industry.  Over the two decades John has worked in the sound industry, he has been nominated three times for Gemini awards, (Gemini awards are given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television). As well as nominated for one Canadian Screen Award.

Gemini Award - “Best Sound in a Dramatic Program” -  WOULD BE KINGS (2008) 

Gemini Award - “Best Sound in a Dramatic Series” -  FLASHPOINT (2009)

Gemini Award - “Best Sound in a Dramatic Program” -  THE REST OF MY LIFE (2010) 

Canadian Screen Awards, CA - “Best Sound in a Dramatic Program or Series” - MURDOCH MYSTERIES (2019) 

Social Media:  https://twitter.com/Technicolor  John doesn’t have a social media account, however the company he works for (Technicolor) does. They have a Twitter account that promotes their upcoming projects and work they have been doing. Posting tweets often allows the company to gain more of a following, especially when adding tags and hashtags people can look up. I have made a Twitter account and feel this social media platform will be the most beneficial to me and my branding. 

Ben Burtt - Sound Designer https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0123785/bio 

Ben Burtt is an American Sound Designer based at Disney, he is well known for working on sound in the original and current Star Wars movies and is responsible for creating Chewbacca and Yoda’s voices as well as other characters in the trivia. He has worked on over 40 film and television productions since his career began in 1975 and has worked his way up from the bottom tier of the industry, being un-credited for his work, all the way up to being one of the most famous sound designers in the industry. He has worked alongside many famous actors and actresses including; Ewan Gordon McGregor, Frank Oz, Tom Kane and Natalie Portman.  Ben Burtt has worked on many different industry roles before becoming a Sound Designer, the roles he has worked on before include; Special Effects Artist for The Milpitas Monster (1976), Special Dialogue and Sound Effects for Star Wars (1977), where he created the voice of Chewbacca and Yoda, Voice Designer for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), where he created the voice of E.T., Sound Effects Editor for Howard the Duck (1986), Supervising Sound Editor for Star Wars III - Revenge of the Sith (2005), Sound Editor for Star Trek (2009) and Sound Designer for Escape from Planet Earth (2013).  Ben has always been passionate about film production and sound, during his time at college he made many short films and managed to win an award in 1970, the “National Student Film Festival” for a short film he made called ‘Yankee Squadron’. Since then whilst studying he worked on more small production films and managed to get a scholarship for University for his work in special-effects on a film called ‘Genesis’. This began his career nearly 45 years ago after graduating in 1975 from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, with a Masters degree in Fine Arts in Film Production. The same year he graduated, he got his first job as an assistant Sound Designer for the film ‘Death Race 2000′, although his acknowledgement was not included in the film credits. He continued to grow and develop his career, the highlight of his career working for Disney and creating the voices of many famous robotic or animal based creatures such as Wall.E, Chewbacca, Yoda and E.T.  Ben's fondness for sound developed during his time at University, he loved finding natural sounds and blending in "found sounds" to create the effects. It is believed his twist on fantasy based and science fiction based films, (especially in Star Wars) has changed how the industry creates sound to this day, as previously science-fiction films usually used electronic-sounding effects for futuristic devices.

During his career, Ben has been nominated for 45 awards in total and has managed to win 17 of them which are listed below; 

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA - “Outstanding Sound” - STAR WARS (1978)

Academy Awards USA - “Best Sound” - STAR WARS (1978)

BAFTA Awards - “Best Sound” - STAR WARS (1979)

Academy Awards USA - “Sound Effects Editing” RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1982)

Academy Awards USA - “Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing” - E.T. THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL (1983)

Academy Awards USA -  “Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing” - INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1990) 

Online Film & Television Association - “Best Sound Effects Editing” - STAR WARS EPISODE 1 - THE PHANTOM MENACE (2000)

Hollywood Post Alliance, US - “Outstanding Audio Post - Feature Film” -  WALL.E (2008) 

Visual Effects Society Awards - “Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature Motion Picture” - WALL.E (2009)

Gold Derby Awards - “Sound Editing/Mixing” - WALL.E (2009)

International Online Cinema Awards (INOCA) -  “Best Sound Editing” - WALL.E (2009) 

Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA - “Winner Career Achievement Award” (2009)

Online Film & Television Association -  “Best Sound Mixing” - WALL. E (2009)

Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA  - “Best Sound Editing - Sound Effects, Foley, Music, Dialogue and ADR Animation in a Feature Film” - WALL.E (2009)

Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA  - “Best Sound Editing - Dialogue and ADR in a Feature Film” - SUPER 8 (2012)

Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA  - “Best Sound Editing - Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR in an Animation Feature Film” - EPIC (2014) 

Online Film & Television Association - “Behind the Scenes” - OVERALL WINNER (2018) 

Social Media:  I have done a lot of research trying to find a social media account or platform belonging to Ben Burtt, however have been unsuccessful. I feel this may be because at the time his career was beginning social media didn’t exist and he has managed to build his career without the use of it. Now he is successful, he may feel the need not to have a social media account because of the work he has done which he can reference to future employers.  

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 362: OrbQuest (1981)

I’m playing the second edition of the game. The first is not available anywhere.

             OrbQuest

United States Alternate World Simulations

Released in 1981 for CP/M

Date Started: 10 March 2020

Date Finished: 15 March 2020

Total Hours: 25

Difficulty: Moderate-Hard (3.5/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

        Digital Research’s CP/M operating system only boasted two original RPGs, and it turns out that both of them were adapted directly from games on the PLATO mainframe. A year ago, I covered how Nemesis (1981) was just a microcomputer version of Oubliette (1977), and now it’s clear that OrbQuest is nothing more than a microcomputer version of The Game of Dungeons (1975), more popularly known by its file name, “DND.” Specifically, it is a direct adaption of the game’s fifth edition.           

Finding a treasure chest in the OrbQuest dungeon offers the same options as The Game of Dungeons.

           We’ve discussed at length how Daniel Lawrence based his own DND (c. 1976) on The Game of Dungeons, but OrbQuest is a far more literal porting of the code than Lawrence’s. Indeed, if I’d known about it when I won The Game of Dungeons, I might have been content to discuss OrbQuest in an addendum rather than playing it as a separate game. Among the things it shares in common:

             A goal to recover an Orb, held by a powerful guardian (a dragon in Game, a “dragon wizard” here)

Twenty 9 x 9 levels with the same system of movement (e.g., SHIFT to go through a door), secret doors, and one-way doors

No staircases, just “teleporters” that take you to the next and previous levels, and the teleporters are oddly spaced between squares rather than in them

The same attributes, with “piety” substituted for “wisdom” 

Experience based on monsters killed and gold retrieved

Most of the same spells, divided into cleric and mage, with slots given to the character upon leveling

The same combat options, including minimized importance of “fighting” and each enemy having a particular weakness to a particular spell

The same commands and results for opening chests, drinking potions, and reading books

Most of the same items of magical equipment to find

Most of the same monsters

On dungeon Level 1, monsters are never higher than Level 1 

Options to toggle on or off automatic collection of gold and automatic fighting of enemies below a certain level

         I’m assuming that Dirk Pellet and the other Game authors didn’t know about this attempt to monetize their work, or certainly they would have objected as strongly as they did to Lawrence’s. Relative obscurity must have helped: OrbQuest appeared only for a dying platform, and the creator notes on a message board that he only ever sold about 100 copies.            

The Game of Dungeons’ cleric spells were, in contrast, “Light Candle,” “Holy Water, “Exorcise,” “Pray,” “Hold,” “Dispell,” and “Datspell.”

                As to that creator, his name was Walter E. Donovan, and his company–existing only for this game, it seems–has an address in Milpitas, California. So far, I have not been able to tie Donovan directly to a PLATO campus (unlike Lawrence and the author of Nemesis), so I’m not sure how he was exposed to it, but it’s clear that somehow he got the source code or otherwise thorough documentation of its elements and mechanics.                

A nice cover leads the game manual, which is otherwise typewritten and photocopied.

            As usual, this is not to say that Donovan added nothing to the game. In fact, he smoothed away some of Game‘s most egregious imbalances and made the game less random. Gold is less plentiful, particularly on earlier levels, chests (and thus magic items) rarer, and traps less deadly. A player can no longer spend half the game just wandering the same corridors of Level 1 and picking up nearly every magic item along the way. Chests have only about 10 times the gold as random loot on their levels, not 1000 times. Chests aren’t trapped as often, and when they are, they rarely kill you unless you’ve delved too far too fast. Magic items are never trapped. Books and potions help more than they hurt, so it’s worth taking the chance on them.                

Potions and books are less deadly here than in the source game.

        The result is a game that is, even with permadeath, far more survivable than The Game of Dungeons but also less “gameable.” There aren’t any tricks to help you get rich quick (unlike in Game, you can’t cache gold, either) or otherwise bypass the long and tedious process of grinding yourself senseless for a several dozen hours. I’ve been doing it while clearing out my Netflix queue, but I can’t imagine that even back in the day, when it was the only game for my platform, I would have had a lot of fun with it.              

Collecting gold to raise my level. I have a pretty good set of equipment here.

           The game begins with random rolls of 3-18 for strength, dexterity, intelligence, and piety. After that, you begin on Level 1 of the dungeon. The 9 x 9 levels have a fixed layout but a random distribution of gold, chests, and other items, re-randomized every time you change levels or exit the dungeon. Encounters are completely random and also extremely variable. Sometimes, I walked 20 steps or more with no encounters; other times, I had three or four in the same square.                 

The limited character creation process.

             For the most part, you meet the same monsters on all levels, but the monsters themselves have levels. The monster’s level is far more important in determining his danger than the monster type; that is, a Level 3 ghoul is deadlier than a Level 1 dragon. On dungeon Level 1, monsters are never higher than Level 1 themselves. On other dungeon levels, their levels are randomized to a maximum of roughly 5 times the dungeon level for levels 1-10–unless you’re carrying gold, in which case their maximum level is something like 4 times the dungeon level plus 1 for every 5,000-10,000 gold pieces you carry.              

My maps of the first nine levels.

            OrbQuest lacks the “excelsior transport” from Game, but several of the levels have pits that take you directly to lower levels. The levels have varied layouts with secret doors, one-way doors, and such, but no special encounters until Level 10. Playing the game is a process of exploring downward, picking up gold until you start to encounter monsters you can’t handle, then hauling it back up to Level 1 and the exit in order to level up. The next time, you can go a little further and collect a little more gold.

There are 13 monsters in the game: balrogs, deaths, demons, dragons, evil curates, ghouls, green slimes, hirebrands, huge spiders, mindworms, specters, wizards, and zombies. A few of them have special attacks. If mindworms do any damage to you at all in combat, they’ll sap intelligence permanently. Same goes for specters and strength. Green slimes eat inventory items.                   

Despite my victory, the specter manages to eat a point of strength.

             As with Game, fighting here is a last resort except for enemies significantly below your level (you can set the game to auto-fight such enemies so you don’t even need to press “F”). Instead, you need to learn, through trial and error, each enemy’s weaknesses to various spells. For instance, balrogs are susceptible to the “Fatal Charm” mage spell. The cleric spell “Holy Water” deals with demons, evil curates, and zombies. As in Game, the cleric’s “Hold” and the mage’s “Sleep” work reliably against enemies below Level 5 and hardly at all after that. As long as the enemy isn’t more than three times your level, he should die immediately from the spell that works best against him. At higher levels, the spell might partly work (depending on the spell), leaving you to finish him off (or vice versa) in melee combat. Again, you can control the level of enemy you face by controlling the amount of gold you carry and the dungeon level you’re visiting.               

Combat options.

        The occasional potion or tome offers a chance to increase your attributes, and unlike the ones in Game, they don’t have an equal chance of decreasing attributes, although they do have an occasional negative effect like poison or a trap. “Clerical detection” reliably determines if the item is safe.

Chests occasionally deliver magic items. Swords, shields, helms (“haumes”), hauberks, Cloaks of Defense, and Belts of Healing are all initially found at +1, and as you find more, you gain additional pluses. Amulets of Revival will save the character from one death. Small Idols of Luck increase the amount of treasure that you find. Necklaces of Eyes allow you to see secret doors. I was never sure what Rings of Power or Glory did.              

The Belt of Healing is a useful tool that regenerates hit points.

            Level 9 has a bunch of one-way doors that funnel the player to one of the teleporters to Level 10. Immediately on arrival to Level 10, the character is attacked by Demogorgon. This is a test encounter to see if you’re strong enough for the lower levels, and you need to be around Level 100 to beat him. Once he’s dead, he never appears again.               

Killing Level 10’s Demogorgon is a key milestone.

           Levels 10-20 are a lot harder. Not only are the monsters much higher level, but there are more navigation obstacles. There are invisible walls, wrapping levels, lots more one-way walls and doors, and other difficult terrain. Downward teleporters sometimes skip two levels. Level 15, with a bunch of concentric squares, is a copy of Game of Dungeons‘ Level 11. Level 16, featuring a spiral of corridors, is a copy of Game‘s Level 15. And Level 17, with a bunch of featureless north/south corridors connected by secret doors, is a copy of Game‘s Level 20.

The Dragon Wizard is found somewhere on Level 20. The level has a couple of squares that halve your available spells and another one that blinds you. If you defeat the Dragon Wizard, you get the Orb and millions of gold pieces–which it would be sensible to immediately drop, as the Orb itself is going to attract enough high-level monsters. You then have to make your way back up 20 levels, apparently somewhere encountering The Grim Reaper, who’s even harder than the Dragon Wizard.

Here is where I run into problems. Although I’ve explored them both multiple times, I cannot find the up teleporters from Levels 19 or 13. A “Teleport” spell that’s supposed to move you upward for one cleric and one mage spell slot absolutely never works. Thus, although I have managed to obtain the Orb, I can’t find my way out of the dungeon.              

I had the Orb at one point; I just couldn’t get it out.

           I haven’t been adhering to permadeath, of course. The game makes it easy to cheat. It saves your character with every level transition and doesn’t record his “death” until you acknowledge the death message. This is an opportunity for players to quickly remove the disk from the drive, or in my case kill the emulator. Reloading is a pain, though, so death still has consequences. Since I’m emulating the CP/M from within DOSBox, I have to restart two emulators with their associated commands and sit through a timer in the unregistered CP/M emulator. It was probably easier for a 1981 player to restart his game than it is for me.               

             Thus, having wasted an absurd number of hours on the game, I can’t show you a winning screen. But if I know my readers, one of them will eventually grow curious enough to poke around in the game’s code and let me know what I missed, and I’ll be able to come back with an addendum. For now, the game ties with Game for an 18, although the individual stories aren’t exactly the same. Game of Dungeons at least tried to make up a story about the dungeon, which OrbQuest doesn’t, but OrbQuest has a slightly better variety of equipment.              

OrbQuest gets some credit for slightly more gruesome combat language than its source.

            We’ll take our second look at Planet’s Edge next while I gear up to plan fan (and Addict) favorite Ultima VII. Replacing it on the “upcoming” list is Catacombs (1982) for the ZX81, for which I haven’t even found an emulator yet, so we’ll see.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-362-orbquest-1981/

[slutsandgutscom]

The Milpitas Monster (1975) #monsters #moviemonsters pic.twitter.com/x0hn0o1kCx

— Sluts and Guts (@slutsnguts) August 5, 2018

The Milpitas Monster (1975) #monsters #moviemonsters https://t.co/x0hn0o1kCx View On Twitter!

[letterboxten-blog]

Who is Don Edwards (and why am I so sore)?

From Wikipedia: William Donlon "Don" Edwards (January 6, 1915 – October 1, 2015) was an American politician of the Democratic Party and a member of the United States House of Representatives from California.

Edwards was born in San Jose, California. He attended the public schools in the city, graduating from San Jose High School, before earning a B.A. from Stanford University in 1936, where he was member of the Stanford golf team. Edwards then attended Stanford Law School and was admitted to the bar in 1940.

Edwards was a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1940 to 1941, when he joined the United States Navy as a naval intelligence and gunnery officer during World War II. In 1950, he was elected president of the California Young Republicans. But he had switched parties by the time he was first elected to the House in 1962. He was the president of Valley Title Company of Santa Clara County from 1951 to 1975, and a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions of 1964 and 1968.

Oh. Ok, well that clears up the curiosity of this twenty-year Bay Area resident. But why is his name on everything west of 880? Well, that’s actually kind of a neat story. 

The Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge (DESFBNWR - pronounced “Dez-if-ben-wer” (I made that up)) was founded in 1974 as the first urban national wildlife refuge in the United States. It’s home to the endangered California Clapper Rail, salt marsh harvest mouse (awwweee), white pelicans, kites, hawks, ospreys, eagles, and millions of shorebirds and waterfowl who stop along the Pacific Flyway for some much-needed R&R. You’ve probably seen the iconic photos of the Cargill Salt ponds from above. Those are the pools of brightly coloured brine water. That’s part of the DESFBNWR. It extends over thirty thousand acres from the Dumbarton Bridge, south into Milpitas, making up most of the East Bay shoreline. The southern part is where today’s journey began.

There, buried deep inside the marsh, (mostly) inaccessible, resides a legend. A story I’ve heard from the generation before me. Recounts of a town before my time rang through my ears since I was a kid. A town kids used to sneak into. A town lost to history. A town slowly being reapportioned and reclaimed by mother nature, herself. This is the town of Drawbridge.

I did what anyone else would do. I tapped “drawbridge” into Google Maps on my phone. The last resident is said to have left in 1979, but good ol’ Google lead the charge! Or so I thought. The faith is strong in this one. My trusted navigator let me not to the mythical town of Drawbridge, but to Clipper Court. A commercial cul de sac with a trail entrance. “Well, yeah” I thought as I parked my truck. You can’t drive to Drawbridge. Consulting satellite imagery and constantly checking my exposed legs for ticks, I proceeded forth into the marsh.

I eventually came to this bridge. Sketchy doesn’t describe it. It led to the thin sliver of land I needed to follow all the way to Drawbridge. On the other side, I found a bicycle and twenty feet away, a man sitting on a dock. He had a tangerine and an iPod. I had to lose sight of my goal for a moment as I envied this stranger. What a way to spend an afternoon. Sitting under the sun on a secluded dock with his music and daily dose of Vitamin C. Idyllic. Unfortunately for me, this dock marked the end of my trail. I needed to turn left here, but my only option was to traverse marsh mud which might as well be sucking black tar. It was time to head back to the truck and find another route.

I tapped around on Google Maps for a bit longer until I found my entry point. It was an environmental education center at the southern and of the bay. I hopped on McCarthy to 237, exited Zanker, followed through some waste and water treatment facilities, turned right on Grand, and I was there.

I consulted my phone again to suss out my corrected and final path. As it turns out, there is only one easy way to get to Drawbridge. It’s taking a trail from the environmental education center and cutting over to a railway that leads directly through it. Supposedly. The trail is not a short walk. It’s not even a long walk. It’s a really long walk. Fortunately for me, Mr. Always Prepared, I wore a pair of Vans flats. This whole trip would be six miles of walking. Sigh. Not easily discouraged, I persevered down another trail I wasn’t certain would lead me to victory. 

Along the way, I saw all the birds mentioned above and spring was in the air as I saw several pairs of Canadian Geese with their fuzzy little goslings (awwweeee). These folks were busy! I ran into these little families everywhere. I was even hissed at by protective mothers. I found the best thing to do when confronted with an angry mother goose, is not to run or make noise, but to walk slowly away. If they follow and hiss (they will), make sure you’re not between them and their babies, face the goose and make a “made you flinch!” sort of movement in their direction. You’re a goddamn human being. It’s a goose, not its crazy, velociraptor uncle. You got this. Make your little “I’m bigger than you, bitch” move and continue to walk further away at a normal pace. Please don’t scream or run or throw anything at them. You’re a person, not a dick. Hucking rocks and dirt clods at wild animals is a dick move.

So, I finally hit the railroad I was promised. This is great news! There’s a small sign that says “This area is closed.” That can be interpreted in many ways. Proceed with caution. I followed the tracks for an additional half mile to my destination, regularly looking behind me for giant, bone liquifying monsters that would take my life in an instant without a second thought. Trains. Like I said, proceed with caution. It was particularly sketchy as the wind was howling in my ears louder than anything around me, and I still had to cross a bridge. You can’t escape a train on a bridge. I looked down at the rails and they looked worn in the right ways, but also kind of rusty. I figured I was safe and proceeded across the bridge. I could see buildings!

Drawbridge was built in 1876 by the narrow-gauge South Pacific Railroad. It doesn’t look like much now, but ten passenger trains would stop there each day. It was actually quite the destination as an average of one thousand people would show up every weekend. The town had an astounding ninety buildings and no roads. Roads aren’t required for division, though. The north end was occupied by Protestants while the south was Roman Catholic. We can’t come together because we share a town when something as substantial as religion stands between us. If gods exist, they must get real tired of being the elephants in the room.

From analyzing more satellite data, I can see I approached only a small portion of the Bay Area’s only ghost town. More lies further up the track, but I had half an hour before the gates closed on the environmental education center, leaving my trucked locked into the parking lot. I plan to return some day and hopefully unlock more of this mystery. This forbidden ghost town. With the Bay Area’s history and occupants, I half expected to find some weird science or military experiments out there. Who knows. Maybe through the skewed, bleached threshold of the right half sunken building, lies an elevator that leads into a subterranean, experimental, military funded, science lab. Coyote Hills has missile sites and some other weird crap. Drawbridge is across the bay from NASA. Don Edwards was a special agent in the FBI. It’s probably just graffiti and spiders, though.