Josh Gets LOST: Part Four

(I saw this van on my KOS Tour and had to snap a photo. I want one so bad...)

Friday, March 12th 2010

I just woke up from a pretty ridiculous LOST dream. Yes. I have those. All the time. Don't judge me. In this most recent dream I was riding on an airplane. A number of Oceanic's were on board. Out of the ones I could see, Doctor McJack, Charlie, and my dear Shannon. For some reason Shannon and I were texting back and forth and Jack was teaching some little kid about intercostal spaces. I mean, come on Jack, we know you're a doctor, but now you're just showing off. Not much happened in the dream, but I think towards the end it got pretty action packed. Don't you hate it when you have super cool dreams and the MOMENT you wake up you forget everything.

Alas. I woke up and immediately checked my twitter for iphone, because that is a major priority in my mornings, and I read some pretty foreshadowing-of-awesomeness Tweets from Jo of El Jopinionated. For some reason this put me in a stellar mood and instead of rolling over and going back to sleep like I do everyday, I got up and jumped on blogger. So - I will not try and complete my trip story, without rushing or leaving out any significant details.

(insert crescendo leading into flashback = wwwwwwhhhhooooooOOOOOOSSSSHH!!!)

Friday, January 29th 2010

After my tour I sat around in my hotel room for an hour or so charging my phone, microwaving some ramen, switching camera batteries, checking in with my mommy, and texting a few LOSTies I met online with plans to rendezvous at JO's party. But her fan meet-up was two hours away and I was itching to do SOMETHING and refused to sit around in my hotel when beautiful Waikiki was just outside. Thus. I went for a walk.

I packed my fanny pack and headed out for Diamond Head Cove Health Bar. Tour Guide Matt introduced it to us on the tour because it's owner also owned Pono, aka Vincent the Dog, and he could be regularly seen at the bar. I had sort of already come to terms with the notion that I wasn't going to shake hands with any of the LOST cast/crew, but maybe...the dog? The walk to Diamond Head was about 30 minutes from my hotel and the sun was still out. I passed by the Honolulu Zoo, which was cool, hearing monkeys and such from the street.

On the way I also came across this sign. A chill ran up my spine and I wanted to sprint to a random stranger and scream in their face. Then I thought "Maybe I should skip Jo's party and just camp out on the beach immediately". I couldn't believe that thought actually crossed my mind, but it did. (Sorry Jo!) I kind of regret not stealing that sign, come to think of it. I probably couldn't sneak a road barricade into my carry on bag anyway.

I finally made it to the Health Bar. It was a tiny joint, full of pictures and decorations. It would be super easy to pack this place out on a busy day, which is awesome. Busy restaurants are the best. I ordered this cuh-ray-zay Strawberry Banana Smoothie made with SOY MILK!!! Now - The reason for the exclamation points. Soy Milk is my least favorite ingredient we use at Starbucks. Why? For some reason it slows the entire drink making process down, and also, for some reason, the people who order Soy Milk, 9 times out of 10 are the rudest people to walk this Earth. So I drank my soy milk strawberry banana smoothie with pride, knowing I wasn't one of those people. I sat around, checking twitter updates on the premiere, and texting with LOSTies who were already on their way to the party. No sign of Vincent anywhere. Pretty soon it was 8:05 and Jo's party just started. I finally got the nerve to ask one of the girls working there about Pono/Vincent and she laughed at me, for walking all the way out there to see the dog. She said she would be right back, called the owner and asked if he was going to bring him in. Nope. She asked when I was leaving Oahu and perhaps I could come back again. After a high-five, I departed Diamond Head Cove Health Bar. This is where my journey got really intense (at least for me...). When I arrived at the bar, the sun was just going down, but I must of hung out there for close to an hour waiting to see that friggin dog, and it was now full blown night time. The lack of streetlights made that walk back to my hotel downright shady. Not only was it creepy and dark, but Matt had shared with us numerous stories of how the tour van had been broken into and how some people get mugged at a few of the locations. That didn't make those 30 minutes go by any faster. Where was Mr. Eko when I needed him?

At last, I made it back to my hotel, changed into my LOSTie clothes. I was SO tempted to throw on my jumpsuit, but it was an 8 block walk to the Rumfire and I had already been made fun of on the street for where a CANADA t-shirt. I could only imagine what would of happened if I stepped outside in my Hydra Jumpsuit. I plugged the location into my phone, set the GPS to GO, and we were off. If I wanted to count all the street performers I passed on the way there I probably would of LOST count. And it started raining. Which was okay. Sadness is impossible during LOST weekend in Waikiki. And if you are sad, its only because Juliet is dead. (And Shannon.....). And if it's for any other reason. Get Over It.

And speaking of LOST. My GPS lied and I was completely lost. It said I was at my destination and it was NO WHERE IN SIGHT. A little annoyed, standing in the rain, I decided to cross the street and I thank Jacob I did because that is when I saw it. A girl. A little bit older than me, sporting a Dharma T-shirt. Shortly after. Another. And Another. So - I followed them. A few minutes later I was at the Rumfire, in the exact opposite location where my phone said it was. Thanks Apple! I was greeted by Jo, who, for some STUPID reason, I didn't get a picture with.

The party was fun. Shannon was a huge hit. I'm referring to my tattoo, if you didn't already know. I was interviewed by Maria from LA Times and a few days later once I was back in depressing Florida, I found out I was in her article on the LA Times website. I met up with my friend Blythe, who I met via Twitter, who is rather awesome and who religiously follows Darlton, much like I do. I also met the fantastic Erika Olson of LongLiveLong.com. It was cool to chitchit with her in person, since we'd been doing it for a few months on the internet, and since I'm a huge fan of her in depth analysis on each episode of the show. She's KATE DAMMIT RUN's biggest fan. KDR is my LOST tribute band, which isn't necessarily a real band yet, since it's damn-near-impossible to find musicians who 1) Are willing to make music about LOST, and 2) Have seen at least five episodes of the show. So for now it's just me doing everything until I can bribe my friends into recording some tunes with me. But that's another entry in its self.


Tour Guide Matt and the Brilliant Heidi were also at the party. I was super glad to see them both again. Matt introduced me to Ed, the guy who founded KOS Hummer Tours, and he was introduced to Shannon. He told me that I needed to try and get on the Jimmy Kimmel program, someway and somehow. I thought to myself that it didn't seem like a bad idea. I'll be writing a letter very soon, since I WILL be getting another LOST character tattoo'd on me before the finale of the show. I'll definitely blog that journey too.

There was at least a hundred people at the party. I think I was the youngest person there, but not by much. An even balance of ladies and gentlemen, from all over the world, all ages, all nationalities. It was super cool that we all came together for a television show. That once a week we all set aside an hour or two to marvel over this brilliant experience that is LOST.

JO started her super-awesome trivia giveaway, with seasons of the show as prizes. I already owned all the seasons so I just sat back and watched the noobz answer some pretty intense questions. Now, this is where the evening got REALLLLLLLLY interesting. I heard Erika semi-shout/whisper to JO saying "JO! JEFF FAHEY IS HERE!" and before I could even turn around there was an explosion of fandom and...Jeff Fahey aka FRANK LAPIDUS was standing right behind us at the entrance to Rumfire. It was like Pandora's box had just been opened. In the 10 minutes Jeff mingled with fans and posed for pictures, I must of gotten within 15 feet of him before he was gone. The entire party was pretty shell-shocked from the awesomeness of Jeff Fahey actually strolling in to say "Hey" to all the LOSTies. It was super rad of him.


After hanging out a little bit longer, and being offered the custom cocktail "Juliet on the Beach" (which I turned down because I wasn't going to risk going to jail on the weekend of the LOST premiere), I deliberated with Tour Guide Matt on whether or not I should go camp out on the beach NOW (just incase), or head back to my hotel for at least a FEW hours of sleep. When we found out the beach was closed until 5AM, that pretty much answered my question and I decided to head back to my hotel. I said bye to everyone, still, not knowing that I'd be spending my entire premiere on the beach with them, and walked back to my hotel in the POURING rain. I stopped at an ABC Store (cool little shops with no doors that are open forever) and bought bottled water, ramen, chips, and other fanatic LOST creep beach supplies.


In approximately four and a half hours I'd be back on my feet, heading to the beach for the greatest day in my entire freaking life. Josh Gets LOST: Part Five, coming soon...

Josh Gets LOST: Part Three

Monday, February 29th, 2010

Once month ago today I woke up in Waikiki and departed on one of the most exciting and surreal experiences life had to offer me. I sit here at the computer writing about it, wondering to myself why it’s taken me a month to write about it. It’s been difficult to pull myself out this Post-Hawaii-Bog-Of-Eternal-Depression. But alas. Here we go.

Friday, January 29th, 2010

The view outside my hotel window that morning was amazing. Sure, it wasn’t ocean side, and wasn’t a five star suite balcony. It was a tiny window, taken up mostly by an air conditioning unit cranked down to 60 degrees at ALL times. But I was captivated by the fact that outside my window was. Hawaii.

I planned an outfit worthy of Island-Trekking, topping it off with my LONG LIVE LOCKE t-shirt and fanny pack. That’s right. Jack and the others would have been well off, had they packed a fanny. And Shannon might of not lost her damned inhalers.

The first Hawaii native I interacted with that day was a younger girl on a skateboard asking for a few bucks to catch the bus. I was glad to donate. She could have been buying cigarettes or Starbucks, but whatever. I’m not stingy. At this time I heard a honk and the Nissan Quest I would spending the next eight hours in arrived.

This is where I met Neil, a pretty cool gentlemen who played the bag pipes, his girlfriend/travel buddy named Pinky, and a guy with the coolest job ever, Matt, the LOST tour guide. We were off!….Sort of. We stopped at the next hotel, picking up Heidi, who currently is a very good friend of mine, and Ben, a journalist covering the premiere of LOST and the pilgrimage of it’s fans. If you ask anyone I work with at Starbucks, they’ll tell you that I talk about LOST way too damn much. I actually refer to Starbucks as a secret Dharma Station that fuels the island, called “The Siren”. So - That being said, sitting in a mini-van with three other LOST junkies was a pure joy. I say, three, because Ben and Pinky had no idea what this show was all about, and for a majority of the trip were asking questions like.

1. ”Polar bears…? On an island?”
2. “Wait, this guy was murdered by his own mother before she gave birth to him?”
3. “Uh - Can you repeat that?”

I was glued to the window the entire time. Even if Matt wasn’t pointing out and stopping at some of the most iconic LOST locations, I would of still been as excited to see those FREAKIN MOUNTAINS! I currently live in Florida. The flattest and most undesirably landscaped place on Earth. Buh-Buh-Buh-Boring. Taking the winding roads and arriving at the “Blow Hole” was the first real on-island location from the series. A part of me wanted to throw on my Dharma Jumpsuit and run around role-playing, screaming “Others! - OTHERS!”.

The weather was pretty bi-polar. Moments of ridiculous heat waves, followed by cloudy skies and rain, then back to crazy sunlight. It was awesome, and not nearly as temper-mental as Florida, which was COLDER than where than Vancouver where they held the FREAKIN WINTER OLYMPICS!

Lunch was good. I ate pineapple. I hate pineapple. But in Hawaii, pineapple is good. It was also a good opportunity to further get to know my fellow LOSTies. I got a few good laughs from my Shannon tattoo. A lot of admiration for physically showing how much this show has permanently effected me.

I think my favorite location we visited on the trip was the Byodo-In Temple. For no particular reason, Sun and Jin’s flashbacks seem to be some of my least favorite episodes, but being at this outstanding temple was a truly remarkable experience. It was in the middle of this amazing valley, with mistyness, and Koi Fish, Gongs, Swans, Zen Gardens…and the fact that Jacob stood there gave it extra LOST vibes.

As the tour continued, we found ourselves at the crown jewel of the LOST locations. The Survivor’s Camp. The trek through the sand was exhausting. I can’t imagine doing that everyday. Those actors and crew members must be DIESEL!!! We were all speechless when we got there. It was right there in front of our eyes. The tents, the kitchen, the tarps, the graves, the church. It was all there. That is when a heavy feeling sunk in. A place that only existed on my bedroom television screen in Florida, now was a real place you could visit. It was real. And pacing up the beach for thirty minutes was a really silent experience. Almost religious.

That is until one of our people I will not mention (HEIDI!!!!!!) crossed the line and pissed off the guard, which led him to rant about his blood-pressure, losing his “fkin job”, and something about taking pictures of our girlfriends. He was a douche. So - It started raining again and we were on our way. To - DHARMAVILLE!

I won’t say that seeing these locations has made LOST lose it’s magic, or the magnitude of it’s production, but it was a little funny, seeing how open to the public these locations were. Dharmaville definitely wasn’t in the center of a secret island. It was a summer camp. Standing on Ben’s porch was fun. I wanted to go inside one of the houses, and perhaps pull the plug and summon the monster, but alas, no avail. This was another amazing location, and AGAIN, I had the ridiculous urge to throw on my jumpsuit, and find that darned sonar fence. CODE 14-J!!!

By this time the tour was winding down, visiting a few smaller locations like Penny’s Boat (Yes. The Real One), and the building where John Locke’s daddy broke his back, and where Jacob was like “Yo dude, wake up.” It was an amazing day, full of trivia, conversations, and LOST “bonding”. It was definitely cool to not feel like you were the only person within 100,000 miles who felt this passionately about a television series.

I was dropped off at my hotel and wasn’t expecting that I would soon be spending ANOTHER day with these people, but this is where I’ll end this entry of the Adventure. Next stop is JO’S LOST FAN MEET UP!

Josh Gets LOST: Part Two

Monday, February 8th 2010
I haven’t unpacked yet. There is finality in unpacking all my socks and underwear. My shoes still have Waikiki sand in them. I wasn’t expecting to feel this way. Being unable to wind back down into my daily Florida routines. Either I left a part of me in Oahu, or I brought some part Oahu back with me. Either way. I’ve been kind of screwed up from this trip. In the best way possible.

Thursday, January 28th 2010
I had probably slept less than 2 hours. After I had gotten off work I instantly started packing. There wasn’t much to worry about. My mom was worrying for me and making sure that I had absolutely everything I would need. My worries weren’t about my clothes, or having toothpaste, or brining enough ibuprofen. I was simply worried about flying.

I had done it once or twice when I was a fetus, but that doesn’t count. I was nineteen years old and had never experienced flying before. And of course, its my personal philosophy to go big or go home. My first flight would be nearly 4,800 miles away from home, away from my family and friends, all by myself. I was freaking out.

I don’t think it was until I was putting on my seatbelt, heading to the airport, that it sunk in that this trip was actually happening. I knew I was going. I knew it was happening, but it wasn’t until the car was moving, did I understand that. I was going to Hawaii. The trip I had been daydreaming about over a year ago was actually happening.

Back when I was skeptical and worried, I told a friend of mine, “If it’s supposed to happen, its supposed to happen. It’s all up to Jacob”. And I guess Jacob willed it.

I said goodbye to my mom at the security check, and kept looking back over my shoulder to see her waiting until she couldn’t see me anymore. Security check was super easy and not as intimidating as it was in the movies. I journeyed to my gate, bought that crazy expensive muffin, and sat around for nearly an hour.

Heart pounding. I watched probably over a dozen YouTube videos on flying, trying to prepare myself. Too bad those only made it worse. I wasn’t ready to leave the Earth. I liked being on the ground way too much, but it needed to be done. I needed to get it over with.

The plane was a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be. I was expecting something Oceanic, but alas, it was much more miniature than I had thought. I made myself past each row, realizing my seat was much farther down than where I was. Of course. I was in the tail section. And when I say tail section, I mean, I was the LAST seat on the plane. By myself. I looked around hoping to find an “Ana Lucia” looking woman to protect me in the event of an island crash landing. No such luck.

I had a pretty good plan of bringing a notebook with me so I could invent back history and flashbacks/flashforwards for all the people I experience on the flight, but when we were taxiing away from the gate I had already completely LOST interest in it.

The moment those engines kicked in and the entire fuselage started shaking, I actually began to laugh. I was having too much fun and the excitement of lift off instantly blew my face off. It was decided. I loved flying. I almost forgot that everything that was so flipping tiny down there was real. Tiny cars operated by tiny people. It was cool.

I had an hour long layover in Phoenix. Flying over the mountains and deserts was cool, but honestly, there is nothing appealing about Phoenix. So I’ll skip that bar and talk about the wonderfully crazy city that is Los Angeles. Approaching the city from the air was awesome. Even from 20,000 feet, it was obvious that Hollywood was down there.

Now, I only experienced the traffic of LAX, and I must say. LAX traffic is apeshit. Airport buses cutting in front of other buses. J-Walkers and police officers. It was fun. And I really wished I could of seen more of the city, but that will be another trip.

The only downside of my LAX layover was the fact that my plane was delayed nearly four hours and the Dramamine I had been taking that was supposed to be making me sleepy, had an opposite effect and had been keeping me awake. I crashed in a restaurant outside my gate so I could charge my phone.

Through eavesdropping I discovered that not only had the plane’s CPU crapped out, making them unable to fly over water (which you have to do to get to Hawaii, right?), but the engine was missing a part and they had to FLY IT IN from Salt Lake City. Seriously? UTAH?! I was not a happy camper. I was incredibly sleep deprived and I was ready to in Hawaii, in a bed, sleeping…

Finally. The airport staff thought of something. How about they steal the part they needed from a plane they weren’t using and use the part they were flying in to replace the one they stole? That sounds fine by me. By then I had almost forgot WHY I was on this trip in the first place, until I saw a man reading a newspaper with Michael Emerson’s face on the front. I was finally stoked again.

The flight to Hawaii was a rough one. Five and a half hours crammed in a window seat with literally ZERO sleep. WHY, OH GOD?! WHY COULDN’T I SLEEP?! And for some reason my kneecaps felt like they were going to BURST out of my legs. It wasn’t fun. And I wasn’t a happy camper. When I was seconds from going insane I heard the pilot say we were 20 minutes away from Oahu. I almost cried. It was almost over.

I was greeted at my gate by a tiny little lady holding a sign with my name on it. It was interesting to see how many other people were coming off the plane. I was curious as to why everyone was coming here and if there was anyone else on board coming to get LOST like me.

The tiny little lady ran out of those pretty flower necklace things (Leis?), so she gave me an “Aloha Hug” instead, which was cute. We marched through the airport, grabbed our luggage, stepped outside into the fresh air. A few friends back home told me that Hawaii smells like flowers. I think it smells like awesome. If awesome was a smell, it would be what Hawaii smells like.

The shuttle ride to Waikiki was fun. I was a little bummed that it was night time because I couldn’t see anything outside. No sweeping mountain views. No misty cloud-ness. No palm trees or island stuff. It was going to have to wait until morning. Plus, I had to pee. Like. Really bad. I hadn’t gone at all on the plane because I was afraid to move around due to turbulence.

I checked into my hotel. This weird lady in the lobby told me LOST was stupid. I pulled a Sayid and twisted her head around 360 degrees (in my mind). My room was tiny, but I loved it. It was all mine. I just tossed everything onto the second bed and CRASHED. I was done. No more moving, no more traveling, nothing. Sleeeeeeeeeeeep.

I set an alarm for 8:00AM. Tomorrow I’d be touring Oahu. And I was too stoked.

Josh Gets LOST: Part One

Thursday, January 28th 2010.
I couldn’t believe it. I just purchased the most expensive muffin and orange juice in my entire life. Before then, I’d never bought anything in an airport. That being said, I took four bites out of it, became sick to my stomach, and threw it away. Flying was something I experienced during infancy, in the arms of my mother. On that day, I was flying alone to a place I’d never been, almost 4,800 miles away from home. But perhaps I should treat you to a little flashback, seeing as to why, exactly, I was in that airport to begin with…

Monday, January 11th, 2010
I was so jaded. So bummed out. So irreversibly lethargic, that the moment I returned home from failing my driver’s test, I went straight to bed, fully dressed, still wearing my socks. I awoke many hours later and checked my phone. No missed calls. No texts. Not one. The second dose of cynicism kicked in.

I had been expecting a phone call. I very important, life altering, phone call. I had entered a sweepstakes one a few weeks prior, where upon winning, I would be flown out to Hawaii to be a VIP guest at LOST’s final season premiere. I considered that perhaps the phone call would be coming from a strange time zone and it wouldn’t come until later. It was 3:12 in the morning when I decided to stop banging on the hatch door and forget about it. I wasn’t going to the premiere.

So - With no driver’s license. No free trip to Hawaii. No LOST adventures in the works. I crawled back to sleep, knowing that tomorrow I would churn out a new intangible goal to get my hopes up and over.

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
I got an event invite on Facebook to attend the LOST SEASON SIX PREMIERE FAN MEET-UP IN WAIKIKI. I must admit. Getting this invite made me want to put my face through my monitor. Way to pour the dead sea into my already bursting open wounds. I was so upset. So depressed. So tired. And - So not ready to give up on going.

A little history on my desires to visit Oahu before it simply became a monument to the greatest television storytelling I’d ever experienced, called LOST. A few episodes into the fifth season I came upon an entry on LongLiveLocke, where Erika Olson had a ridiculously successful voyage to the island and went so far as to meeting Terry O’Quinn himself.

I brought the idea to my fellow Losties and over the course of a few months (while jobless), the four of us began to save up all our monies in hopes of fulfilling our religious pilgrimage to Hawaii. Unfortunately, with many of us in college and attempting to acquire vehicles, the possibility of making the trek was becoming smaller and smaller. Until there were only two of us left mutually deciding that it wasn’t going to work. In December we decided that if we didn’t spend a dime for that month we could go. We gave up for a third time a week or so later. But I always told myself that is Jacob wanted it to happen. It would happen.

On January 13th, I said to my father, “There is a huge LOST gathering in Hawaii in two weeks. I want to go”. I got the response I had imagined I’d get. An optimism strapped battle-axe, swinging in to smash my dreams once in for all. But I was resilient. So, with no help from the parental figures (yet…) I decided to do a little math.

If 20 people gave me 20 dollars, I would have enough money to book a flight to Oahu. So that is exactly what I proposed to the entire Facebook community. This was my final chance to make it. My last hope. Within 24 hours I got five responses from family and friends. High school teachers willing to donate 100$ to help fulfill my dream of seeing LOST with my own eyes. Donations came in from extremely unlikely places, and from people I would of never expected. A turn of events I was ill-prepared to comprehend.

In just under a week I managed to raise close to 700$. Within another week I had booked my flight. My tour of the island and the locations LOST films. And not two weeks prior, I was jaded, burned out, and drowning in my own pessimistic negativity that nothing good would ever come of this. And with the help of a few very generous individuals, I was able to take a step towards my dreams.

And that is how this remarkable trip began…