The Paul Rudd Project

            If you’re a movie lover like myself, you’ve probably found yourself asking this question at some point in your life, “What was [insert big shot movie star] doing before he/she made [insert Hollywood blockbuster]?” I’ve spent an immeasurable amount of time scouring through IMDB pages of actors/actresses from a film I am currently watching to see the many others they have appeared in. Connecting the dots so to speak.

            In the days before IMDB, Wikipedia, and Google, my friends and I used to play movie games with this information to pass the time. Similar to the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, you would take two actors and try to connect them with a chain that was as short as possible. All of this was done from memory of course so the trick was to find the deep pull. That weird obscure movie that your opponent had never heard of. What IMDB has taught me, is that the river of films to pull from runs deep. 

            IMDB showed the world that filmographies are extensive and complicated. Between TV appearances, cameos, and uncredited walk-ons, a particular actor/actress could be in hundreds of media appearances. Voice actors are the worst, with filmographies that span several hundred credits. For example, at the time this was written Robert Paulsen (a favorite of mine) has 443 credits. Who could possible see all of those?! I wonder if Rob has seen ‘em all. 

            This is the origin of the Paul Rudd Project. 

            The project itself came from a simple idea: What would it take to see every movie that one particular actor has made? At first, the task seemed easy enough, but this is assuming that you are not seeking to accomplish this for the aforementioned Robert Paulsen. So my wife and I sought to find an actor with a large enough filmography to make the project worth the effort and yet refrain from being impossible. We had recently watched Captain America: Civil War and I was on a Paul Rudd kick anyway. Thus, the Paul Rudd Project was born. We were going to watch Mr. Rudd’s entire filmography.

            My history with Paul Rudd starts with the TV series Friends. That’s the first time I remember seeing him on screen. He played Mike Flannigan, the boyfriend who eventually marries Lisa Kudrow’s character (spoiler). After that, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Anchorman made him a household name, in my household at least. Of course, he’s been around for much longer than that, most people catching him in 1995’s Clueless (a film I missed due to not being a teenage girl at the time of its release). Now, of course, Paul Rudd literally is a household name thanks to big releases such as 2015’s Ant-Man. 

            The question can still be asked, “Why Paul Rudd?” Quite frankly, I just really like the guy. Rudd is incredibly charming on screen and a delight to watch. The story goes that he was not meant to be Phoebe’s true love in Friends and that she would go back to her old boyfriend played by Hank Azaria. But the producers found Paul too great to cut. Many off Rudd’s characters are insecure with a lovable personality. I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t how I viewed myself at times. People often use movies as an escape from reality or as a type of wish fulfillment. Imagining yourself as the main protagonist of a story is very common. So yes, there might be just a little bit of Peter Klaven or Scott Lang deep down inside of me. 

            Compiling the list turned out to be quite complicated. IMDB, in all its glory, is not infallible. It provided an excellent baseline for the films we needed to watch out for, but ultimately did not prove to be a master list. The information was muddied down by TV shows and other useless entries to sift through. Wikipedia was even less helpful, leaving off some major films like Year One and Reno 911!: Miami presumably due to Paul’s smaller roles in these films. Letterboxd was helpful in organizing much of the information with a more visually appealing list. 

            Then came the problem of what would qualify as needing to be watched. Feature films were obviously chosen, even if Paul’s role was insignificant to the movie as a whole. TV movies were chosen for their length but TV appearances, both roles in fictional shows and guest appearances as himself, were not. Documentary style films where Paul was interviewed as himself were included. The most difficult to narrow down were short films. Some were very easy to define as stand-alone units. But these were mixed in with shorts shot as DVD special features and others that were meant as segments on variety sketch shows. At the end of the day, most of these films were short enough to watch even if the line was a bit grey.

            When the dust settled, we began with a list of 65 released films and 7 short films. Of the 65, we had each seen 16 leaving 49 movies to see. 5 more are listed as being released in 2016 and 2017. Some of these films are very easily accessible but many are not.  Needless to say, there is still a lot of work to be done. 

            I’m a glutton for this kind of punishment but I’m very excited that my wife, Alyson, is joining me on this adventure. Hopefully it will prove to be an interesting study in what a filmography really looks like. But, if nothing else, we will probably discover some of those hidden gems along the way. I’ll be journaling the experience here (on the website) so I hope you follow along. If you do, I will see you there or I will see you at another time.

Falling Into Your Legacy

(Warning: Some of the images posted contain blood)

I took this picture while changing out the bearings on my skateboard. My buddy Justin had given me some new ones since mine were getting stiff. Mei was having so much fun stacking the old ones up in neat little piles, there on the dining room floor. Little did I know that a few days later I’d be in the hospital after a nasty fall. Justin would sit in a lone chair across the room. We’d laugh and tell jokes in light of the circumstance. It was a pretty interesting day.

I used to skate in high school and college but the truth is that I was never very good. I was always a better surfer and even that I’m not so great at. At least when you fall off of a surfboard you generally don’t crack your head open. “Aren’t you too old to be on a skateboard?” That’s the question I get asked the most when I tell the story. I guess there is a sliver of truth in the question. At some point I was feeling a bit low in regards to my situation. I told my friend Mark that I might regret the decision to give it a try, due to the physical pain and the bills that come with the damage. He literally told me to “shut the f*** up”. He told me I should never regret putting myself out there and trying something. “At least you tried,” he said.

I went skating for the sole reason that my friend Justin is a skater. Aly and I have met some really great people recently and this was me just wanting to hang out. I knew I would be a bit rusty and expected to head home with some scrapes or bruises. We were bombing hills in a nice neighborhood off of Scenic Hwy. I picked up some good speed and failed to turn fast enough. The result was a broken wrist and five stitches in my head. Justin and his wife Shelly later went and found the reddish smear I left on the asphalt. But, honestly, I still got to spend the day with my friend. Not that nearly killing myself was the best way to go about that. We sat in the ER and talked about life, marriage, and Jesus. Pretty much all the same stuff I ramble on about throughout this silly blog.

All of this happened in tandem with an issue I have been thinking about for a while now. I’ve been asking myself if I’m meeting my potential in life. Also, am I happy in the profession that I’ve chosen. Is this what I should be doing with my life? At what point do you cease to be a person with great potential and become the guy who squandered it? There is an old song by Craig’s Brother called potential that says:

You could be the best there ever was

But nothing’s gained when nothing’s shared

Potential shines so bright when never dared

There’s more to it than that but you get the idea. I loved this song when I was a kid and never wanted to be the guy it was about. I asked some of my friends about this recently and here is how I phrased it:

What is a legacy?

What does it mean to leave a legacy?

What does it mean to leave a legacy that is reflective of God’s purpose for your life?

Another friend of mine, Doug, literally wrote a book on legacy. Even after reading it I still can’t really answer any of those questions. It’s hard to figure out if your life has meaning when there is no means to measure your success. Seriously, how on earth can we measure whether or not we are meeting the potential God has for us? When you figure it out, you let me know. Currently, Christians are satisfied to measure alter calls, baptisms, and seats filled but those things are not quantitative of love or growth. If I never convince another person that they love Jesus as much as I do does that make me a failure? If my job consists of lining the pockets of executives in another part of the world does that make my life without meaning?

When I asked my brother Jason the same set of questions his response was very poetic. He said, ”If you learn to listen [to God] your legacy will craft itself.” While I love this thought, I again have the issue of wondering when God is actually speaking to me. Most of the time I feel like I’m several steps behind where God is leading me. Like a child chasing after mom and dad in the airport trying not to miss a flight. That’s how Kevin McCallister ended up in New York. In hindsight, I’ve mostly ended up where I think God has been leading me my whole life. How I arrived at each of those places has always seemed haphazard at best.

If there is one thing I have learned over the years about how God generally works, it’s that He hardly does what we expect Him to do. Even Jesus was not what people thought he would or should be. God thrives in the places we least expect. That’s why people say He “works in mysterious ways”. So when looking at God’s purpose for our lives, I highly doubt it involves the typical 5-year plan.

So, what does this have to do with skateboarding?

Sitting at a small outside table downtown, Mark asked me the same series of questions about legacy. I told him that there is no way I could have predicted my blood on the road. Sure, I could have guessed that I would get hurt. But the exact pattern to which the red stained the street was not something I could have planned. The only reason I ended up lying there was because I followed God’s direction and was intentional about my relationships. When God says “go” we go. Even if it means we end up at the bottom of the sea or lying in a hospital bed. And now, every time someone sees that blood stain on the ground they will know that something happened there. Something real.

It’s the same with the legacy that we leave behind. You can’t predict what God is going to do with the choices that we make. The only thing we can really be sure of is that God has a knack for making beautiful things out of our messes. And what we leave behind is a permanent mark made from the very thing that gives us life. That mark in turn tells a story. It’s messy, it’s real, and there is a significant cost. We just have to have the courage to follow God’s lead, even if it is only in the moment.

The other question I keep getting asked is, “I bet you won’t be getting on a skateboard again anytime soon, huh?” The truth is, yeah I probably will. Probably not an actual skateboard, but I don’t intend to stop taking risks in my life in order to find God’s purpose for me. I value the conversation Justin and I had in that hospital room, despite the cost that brought us there. The cost adds to the value. My hope is that I will continue to be intentional with my life. And hopefully, I’ll leave a few marks along the way.

Splendid Ruin

One of two heads that used to sit at the main entrance to Splendid China. To my knowledge, the heads were not located here while the park was operational.

            This place used to be beautiful. It really did. The grass was mowed. The structures were intact. There were waterfalls, restaurants, and evening shows. Now we walk the outside walls, covered in vines, looking for a way in. Looking for some small hole to climb through.

            Walking up to the perimeter, visible from the road, are two large heads. All that’s left of some grand entryway, maybe something to rival the gates of Jurassic Park. Now the heads lay on the broken concrete, chipped away and covered in graffiti. Keeping with the movie references, it reminds me of the art that the Joker makes in Tim Burton’s Batman. These heads are a sign of things to come. Things we hope to find.

The outside wall.

            When we finally cross the barrier, we move through overgrown grass and trees that have been free of trimming for 11 years. We cross the first hill only to see what we hoped we wouldn’t. Piles upon piles of rubble. The telltale sign that a bulldozer had destroyed buildings and pushed them into small mountains. The sign that any treasure this place had left behind was now rubble. Still, we came all this way and we weren’t leaving yet.

            We cut our own trails through the heaps of broken concrete and wood. We climb to the tops of these hills to get a view of the surroundings. Nothing but trees, more debris, and an old bulldozer that had been presumably forgotten. We keep walking, playing movie games to pass the time and looking for anything that speaks to what used to stand here. We turn over small pieces of whatever searching for anything.

Wreckage from the shopping district of Chinatown.

            The People’s Republic of China sold the land in 2003. They tried to auction off many of the landmarks but with little success. I remember seeing the signs from when the property was still open to the public. A bold sign that read “China” with a big arrow underneath, sitting on the side of Hwy 192 in Kissimmee. They said it was “Splendid” but I never saw it with my own eyes in its original glory. I’ve seen pictures on the internet and it may have been true. It seemed to once be a Splendid place.

            We are following a small service road when we catch a glimpse of something over the small wall to our left. Maybe a structure still standing. It isn’t hard to scale the wall and cut through the thick grass. Even if it were that wouldn’t stop us. We come out of the brush to see one wall of a building, the rest bulldozed to the ground. It appears to be an old bathroom, the urinals still clinging to the brick with little porcelain left. Hardly the gem we are hoping for but I pull out my camera and start shooting. If this is all I get, I’ll still go home happy.

This restroom facility was just over the service road wall. Note the urinals in the bottom left of the photograph.

            Once the excitement wears down, we continue on. Not far along, we cross another hill when I realize what it is we are standing on. This is the hill where the great wall sits. A replica of the Great Wall of China made from small bricks. Hand crafted. The wall is shorter than it used to be. Much of it is missing. The way it stretches across the overgrown grass only now can we see it. This is why we are here. The ruins of the once admired work of man. People once stood in front of this wall, walking along a neatly cut path, and they marveled at the craftsmanship. Now we walk along its width and let our excitement barrel out. We own this moment, here in this place. We each take some of the tiny bricks and slide them in our pockets.

The Great Wall was built by hand from tiny bricks each less than an inch long.

            From this point forward, there are many discoveries. I try to imagine what it was like to see all this before today. Before time took its toll and vandals destroyed and robbed. We are not the first photographers or explorers to come here. The pictures are on the internet. You can stop reading this and Google them. You’ll see things that were long destroyed by the time we arrived. But looking at the images and being there are two very different things.

Big Wild Goose Pagoda. Also built by hand.

            I kneel down and hold the bricks of a pagoda replica. Built to precision, now the pieces are pulling away from the miniature. I watch my friend walk through the archway of a decaying building. We look up at the sunlight pouring through the separated wood. There were poles made of white plaster, clearly a part of a something but of what we can only speculate. We walk through dried riverbeds and get close to the miniature buildings to see the details. This is after the tourists stopped coming. After the graffiti and the fires. We walk the insides of caves and sit on benches where visitors would stop to rest from the blazing sun. And of course, we capture our own images to tell our own story.

All that remains of the Wind and Rain Court Restaurant.

            Photographers have a fascination with abandoned places. We spend most of our time documenting things that will never be the same again. Weddings, family portraits, landscapes. It’s all the same. Often times, I will look through old photographs that don’t belong to any person in particular, maybe at a garage sale or flea market. The pictures themselves abandoned objects, and the memories they hold forgotten by most. Possibly forgotten by everyone. We can’t help but visit an empty place and think:

“Somebody built this place.”

“Memories were made here.”

“This place meant something to someone.”

“A heart broke when the doors were closed for good.”

            I see the beauty in this wreckage. I see it in every turned stoned. You can literally feel the chill of it in the air all around you as you walk along the broken sidewalks. I see all of this unwanted mess and I feel nothing but love for this place. For what it was and for what it is.

            As a Christian, I was taught that God takes old things and makes them new. While I believe this to be true, I can’t help but to admire the beauty in the destruction itself. That’s where the story is earned. I also believe that God shows himself in the most unexpected of places. Rather than obliterating the soul and starting fresh, He creates beauty in the forgotten and dilapidated flesh that we to. Unexpected, unpredictable, and unearned.

            On our way out we find the sign inviting guests to come in. “Welcome to Splendid China” it says above broken glass. And there, spray painted in black underneath are the words “Fuck this place.”

            If you return to the property today, you more than likely will not find any of the treasures that were once hidden here. I heard they are turning it into a Margaritaville village condominium resort or something like that. The last time I laid eyes on Splendid China, there was nothing but mounds of dirt, demolished buildings, and a few structures waiting their turn to be destroyed. But there as far out as I could see from the fence was the great wall. Still stretched out and standing.

The complete album of photographs is available at http://imgur.com/a/xgxgn

For more information on Splendid China, check out these videos available on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/DKq975IuuKc - A video history of the park.

https://youtu.be/evbupjw-D5Q - 2013 News story about the demolition. (I love the guy in this video)

https://youtu.be/d1x8CxnypuM - Weird home video of the park from 1996. 

Notice: This social story is intended for entertainment purposes only. It is not intended to condone trespassing or any other illegal activity. Please stay safe and be social.