Arizona State University – Summer of ‘83
In 1983, Arizona State University was one of the biggest colleges in the country, both in size and student population. Tempe, the city that ASU calls home, was a college town in every sense—bars, theaters, live music, fast food joints, and a buzzing nightlife that thrived off the energy of 40,000+ students. Back then, ASU was known for three things: sports, partying, and its massive campus. The Sun Devils were always competitive, the Mill Avenue strip was alive every night, and the weather? Hot as hell but perfect for cruising around in T-tops or convertibles with the radio blasting.
This was ASU’s golden era—the early '80s were wild. MTV was still new, Michael Jackson’s Thriller had just come out, and the world was obsessed with Star Wars, E.T., and anything Spielberg or Lucas touched. It was a time of big hair, loud music, and even louder outfits. ASU reflected all of that energy.
ASU, Beautiful Women, and Playing Grown-Up
Something that can’t be ignored about ASU: it had (and still has) an absurdly high percentage of stunning women. This was no coincidence—the school had a reputation for being a top party destination, and that reputation attracted a certain type of student. To my advantage, the performing arts and theater crowd were friendly, open-minded, and loved a guy who was confident.
I always enjoyed being around people a little older than me. They were doing things I wanted to do, and I wasn’t shy about blending in. In Arizona at the time, the drinking age was 18. By the time I was 15, it wasn’t exactly difficult to get into bars, especially if I was with an older group. Sometimes, I’d have just one drink—not to get drunk, but to be seen. There was something about sitting at a bar with a drink in my hand that made me feel like I had already arrived. The girls assumed I was at least 18, and I wasn’t about to correct them.
An Unexpected Drinking Buddy: "John"
There was a particular lounge near a part-time job I had at the time, a quiet place with a good atmosphere where I’d grab a drink now and then. It was there that I met a guy named John. He worked in the same building, and we’d sit at the bar, have a drink, and talk about movies, girls, and whatever else came up. He was older, but he had an easygoing way about him, and we got along well. He liked his women a little older than I did, but of course, he was my dad's age! Other than that, we weren’t all that different.
Later I realized "John" wasn’t just some random guy at the bar. He was a war hero, congressman, and future senator. That guy was John McCain.
At the time, McCain was already a rising political star. A Vietnam war hero, he had spent five years as a POW in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, where he was tortured but refused to be released before his fellow prisoners. That kind of grit made him legendary. In Arizona, he was wildly popular, even in 1983, though I didn’t care much about politics. To me, he was just “John.”
The Arizona vs. California Film School Reality Check
As fun as ASU was, I knew one thing for sure—if you wanted to study film, theater, or the entertainment industry, Arizona wasn’t the place. If you were serious, you had to be in California.
Arizona State had some theater programs, but let’s be real—no one was going to ASU to become the next Spielberg or Lucas. There were no studios, no major production houses, and no industry pipeline. If you were serious about making movies, you needed to be where movies were made.
- USC – The holy grail of film schools. George Lucas, Ron Howard, John Carpenter, and Robert Zemeckis all walked these halls.
- UCLA – One of the best film programs in the world. Francis Ford Coppola, Alexander Payne, and Gore Verbinski came out of UCLA.
- CSULB – Cal State Long Beach, where Steven Spielberg went. If it was good enough for Spielberg, it was good enough for anyone.
At ASU, you could take classes on film, but there was no real path to Hollywood from Arizona. If you wanted a career, you had to be in L.A. That’s where the directors, producers, and studios were. That’s where deals were made, and careers were launched.
A Brief Stop on the Road to Bigger Things
ASU in 1983 was an exciting detour, a taste of college life before I was even out of high school. It had all the fun and social energy you could want, but it was never going to be my final destination. I knew where I needed to be, and that was California—where the film industry thrived, where the best schools were, and where the future was waiting.
