A Westcoaster Adieu, Part 1

Pacoima, CA

So we gotta come clean, folks.  Yesterday’s April Fools’ post… well, the April Fools is that it actually wasn’t an April Fools post.  Specifically, although we haven’t actually been bought out by Spirit Halloween, Westcoaster is becoming Restcoaster. For good.

After 23 years of writing about and photographing roller coasters, theme parks, Halloween and haunted events, interactive and immersive theater, and various other themed attractions, the time has come to close the book, hang up the jersey, turn off the stove, shut the casket, taxidermy the lemur, or whichever idiom you’d like to use to indicate that we’re no longer going to be doing this anymore (ok, maybe not that last one). Although this might seem out of the blue, this has actually been under consideration for a while.  But we figured that in the spirit of the irreverence (or is it irrelevance?) that is Westcoaster, we had to go out doing one more goofy act.  Hence, a revival of the old April Fool’s gags (sorry, Robbie, never meant to trigger you with that word) that we used to create (pre-Squarespace days) as a masquerade for the truth.

The sun has set on Westcoaster. It’s true. All of it.

But though Westcoaster has always been about not taking itself seriously, we do recognize that for our regular readers—many who have been with us for much of our two decades of being the “Daily Show” of theme park blogs (before blogs were even a thing)—this is a momentous occasion.  There aren’t a lot of web sites that make it along this far, with invested readers who follow along these shenanigans, so you deserve an explanation for why Westcoaster is shutting down.  This post is my piece.  Jim will share his thoughts in a post a little later today.  And this two-part swan song will hopefully provide some closure to what might feel an RKO-esque, out-of-nowhere development.

The short version of why Westcoaster is ceasing operations after today is that I have come to a point in my life where I can no longer maintain this web site on my own, which is effectively how Westcoaster has been run for the past nearly-seven years.  My personal and professional life can no longer accommodate the personal time commitment for something that is a hobby (a passionate and beloved one at that).  Much like Jim reached a point where he could no longer operate Westcoaster and needed someone to take the reins because of developments in his career, I have reached the same point in mine.  Unfortunately, there is no one else who we can enlist to keep the quality and spirit and the vigor of the site going if I were to step away or reduce my involvement with the site.  If I was to continue, this would mean either sparser and sparser updates trickling into oblivion (which, to be honest, regular readers have probably already noticed during the non-Halloween season over the past few years), or just a silent fade into the wisps of the winds of the interwebz.   It’s better to just put a formal bookend onto things, rather than leave you, the reader, wondering what happened.

This being an Albert article, though, it’s not going to be brief.  Because the closer we’ve come to this point, the more retrospective and waxing we’ve become.  And there are so many people we’re grateful for on this journey over the past 2+ decades.  So to have a deeper understanding of what all this means, we need to take a journey through Westcoaster history.

We’re going back! Way back! Back into time!

It was the year 2001, after Y2K turned out to the original MSM fake news alternative factz hoax / hax0rz, and I was a nerdy teenager who was obsessed with roller coasters.  At the time, the big news was the construction of not one, not two, but three roller coasters at Six Flags Magic Mountain.  This was incredible, because I (and maybe no one?) had never seen a theme park unveil three new coasters in a season before, and one of them—X—was also a first-of-its kind that looked like an acid trip of a roller coaster design.  Being the over-enthusiastic dork I was, I scoured the internet for updates on the latest construction, and the three websites that I ended up settling on regular visits were Twisted Rails (remember that site?), America’s Coaster Network (which still exists today but in social media and YouTube channel form), and a less professional-behaving site called Westcoaster that went about its updates with a quirky sense of humor and entertaining way of imparting information. 

As time passed, Twisted Rails eventually became Standing But Not Operating.  ACN was great and operated on a national theme park news level.  But Westcoaster… Westcoaster was appealing because its message boards (an online community that discussed all sorts of topics together in an environment long before platforms like Twitter and Facebook and Reddit took over that sort of discourse) featured a variety of colorful, hilarious, friendly folks who all seemed to revel in being a little weird.  The site itself was constantly publishing wacky updates, and it was clear that Westcoaster did not take itself seriously at all.  And it wasn’t afraid to call out other sites for being sensationalist or over-hyping or over-reactionary either!  Whether it be pointing out the excessive excitement over dirt or calling concrete rebar “noodles” or “noodz" or belittling how ridiculous Disney “foamers” were for their refusal to accept any sort of change or their over-analysis of every little unimportant detail of anything under construction (yes, this was a thing long before DizTwitter), Westcoaster was unorthodox and absurd and often hysterical.  And I loved it.

As my focus on Westcoaster honed, my interest in photography happened to pick up, and occasionally, I would send webmaster Jim Disney some photos to use in a theme park or construction update.  Back then, these were taken from my point-and-shoot that I purchased during college to help document my architectural schoolwork, but it also allowed me a chance to engage in a hobby that would ultimately become my most cherished and far-reaching.  Jim would write the updates, but it was still cool to see my photos posted on a web site.  There was a flicker of pride in being able to see my work in some place that other people could also visit.  Again, this was before the days of the golden age of social media (some might say golden shower age, given how social media can be, but I digress…).

Silver Bullet… whose grand opening nearly two decades ago was where I met Jim for the first time.

Although I had maintained an online friendship with Jim over AIM (another nostalgic internet reference!) and had even met him in 2005 during the Knott’s Berry Farm Silver Bullet grand opening (and a couple of times after that), things took a turn in 2007.  That was when my personal friendship with Jim began, after he approached me and made the (in retrospect) incredibly bold and possibly reckless request for me to photograph his upcoming wedding.  I was shocked.  I enjoyed taking pictures of landscapes and theme parks and roller coasters, but I had never done anything remotely as challenging as shoot a wedding.  The stress, scheduling coordination, organization, and technical skill involved were far beyond my abilities.  I was aghast that Jim would trust such a vital task to someone he barely knew.

But Jim told me something that I’ll never forget.  He noted how he had always been impressed with my photographic eye and felt I had a lot of potential.  He told me how much he appreciated the perspective from which I captured my theme park images, and he encouraged me to believe in myself to be able to do the same for portrait and event photography.  

“Okay, that’s all incredibly flattering, but I don’t even have the proper equipment.  I just own a point-and-shoot!” I protested.

“It’s okay, you can use Dan’s camera,” was Jim’s reply.  “He’ll be the Best Man anyway, so it’s not like he’s going to be using it.”

“But I don’t know how to use a DSLR! How am I can going to practice and learn about it?”

“No worries. We’ll meet up across the summer at Disneyland, and you can play around and familiarize yourself.”

And so, that summer, Jim and I (and Dan) began hanging out.   I learned how to operate Dan’s Nikon D70, understand the settings, and also educated myself on the attention and issues that wedding photography entailed (a friend of mine who had shot a couple of weddings was an incredible resource, as was Ian, Westcoaster’s resident Kiwi, who also provided great tips on directing and organizing people).  The wedding shoot went off with minimal hitches.  I didn’t completely screw up the photos.  Everyone went home happy.  

I bring this story up for two reasons.  First, without Jim asking me to photograph his wedding, I would have never caught the bug to want a DSLR for myself (I purchased a Nikon D300 with my first work bonus the following year), and I never would have gone on the journey to develop myself as a photographer (pun intended) and raise my abilities to where they are today.  And second, without the wedding serving as an impetus to get to know Jim on a personal level, I never would have formed a friendship with someone who I now count as one of my absolute closest and dearest friends.

It started at Disney, with (Jim) Disney, and the rest is history.

The combination of both factors above would pave the way for nearly a decade later, in 2016, when Jim asked me to take over Westcoaster because his professional responsibilities were no longer allowing him to continue authoring the web site.  At the time, I was both flattered and overwhelmed.  This was Jim’s baby—the web site he birthed and had managed for (at the time) over a decade and a half, and he was handing the keys over to me?  It was an incredible demonstration of trust that I would be able to maintain the high values and standards that Westcoaster has always displayed (in between behaving like 12 year-olds in the writing content).  

Nervously, I accepted.

I recognized something when I took over Westcoaster.  There was no way I was ever going to come near the entertaining comedy that was the brilliant genius of Jim’s theme park update writings.  There is just something in the way Jim’s brain works that translates into imaginative hilarity when he catalyzes his brain neurons into finger types to form word chains.  I would try to maintain the same approach, but I knew that my construction updates could never rival his (I’m proud of a few of them, though, and my Donald Trump-spoof Rivers of American article is probably the one time I felt like I struck a competing level of ingeniously clever entertainment).

Instead, I decided that I would shape Westcoaster in the mold of my new interests, broadening the content to better enshrine the original mission of Westcoaster back when Jim started it—to be a West Coast lifestyle site that included content on events and themed attractions beyond roller coasters and amusement parks.

A photo from my first authored post at the relaunched Westcoaster, with a decidedly non-theme park subject.

This is where my photography passion kicked in.  We would continue the theme park content that we’ve always featured, with an emphasis on providing quality photos and a breadth of information to allow readers to plan and organize trips or follow along and live vicariously if they could not visit the parks we covered.  But I also wanted to expand our Halloween coverage to beyond Knott’s Scary Farm and Halloween Horror Nights and Dark Harbor.  I wanted to cover more haunts, photograph and showcase their creativity and passion and backstories.   Beyond that, I thought it would be cool to try to include a bit of local performing arts as well—be it music festivals or unique, independent theater projects or interesting cultural establishments.  And to top it off, Westcoaster would also offer a travel section, expanding our Southern California theme park reach to include all sorts of attractions worldwide.

Well, for anyone who’s been reading regularly since 2016, some of these endeavors did better than others.  The whole travel blogging thing never really took off outside of a few city overviews for places I visited a couple of years before and after the 2016 Westcoaster relaunch.  I was fortunate enough to almost serendipously develop a connection that allowed me to attend various Southern California music festival and cover them as media.  And we’ve posted updates on different cultural attractions in SoCal from time to time.  But none of these were able to maintain momentum.

On the other hand, we have maintained our theme park coverage through all these years, covering Disney and Knott’s and a little bit of Universal and Magic Mountain—plus a few international parks that I’ve visited.  And I’m very proud of the Halloween content that Westcoaster has showcased over the past seven haunt seasons, moving beyond the big theme park haunt heavy hitters to include coverage and journalism on independent professional haunts like Sinister Pointe and L.A. Haunted Hayride and many more to haunted theater products like Zombie Joe’s and Delusion and JFI Productions and others to the multitude of incredible, professional-caliber home haunts all across Southern California.  If you’ve ever met me, I hope that I’ve come off as humble, because it is not in my character to brag or be arrogant about accomplishments.  But I will admit that I have always had a personal goal to provide the best haunt coverage possible, and be a source that haunt enthusiasts look forward to reading.  And I’m deeply grateful for the relationships, networking, and appreciation that I’ve developed within the haunt community.

Quite possibly the greatest Haunt photo I’ve ever taken, and it even kind of went viral with haunters.

Suffice to say, running Westcoaster and shaping it as an online extension of my own interests over the past seven years has been an incredibly enriching and rewarding experience, gaining me friendships and connections that I could have never hoped to enjoy without this site.  Especially with the Halloween and horror community, I’ve found a second family of sorts that I can get to see again every year—people who create haunts, fellow fans, and other online haunt blogs who share the same passion and slight penchant for the weird and macabre as I do.  None of this would have happened if Jim hadn’t entrusted me with the keys to the web site.

However, at the same time, everything that has gone into Westcoaster has also been grueling.  As I’m sure you’ve noticed, 99% of the content that Westcoaster has published since its relaunch seven years ago has been written and photographed by me.  And all of this has been willingly and energetically.  The perfectionist in me has striven to provide great photos plus thoughtful and fair and honest commentary on whatever we’re covering.  I don’t allow myself to do a half-assed job, because I have always believed in committing to any endeavor I pursued.  But it takes a fair amount of time, and the attrition finally reached a breaking point last fall when I pushed myself through sleepless nights and exhausting days to stay current on my haunt coverage while also visiting my usual abundance of stops each season to cover all the top attractions.  It was too much, and my mental anxiety and physical health suffered for it.  And I realized that I could not do this again.

‘Well, Albert,’ you might be musing out loud, ‘Why don’t you just not do as much… visit less haunts or take less photos or write less words?’ 

Unfortunately, my neurotic OCD combined with FOMO just won’t let me.  If I do something, I’m going to be thorough and meticulous and committed to high quality.  And the editorial style that I’ve inadvertently developed Westcoaster into presenting has become a self-perpetuating machine that I can’t bring myself to stop.  That’s why you see feature updates on content not related to haunt season—like Knott’s Berry Farm seasonal events or other major theme park additions—cover the same breadth.  I love doing this and I love the results, but I’ve recognized that the process has become detrimental to part of my well-being—not to mention conflicting with my increasing personal and professional responsibilities.

Now it’s time to say goodbye to all our company…

In short, it’s time for this chapter to be put to bed, and for me to move onto the next act in my life.  As much joy and as much of an honor as it’s been for me to run Westcoaster for the past seven years and hopefully bring some amount of joy or enjoyment into your lives, this next phase can no longer include Westcoaster.  So when Jim’s farewell post goes live later today, it will be the last official post on this site.  We’re listening to Gordon Ramsay on Hell’s Kitchen.  It’s time to shut it down.

Westcoaster will remain online for the rest of this year and into part of next, though.  There won’t be anymore new content, but the site will stay live for anyone who wishes to stroll Memory Lane (the figurative one, not the Gore-ing 20’s one).  Plus, for all the haunts who have used Westcoaster photography for their own personal archives or for social media promotion (thank you to those who have provided credit and attribution and especially to hose who asked for permission before posting on their own sites and socials), this gives you time to pillage all the Westcoaster-watermarked pictures of your spooky creations that I’ve taken over the years. 

For anyone who might be worried, I’m not going to quit the haunt world, though.  I love Halloween and everything about it too much to just go cold turkey.  I will continue to visit haunts as a fan, and I have some ideas about migrating Westcoaster’s Halloween content to a different site so that such content can live on as a historical repository (or at least a portfolio of my haunt photography).  I also have some thoughts about continuing haunt coverage under a different outfit (some of you may know that I also post on my personal haunt Instagram, @HauntPhotoblography, each fall, and there is a lot of overlapping content with Westcoaster’s Halloween coverage).  The difference is that I would spread out the content over the course of a year instead of compressing it the two months of haunt season, thereby relaxing my workload and my stress levels.  Nothing is set in stone, but there are different possibilities for me to still maintain a bit of what I’ve enjoyed doing on this site.

I don’t intend to quit the spookies, but it just might be done a little differently.

And if you like pretty Disney photos, check out my still-regularly updated Disney blog, Disney Photoblography.

I also need to give a shout out to the media friends I’ve made over the years who I love saying hi to each time I see them and who have produced fantastic work of their own.  You’ve likely followed at least some of their sites as well, but in a post-Westcoaster world, I have to make strong referrals to check out the following:

• Park Journey: (soon to merge into Thrill Geek at the end of this year): their fantastic national theme park content is run by Westcoaster friend and former Westcoaster message board frequenter Gregg Condon.

• Theme Park Duo: Gabe and Nikki produce regular podcasts of their theme park and haunt adventures, and Gabe exhausts the same loving passion and care into his writing that I do in mine.

• Horror Buzz: we absolutely love Norm and Jeff, and Horror Buzz is arguably the pre-eminent horror web site in our eyes, especially for spooky things around Southern California.

• Hollywood Gothique: These guys have been around for as long as Westcoaster has, and they’ve been covering a wide variety of haunts for way longer than we have.  Steve and Warren are in the small collective of people who go to more haunts than I do, and they’re honest in their reviews and opinions.  Also, for anyone who’s ever gotten us mixed up, Warren and I are not the same person.  Yes, there CAN be two Asian haunt media people in Southern California!

• Parks and Cons: Speaking of Halloween marathoners, Shawn and Carmelle go to an absolutely ridiculous number of haunts each season well beyond my own, and I have no idea where they get the energy to do it.  Plus they cover theme parks and conventions throughout the year and regularly produce timely podcasts about everything they visit!

• Halloween Every Night: Another pair I count as haunt media family, Jessica and Shawn also hit up plenty of spooky attractions every September and October but extend their Halloween coverage to—fittingly as the name suggests—year-round.

• Golden State Ghouls: Formerly known as The Haunt List, but not to be confused by VanOaks Cemetery’s Derek Young’s SoCal Haunt List, Ashley and Sara are awesome haunt fans and even more awesome people.  I owe Ashley thanks for basically making Westcoaster’s musical festival coverage happen during the time that it did, and I love both Ashley’s and Sara’s love 

• America’s Coaster Network: I mentioned ACN 8 encyclopedia articles ago, but I never realized until several years ago that ACN was actually run by our good friend, Chris Higgins, aka Butters, aka Master Higgins of Higgins Manor infamy, and he’s been putting up a lot of great theme park construction vlog content and coaster video featurettes on ACN’s YouTube channel.

If you’re not on this list, don’t consider it a snub or take it personally.  I’m still deeply appreciative of your friendship, and I admire your work.  It’s just that obviously, every list has a limit.

And now we come upon the thank you portion of the awards show—er, speech—er, sayonara?

To everyone and anyone who has ever read Westcoaster, including those who have read the site since I took over, thank you so much for your patronage and your support and your various kind words to me online or in real life run-in’s.  It’s uncomfortably flattering to know that my work is enjoyed and known and shared, but I really appreciate it.  I hope that I’ve brought some form of knowledge or entertainment or just a little bit of positivity to a moment of your day.  

I also want to thank all the different theme parks, haunts, and attractions that have been gracious enough to invite Westcoaster to their events and their productions over the years and let us share your wonderful, hard work.  Knott’s is the park that we’ve worked with for the longest (since the beginning!) and helped Westcoaster establish its mark on the map.  But I’m deeply appreciative that places like Universal, Six Flags, Dark Harbor (RIP), The 17th Door, 13th Floor Entertainment, Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre, Midsummer Scream, JFI, Sea World San Diego, the Haunted Hotel group, and so many more outfits have given us media access and press privileges over the years.  I recognize that these benefits are not entitlements, and they have never been taken for granted.

Lastly, I want to give a gross, mushy thank you to the Westcoaster family I’ve gained through the years.  Jim:—one of my closest friends, a confidant, an absolute favorite person.  Dan—haunt and concert buddy (especially anytime The Offspring are involved) and perpetual diabetic curmudgeon with an actual heart of gold (he might argue just an actual heart) if you dig down enough.  Andrew—Higgins Manor collaborator once upon a time and welcome familiar sight still every fall at one haunt or another.  Joey, Wes, Luke, Ian—I don’t see you guys as often as I should, but you are all awesome, hilarious, amazing human beings.  

And finally lastly actual lastly, my deepest thanks go to my loving, incredibly patient wife—a woman turns into a haunt widow every September and October and sometimes early November (despite the fact that I don’t even work for a haunt) but has nevertheless supportingly obliged my visits to so many Halloween events and themed attractions… who lets me drag her along to non-scary attractions throughout the year so that I can get content for this site… who even once wrote an article on Westcoaster once upon a time when she was just my girlfriend… who is my rock and advocate and best thing that ever happened to me.  I hope you’re happy, Steph—Westcoaster will no longer have to compete with you for my attention!

(Just keeeeeding… please don’t send my wife death threats for shutting down Westcoaster, but also, if I disappear after this joke, please consider interviewing her over my final whereabouts.)

This is the end, my only friend. The end…

So, 4000 words later, I think that does it.  Westcoaster is retiring. We’re not coming back like Michael Jordan or Tom Brady or any professional wrestler who’s ever lost an “Losers Leaves ___” Match.  The reasons are as listed above.  But it’s been a helluva ride, and it’s been a pleasure.  

Stay tuned for Jim’s farewell.  And if there’s one final thought I want to impart, it’s just to be good, kind, understanding, non-judgmental people to each other, and to live life with a spirit of fun.  It’s too challenging to be taken seriously all the time.

…Oh, and also, to Forrest Orta, or the person who always commented naming himself as Forrest Orta, why the heck were you always writing, “My son….”??