The Year Was 2018…

It was October, the air was crisp, and spooky vibes were in full effect. I had just started a new job at a call center, which, if you’ve never experienced one, is basically corporate purgatory. The process goes like this: You sit in a training room for a couple of weeks, pretending to absorb information about whatever program you’ll be working for, and then—bam!—you’re on the phones, handling calls like a deer in headlights. I think my program was healthcare-related, but honestly, I wouldn’t want to say too much (HIPAA and all that). But this story isn’t about the job itself; it’s about two people I met and the creative chaos we got into on the side. And no, not that kind of side hustle—get your mind out of the gutter. It was all perfectly legal.

The Call Center That Thought It Was Hollywood

Call centers are a weird little world. Everyone knows everyone, and everyone knows everyone’s business. It’s basically high school with cubicles and a slightly better dress code. The particular call center I worked for had several locations across the U.S. and even in the Philippines. For some reason, every center decided to hop on a bizarre trend: making lip-sync music videos for the corporate website. And what song did nearly all of them use? “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. You know, the one that goes “Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof…” (Still not sure what that means, by the way.)

Here’s how it worked: Some poor soul with a camera and an MP3 player would walk around the office blasting the song while employees lip-synced and awkwardly danced at their desks. Just thinking about it makes me want to cringe into another dimension. But when corporate asked our office to participate, I saw an opportunity—an excuse to escape the monotony of training. I volunteered immediately.

That’s when I met Arie and David, two like-minded rebels who would soon become great friends. David owned a decent camera, so he was naturally declared director. Arie and I just wanted to tag along for the chaos, and since we were in the same training class, we were his default assistants. What was supposed to be a simple, low-effort video quickly escalated into a full-blown production.

From Lip-Sync Video to Full-Blown Horror Epic

We could have played it safe. We could have picked “Happy” or another vanilla corporate-approved pop song. But no. We chose “Thriller” by Michael Jackson. And we went all in.

We had hair and makeup, lighting setups, and even people assigned as grips. Arie transformed into our Michael Jackson, and I—well, I became the creepy guy. (For the video, not in real life. Just clarifying.)

The concept was ridiculous, but that was the point. If you’ve ever worked in a call center, you know that when you start your shift, you’re essentially a zombie—mindlessly answering calls in a fog of corporate despair until your first break. Then, after coffee and maybe a cigarette (if that’s your thing), you suddenly regain sentience. That’s where the “Thriller” theme came in.

The video opened with an older woman in scrubs (because, health insurance). She arrives at the call center at dusk, enters the building, and encounters a creepy guy—yours truly. I silently lead her down a dimly lit hallway, up a staircase, and through a door. She turns to ask where she’s supposed to go, but I’ve vanished. The door slams behind her. She screams.

Cue “Thriller.”

Arie appears as Michael Jackson, leading the woman down a cubicle-filled aisle while zombies begin to emerge in the background. And yes, we did the full zombie dance number.

The grand finale? The break room transformation. Since coffee is the magical elixir that brings call center workers back to life, we set up a gag where zombies would file into one side of the break room and, after a cup of coffee, emerge from the other side as fully functioning corporate employees. Genius.

Here’s the link, if you dare, mauh ha ha ha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhis4MxOHQk&t=2s

The whole experience bonded the three of us. By 2019, I had moved on to another job (because call centers are a revolving door of misery), but I stayed in touch with Arie and David. I was bored—desperately in need of a creative outlet. So, I called up David and said, “Let’s make something. Anything.” And thus, our next project was born.

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Enter: The One Eyed Dog

David, Arie, and I reunited for another venture into filmmaking. This time, we weren’t bound by corporate oversight. This time, we had complete creative control. The result? The One Eyed Dog—a bizarre, campy horror short.

The plot was simple: A man keeps having a dream where he’s drawn to a mysterious hill with a cross at the top. When he gets there, a one-eyed dog appears. Then he wakes up. But things take a turn when the dog shows up in real life… and starts killing him. Repeatedly.

Each time the protagonist “dies,” he wakes up again, trapped in a never-ending cycle of absurd horror. And we went full camp with the deaths. In one scene, he wakes up in a bathtub as a junkie, needle in arm, only to have the dog rise from the water and bludgeon him with a hammer. In another, the dog drives a car and runs him over. (Yes, we made it work. Movie magic.)

Guerrilla Filmmaking on a $0 Budget

Our entire budget was nonexistent. Every location we used was stolen—I mean, borrowed—without permission. Our opening dream sequence was shot at San Xavier del Bac Mission, an old Spanish church just outside Tucson. The place was perfect, with a big hill and just the right amount of eerie atmosphere. The problem? We didn’t exactly have permits. So, we had to film guerrilla-style—minimal equipment, quick setups, and tearing down before security caught on.

Oh, and about that church? David, in his infinite wisdom, decided to wander inside with a camera to check out the interior… during a funeral. So yeah, we weren’t exactly welcome there after that.

We planned as much as we could, but a lot of it was chaotic improvisation. David would storyboard the scenes the night before, plaster his walls with sketches, and we’d show up the next day to make it happen. But that process—chaotic as it was—worked. It sparked something in me.

Here’s The One Eyed Dog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pNWQKLegnk&t=659s

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The Birth of Welcome to Tucson

At one point, I got frustrated with the lack of a script. So, I suggested we start meeting once a week to write. The idea was to flesh out The One Eyed Dog, but instead, our sessions turned into a breeding ground for new ideas. One of those ideas? A bizarre concept about Tucson, where the city wasn’t just weird—it was 70s monster movie weird. That idea eventually became my novel, Welcome to Tucson.

Originally, it was supposed to be a TV series. I even wrote scripts and a full show bible. But the project sat untouched for years—until I decided to turn it into a novel.

So, what started as an over-the-top corporate music video led me down an unexpected creative path. And honestly? I wouldn’t change a thing.