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Tim Washer

Haunted Cheeseburger @ The Stanley Hotel

By Tim Washer | Oct 31, 2010

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There was a time when I didn’t believe in ghosts.

My tour of the Stanley Hotel’s room 217 provided more eerie confirmation in changing my opinion. While I was filming a comedy documentary short about the inspiration behind Stephen King’s The Shining, we had a few paranormal encounters, yet I found the courage to stick around and have a cheeseburger at Cascades Restaurant.

King, seeking sanctuary from some friends’ harsh criticism of his first draft — initially about an amusement park where rides came to life and ate visitors — escaped with his wife toward Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountains National Park. Snowfall had closed the road, and the Kings headed back down the mountain, and spotted a dilapidated Stanley. Surprisingly, King was willing to check-in on the last night of operation for the season, even though the hotel looked pretty spooky. As they were the only guests, they were given the Presidential Suite, room 217.

Mrs. Wilson, one of the first chambermaids employed when the hotel was built by F.O. Stanley in 1909, is said to still clean and sometimes haunt guests in 217, particularly if they’re messy. Mr. King had a frightening experience that night, awoke the next day and wrote a new outline for The Shining.

What I love about this story is that it was Mr. King’s failure that played the muse for his masterpiece. A few days before my visit to room 217 in Estes Park, CO , I had received some harsh criticism on a comedy project . That same week, I heard a story that gave me hope, just down the road from the Stanley at Hyde Chapel.

Rev. Dr. Stephen Wende shared a fascinating research study from the book Art & Fear. In short, a class of art students was divided into two groups. Group 1 was told they would be graded on making a perfect clay pot, while Group 2 was directed to make as many clay pots as possible, regardless of how they looked.

The researchers were stunned to discover that the absolute best pot was produced by the “quantity” group, not the “quality” group. In fact, the last two dozen clay posts produced by the quantity group were far better than the one pot produced by the “quality” group…. The researchers realized that all the time the quality group was sitting around thinking and theorizing about how to make the exact the perfect post, the other group was just churning them out. And they were pretty bad at first, but they kept making them and making them and making them, and they got better as they went along, until by the time they finished, they were making wonderful, excellent pots.

Dr. Wende concludes, “Have you ever thought of the power of being willing to fail and learn and keep on failing until you begin to get it right?” I guess to some, this seems obvious, but in that period for me, with a bruised ego and overwhelmed with doubt, it was an epiphany.

Like I imagine Stephen King might be, I am grateful for spirits unholy or otherwise, who guide us through the creative process, encouraging us to complete what we’ve been called to do.

Download Dr. Wende’s sermon free from iTunes: “That Sinking Feeling.”

Cascades at The Stanley Hotel: 3 out of 5 stars on Yelp

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About Tim Washer

After working in corporate communications for years, Tim’s boss encouraged him to pursue a career in comedy, “or at least something other than corporate communications.” So in 1998, he began studying improv under Amy Poehler at the UCB Theater. He performed with Amy on the Comedy Central series Upright Citizen’s Brigade and later, Saturday Night Live. Amy summed up Tim’s comedic talent: “He should consider a job in corporate communications.”

Tim went on to appear regularly on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and to write for The Late Show with David Letterman. But it wasn’t until The New Yorker magazine’s Shouts & Murmurs rejected his essay “The Very First Christmas Newsletter” from Jesus’ mother Mary that he finally knew he had arrived.

Although not a real U.S. Senator, Tim improvised the role of Sen. Beekins in the TV commercial Filibuster, earning the Silver Medal Mark Award despite a poor voting record on the environment. Comedy Central selected the short film series he wrote and produced for IBM, Art of the Sale as a “Staff Favorite,” which was cited in Forbes.com in January 2007 as the example of the “Jon Stewartizing” of corporate communications.

As an on-camera host, Tim has interviewed Austin Powers director Jay Roach, Arrested Development’s Tony Hale, Liar, Liar co-writer Paul Guay and Sony Pictures Entertainment vice chairman Yair Landau. Tim’s Connecticut cable TV series “In Your Community” featured guests including three-time Emmy Award winning producer Rob Dustin and Wedding Crashers cinematographer Julio Macat.

Tim collaborated with The New York Times’ Bob Tedeschi to write, produce and host a comedy show for WSHU affiliate of National Public Radio. He has hosted events with President George H. W. Bush, Academy Award winning composers Stephen Schwartz and Alan Menken, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He hosted a panel of Hollywood screenwriters on Capitol Hill for U.S. Congregational Staffers, and served on an entertainment panel at The White House.

He’s performed PowerPoint parodies at corporate events from Las Vegas to Sydney, has collaborated on a TV pilot with Jim Gaffigan, performed with Greg Giraldo and studied under Tom Purcell, head writer for The Colbert Report. Letterman’s talent coordinator Eddie Brill calls Tim “Extremely clever,” and he’s been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Chicago Sun-Times.

Tim has worked as a consultant at Accenture, an account executive at Xerox, as a vice president at Interpublic Group, as head of social media productions at IBM, and as social media manager at Cisco. He holds an MBA from McCombs Graduate School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. He’s also served a short stint for an unnamed employer in corporate communications.

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