A Little Rain with Your Day?

What a miserable morning. A call time of 6:30am to south street sea port. Trains are crap in the morning, donkey crap. It took an hour and a half, then the bonus of pouring rain. The kicker is the first two scenes are exteriors. The sooner this day is over and I'm back under blankets the better.
In other news I've been doing smashingly well with my writing goals. I breezed through 350 pages of deadland to finish my share of the edit, then I wrote installments for both Thorne and Airi. Then I wrote my query letter for "Paparazzo." Now I'm working on the pilot script for the "Dead Land' animated series. A lot and a lot of accomplishment right there. Creatively I'm kicking ass. I also am borrowing a piano keyboard from my parents. I've been wanting to learn how to play for a while and I'm finally getting around to it. I've already started recording my first piano based song, which I've been told has a 'the good, the bad, and the queen' feel to it, which I accept.
Its seems lately that I'm just being happy for people around me: my father, my sister, Kalju who should finally be finished with the army soon. Their happiness brings me some happiness. Eh, time to hit the rainy streets, every day can't be cush.

Pack Your Bags

A UN panel confirms it. We are fucked. The world is anyhow. Drastic loss of species in Europe, massive water shortages in Africa, furious heat waves and drought in the U.S. Levels of the sea rising, sinking coastal cities. That's the forecast for the world. Congrats human-kind! We're doing it. We're fucking over ourselves and every other living thing on this planet. Unless of course, we take immediate and drastic action now. But we won't because, let's face it, no one really cares if we fuck over the world. So let's keep it up, I want to see the world go to shit myself and I'm guessing if I die of old age I only got about 45 years left. So go buy a gas guzzling SUV for me and bring down this stupid planet, so we can all just get it the fuck over already.

In a hundred years Dead Land will be like the science fiction of the 1950's. Ain't that a hoot.

The Pen is Mighty

It kind of feels like I've just been trudging through life lately, trying to stay positive about shit while becoming a little more closed off to the world in actuality. I spent the weekend upstate. My grandfather on my father's side died last week. It was difficult for eveyone because he died in a house fire and we weren't really sure if he suffered or not. Not to mention it was covered quite a bit in the news. Fortunately after his autopsy it was found that we was not breathing during the fire. Still there was a loss in the family, horrible circumstances or not. I wasn't extremely close to him, he didn't seem very interested in any of his grandchildren to be honest about it. But I inherited his name and his passion for music. My grandfather didn't want a funeral or a wake and so some family convened at my father's house to celebrate his life. He was always easy to pick on, since he went by "Dick" instead of Richard or Rick or Rich, and at one point my step mother confessed that the week had been wearing and she was indeed wiped out on Dick. That's my family. Yesterday I just spent getting everything back in order since it was my first full day back in the city. I will say this: HSBC can suck me. I spent way too much time setting my affairs back in order, because they did not cancel my account when they should have. I made an awesome Salmon filet, I exercised, I wrote a bit. It was a pretty productive day, just what I needed after a few days of not getting much done upstate.
Writing is really the best thing for me right now. Life seems perpetually confusing and out of order no matter how I react to it and just not what I want it to be. But somehow when I'm writing it doesn't get to me so much. And so I work on 2 more Dead Land chapters, and then the Dead Land pilot script and then my animated concept. Yup, its all set up. And while I am doing this I will be exploring ways to present "Paparazzo" my most recent script and the Dead Land series. It's good to have a plan.

STRIKE!

For those of you not in the know, the Writer's Guild have called a strike. They will mostly likely carry this out tomorrow. You may have caught a blurb here or a headline there threatening late night show reruns and such if the writers do strike. Well when you're in the biz (that's right I'm cool like that) striking unions affect you directly whether you are a part of that union or not. The amazingly wonderful thing about film and TV is the amount of artists that are brought together to create it and if missing even one element, there is no finished product. So without writer's, actors soon are out of work because there is no material. So the writer's strike had certainly been a concern of mine. Not to mention that I consider myself first and foremost a writer and I plan on joining the WGA at the point. So their stances will some day actually BE my stances. I am in full support of the writer's strike. Bring that shit on I say. These people are not asking for the absurd here. All they want is to update their contract to account for new technologies that are bringing money into the producers exclusively. And these producers are trying to say they aren't sure internet downloads will become popular and dvd's don't generate much profit for them. Are you fucking kidding me??? Really! I'm gonna me some magic markers and a placard, I tell you. Point me to a picket line!!!

Cell Block C

So Friday I spent the day in jail. Riker's Island to be specific. Law and Order: Criminal Intent if you really want to know. I was playing a mentally fucked prisoner of the Riker's Island facility. They had the whole rainbow of types: biker dudes, Aryan looking skinnies, Hispanics, Blacks, an old white guy with glasses and two crazy-looking skinny white dudes. The beginning of the day was shit. It was a long bus ride to the Island, getting checked in by production and then by the prison. No breakfast. Waiting outside in the cold for wardrobe to give me a bag full of costume(yes, it really was cold, I'm not being a pansy.) Being harassed by the prisoners while waiting in that line. The pants were unreasonably tight around my waist. I was half-expecting my legs to fall off by the end of the night. But once we got inside and settled it wasn't quite so bad. I realized that I knew someone there and he just happened to be the OTHER crazy white dude. It wasn't long before they brought us to set, a prison cafeteria. The scene was unforeseeable fun! I rarely EVER have fun doing background. I mean sometimes it's fun working with friends and stuff, but the actual performing is never really fun. I mean how fun can doing a cross or pantomiming to someone else really be? But this!.... Crazy#2 and I were seated at the same table as the principal. The principal has an altercation with a guard or some authority figure and we have to react, and when we're not reacting to that, we just have to sit there and be weird. -I- can do THIS! I quite good at being weird. So I decided that my thing (since i had a tray of fish sticks and peas in front of me) would be I was intent on transporting all the peas individually from one side of the tray to the other with my spoon. Occasionally I would get upset with a pea and squash it with the spoon, warning the other peas the same could happen to them. Crazy2 meanwhile is biting his nails and twitching. Then another person comes over and we both become protective of our trays and shift away from him. It seemed like this was a little too much for production to handle and I thought the a.d. was going to come over and tell us to tone it down, but instead he wanted me to pretend that I had a dirty prison-bitch love thing going on with the guard the principal was speaking with. So when he walked away with the principal I looked over sad and longingly. And this was ALL going on right behind the main action. It was quite hilarious really, I was having trouble keeping a straight face. Especially when in between shots were we using plastic cups to try to dial 911 and an assortment of popular figures and tossing peas and consulting them like they were bones. The day ended up being incredibly amusing. Crazy2 and I had like senses of humor so we were constantly joking around for about 8 hours straight.
Yesterday was all about catching up with errands and chores. Today is about relaxing and finishing up some chores and Monday- Thursday I am working on a TV pilot. I think so anyway, I'm missing some details.

Halloween in Salem

Well, I braved six hours of intense rain worsened by worn wipers and ridiculous lengths of traffic to finally make it to Salem, Mass. for Dave's Halloween bash.....hmmm....bash..... a party of 5 dudes. Ha! It was all good. I showed up, everyone was already in costume. This made me happy! Everyone was in Halloween spirit! So I emptied my bladder and stuffed my face with as much speed as I could muster. Then I assembled my costume. Oh yes! I haven't mentioned this year's costume. Orginally I was thinking skeleton. But as I was at a costume store, one of the employees told me that ALOT of people were doing that this year. I decided I needed something a little more original. So I decided I would be a dead rapper. Mostly skeleton, gold money-sign necklace, obnoxious Reebok kicks, backwards hat (Yankees at that), that sort of thing - now that I've made the reveal, if I see someone on the street in this costume Halloween night, I will assualt you. - Dave's costume kind of agreed with mine as he was being DCUP member Black Olive. His costume consisted of a toga, ninja mask, gold chains and rings, a laurel wreath, goggles and novelty clock. He looked like a toga wearing ninja-rapper, it was good. Though somehow everyone on the street was confusing him for Flava Flave, so he just started calling himself Flava Flavius. Needless to say we ditched the party idea, instead going out on the town for adventures. We had great fun and somehow spent no money during the course of the night. It was a lot of posing with people, explaining our costumes, guessing other peoples', more posing, more drinking, at one point I joined a choir of men in ivy league type suits who were singing some 50's song on the street to a crowd. I was THE black sheep, but the group embraced my enthusiasm, and instead of pushing me out, they pushed me to the front of the group and I sang lead for the last portion of the song. While Dave was immensely popular as a Roman Flava Flave, especially to the hunnies. There was a fair in town for the first time, so we went to that on the second night. Unfortunately not only did the fair suck ass, but I nearly got into a fight with a toothless carny, which is something I should have been able to predict really. I was also in Mass. to see the Sox win the Series. What an odd experience to be in a room of people CHEERING for the Red Sox. Good times.....

And like the Genesis song, I'm Back in New York City. (Peter Gabriel era)

Completion

Well hello there. I know I haven't been around much. Please forgive. I've been been writing a script. And now I'm DONE!!! YAY!!!!! It's registered, it's about to be printed and now I'm on to the next project. But I just wanted to come by and tell ya I'm gonna be by more. So see ya around.

The Cheese Effect

(walking down an Astoria street.)

Ryan: It smells like Parmesan cheese.

Rick: Yeah, and it seems to be getting stronger.

Ryan: I bet somebody's buried around here.

Rick: Dead people smell like Parmesan cheese?

Ryan: I don't know.

Rick: (breaking out in song) Dead people smell like Parmesan cheese, dead people smell like Parmesan cheese. Cheese, cheese! Parmesan cheese.

Rick and Ryan: Dead people smell like Parmesan cheese, dead people smell like Parmesan cheese. Cheese, cheese! Parmesan cheese!

(Repeat a few more times, then we notice a near-by funeral home.)

Ain't She Purty?

Oh I love this BIKE!!! It was just made for me, I know it. I've thought about down-sizing to two wheels for about four years now. When I could have, it wasn't very practical since I was moving to CA and I had a 3,000 (later to actually be a 7,000 mile ) trip and needed a way of transporting all my belongings there. So I went with my Honda Civic, a fine fine car. There's just something about a bike though that's very attractive. Some day folks, some day...

It's gotta have a hook(a)

I know, I know, I used that trick in my last post, sue me. I've finally figured a way to post blogs per my sidekick on the new blogger format! I think. So hopefully I will be able to write blogs a little more often while I'm on set. I haven't been posting much because I have been trying to solely focus my writing efforts on my script.
At any rate its been a busy week for work or fun. Monday and Tuesday I worked on a movie. Standard background work with about 300 other extras. If you know me, you know I get horribly uncomfortable around so many people, a twitchy, antsy, nervous kind of. This may have prompted me to become the most legendary extra of all time. If this story is true anyway, but really how could such a tale be true. But suppose it was... a guy sneaks out of holding, travels two states away while still on the clock and returns some 11 hours later only to jet again with another bg to a bar for darts and drinks, and finally returning to holding to promptly sign out. Surely such a feat, such a man would live on in stories for generations. After two long ass days I was lucky enough to get a short day for a tv show on which I have become a regular office employee, or more specifically the mail dude. It's a nice gig as it often affords me time to write and wardrobe really likes to dress me up in their sweater vests. Since I got out early I went to the lower east side for eats with a friend. I've been eating out more than normal lately, you gotta treat yourself once and a while ya know. And work has been pretty good so I might as well enjoy it. With my day off on Thursday I took care of errands first thing, then just enyoyed the rest of the day. I went out for drinks with a friend and ended up finding a great hooka bar on the LES, the atmosphere was really great, big sofas with fluffy pillows, dark except warm toned lights and candles, great decor, we got VIP treatment since it was rather late and pretty much empty. I haven't smoked hooka since Dave moved away after I almost forgot how relaxing and suprisingly entertaining of a cultural past time this is. Being of curious minds we research hooka on wikipedia and that brought even more enjoyment into it. I recommend the apple flavor. There's a simple delight to it.
Oh did I mention the clowns, Burlesque strippers and free brownies? I have never been explained time and space by a clown before, but it went much like I would have expected. Yeah it was pretty good. I don't even remember what day that was.
Today I'm on SVU, first time in a while I've been on this set. I feel kind of outnumbered, as they're all clearly regulars, but fuck it, I have stuff to do. Hopefully the powers that be will give me another short day. I can think of funner things to do :)

Ani(and)ME

I've been watching anime recently as to get idea of where I want to take an upcoming script. I never really had much interest in the genre, maybe because all the Japanese animation I saw was Pokemon and the like. Though a couple of years ago I was introduced to El Hazard and watched it quite feverishly to the end. Quite literally since I remember having the flu at the time.

Since I decided to write an episodic pilot for Dead Land, my intent for watching anime was more for research. I used suggestions from Dave, who has much more experience with this genre and I must say he hasn't steered me wrong yet. I first started watching Full Metal Alchemist. The series had a fantastic progression in characterization as well as storyline. The pacing given for character reveals was very well done and there's this humor to it that somehow has the capability of often surprising. There's a very particular comedy to anime that is often very quick in its delivery. I watched some 40 or so episodes and then the movie. Now I am watching Avatar. Though this series is much more innocent and geared toward a younger audience, it still provides many of the same qualities.

Though anime may not be the truest genre for Dead Land, I think Dead Land will find its home somewhere in between anime and more gritty American adult oriented cartoons. One thing is certain, I seriously underestimated anime. I'm sorry Japan.

"Where Are the Stars of Police Academy?"

As retribution for recently doubting someone's endless wisdom, I present, "Where are the stars of Police Academy?"

.....................................................................


Steve Guttenberg:
(Cadet Carey Mahoney)

I ask you, what boy in the 80's didn't love Short Circuit. I myself was obsessed. No shame. Steve Guttenberg was the shit in the 80's. There's just no denying it. Steve is hard at work on his next blockbuster, Major Movie Star, co-starring Jessica Simpson. A match made in heaven.

Kim Cattrall:
(Cadet Karen Thompson)

Yes, she too was propelled into stardom thanks to PA. Then Sex and the City
came along and ruined all her credibility as an actress. Fortunately some of us remember her in the role of Spock’s apprentice in Star Trek IV. She's currently starring in the Sex and the City movie.

G. W. Bailey:
(Lt. Thaddeus Harris)

He was no-good, that’s for sure. And always the butt of a good cadet prank. Bailey is playing a Det. Lt. on the police show, "The Closer." Stretching out those ole’acting chops.

Bubba Smith:
(Cadet Moses Hightower)

With a name like Bubba, it’s a good thing he’s 6'7'’ or people’d be mocking him into a cornered fetal position. FYI, not his birth name. Bubba’s still at it, playing a hulk referee in 2004's The Coach.

George Gaynes:
(Cmndt. Eric Lassard)

That dumb-witted leader of a group of cadet misfits, who could resist his charm? Also Punky Brewster’s foster father. Come on!! Speaks 7 languages. He last played a Father on Just Married.

David Graf:
(Cadet Eugene Tackleberry)

The other tall guy. Except this one’s dead. Why the movie needed two giants I’m not sure. But if I had to choose one or the other, I tell you I just COULDN’T!!!

Leslie Easterbrook:
(Sgt. Debbie Callahan)

Nicknamed "Bunny." I don’t really remember her character, but she was in every damn one but #2. She’s got various projects going on, but since I can’t remember her so I don’t really care.

Michael Winslow:
(Cadet Larvell Jones)

"Skilled at making highly realistic sound effects with only his mouth." You remember him now right? This is the guy that got me in trouble. Works in stand-up comedy now. He is the only character to appear in all the installments of Police Academy, including all seven movies, the cartoon, and the TV series. And that makes him GOD!

Recycled

Well the car is more or less done.... I think. I went home on Friday to retrieve it. And though it runs fine, the engine light in one and the damn thing continues to rev while in park and neutral gears. Don't ask me how the garage missed it. I tried to get it back into the garage on Saturday but no luck. So I said fuck, I'm taking it. I bought a few more things for my apartment, as I am trying to give my place a bit of personality. I have lived here about a year and half now and this place has until now been geared 100% to functionality and 0% toward aesthetics. So little by little I am going to spruce the place up. It does make a difference I'm noticing even with the small amount of stuff I have purchaed thus far. It's starting to feel like a real apartment. As for my car.... I didn't have any problems on the drive down, though I must say I am a bit nervous should I elect to drive to CT for work. It wouldn't be good if I was stranded somehwere in between and unable to get to set, for numerous reasons. I don't know, we'll see. I will feel better after I talk with the garage I suspect.


I was thinking of going to watch "Across the Universe" today, but I think I'm ditching the idea. I would have liked to have seen it upstate, since I the feeling like I should be productive was removed up there. But it's only in limited release until next week. It was the first movie I was in when I started on the whole actor in NY thing, and responsible for 2 of the 3 waivers I needed to enter SAG, so I'd like to see it because of that. Plus it looks pretty damn good, its only fault so far being reminding a little too much of "Moulin Rouge." I have a second or two on-screen which might also have something to do with all this. Usually I don't care about such things, but I think because this was the first time I had worked on something big....eh whatever.


So in looking for a bookcase at my parents' house, I found my old acoustic guitar. Honestly I had forgot that I kept it around. You see the guitar has been in unrepairable condition after a drunk now-ex sat on it during some summer bash I was hosting when I was renting out a house. I remember the moment SO clearly. Looking over in disbelief, everyone about looking over with awkward "oh shit" looks on their faces. Luckily I was already sitting. Strangely I didn't get very upset for how important the guitar had been to me. But I couldn't part with it, so I kept it in box without intent or purpose. And then 4 years later I am digging around for a bookcase and there it is. My first thought was that I'd just hang it on my wall. But the guitar is unusually heavy, so I decided to gut it out to make it lighter. Then the idea came to turn it into a shelf. And that's where the craziness began (the items inside are temporary until I buy stuff for it, most of the ideas for my apartment at this point are somewhat incomplete)...

Animal House

Well, it's been a terrible month. Absolutely fucking horrible. But it's over now.

I went home (upstate) at some point. I planned on only staying there a few days and I ended up there for a week and a half. Why you ask? Well I decided to invest in my car and finally get it back on the road. So I insured it, registered it and had it towed to a garage. Unfortunately this garage sucked fucking elephant balls and wasted 3 days of my time not mention overpriced me on a part. So I got it out of there and took it to a certified Honda garage. I am much happier with Honda's service, though it remains in the garage until Tuesday because of this fucking holiday shit. The work I turned down! OH the work!!! It was sick, I had about 6 calls for it, but I declined because I just wanted to get the car done and drive it back to the city, rather than take a train down and then come all the way back up for it once it was done. It added another bit of stress to my week that I really could have done without. This isn't to say I didn't have some good times. Staying up there that long gave me some opportunities I don't usual have, like trying to relax. I managed to get a fair amount of pool time in, tanned up a bit, visited as many people I as could, spent almost an entire day napping, there were also ridiculous times like eating dinner over to my father's - I was being my usual smart-ass self, picking on my step-mother for stealing all the crunchies off the mac and cheese and so we ended stealing food off eachother's plates and have a giggle fest so badly that we were accused of being high. I also invented a new game. This is because my sister's house is currently overrun with felines. 9 cats in all. Yes 9 like, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Mostly kittens. The game is called Kitty Bomb. You basically toss a cat into a unsuspecting group, as you exclaim "kitty bomb" and then run away. She also has two dogs, a Boxer and a Rot-mix who are either also picking fights with eachother (friendly ones) or with me. Not to mention quite insistent about sleeping on the couch with me and stinking up the night with their gassy little butts. And there are my two neices. So it's very much a mad house. And the extremes of being here and being there are pretty extreme let me tell you.

There was also a moment when my sister thought she had an extra bone in her foot and with some help I came up with the nickname "the bone collector" for her, continuing with "she collects the bones of innocents to add spares to her own body" then it turned out that her foot was actually broken, so the nickname was kind of lost. But fortunately they gave her a big boot cast which I started referring to as her Robocop foot, making mechanical noises while she hobbled around on it, adding beeps and "disengaged" when she would sit down. Hey I'm a brother, this kind of stuff is expected of me really.

Well anyway, I decided I needed to get back here as I am working Tuesday and Wednesday, so I took the train home. And it was a fucking nightmare. As usual the train was an hour late into the Saratoga station and I didn't get into my place until about 6 hours after I had started off. So I'm not really sure what this week holds. I will hopefully be working during the whole fucking thing and when I get a chance I'll be taking that bitch-ass Amtrak back up to get my car and drive it back here.

How To Detect A Bad Idea

I had the perfect plan. I would take a serving of protein powder and bring it with me today, with it a piece of paper to use as a funnel and when I felt hungry I would add the protein powder to a half bottle of water using the paper funnel and booya! Instant nutrition! Unfortunately I didn't get the opportunity to try it until I was on the subway. And when I was on the subway I didn't have a seat.

How to you detect a bad idea? It's simple. Something will go off. Something inside you. That sounds much like, "oh fuck me."

The funnel didn't funnel. The powder caked. The bottle shifted. It was messy. It was on the floor. On my hands. On my pants. On my bag. On my shoes. On my nerves. I ripped a hole in the plastic bag carrying it. It worked barely better. But I just kept at it. I was not about to give up. The mess had already been made. Giving up, well that would have just been complete failure. And damn it, if I could still get a shake out of all this. Then let there mess, at least I would have succeeded still. At least I would be nourished. And so I stayed the course and had my shake. That's my story.

I was called today to work BG on film shooting in midtown...today. So I got my shit together and made for the location. Quite happy in the fact that I didn't have to travel downtown and then subsequently to New Jersey, as I have been for the last month. The only unfortunate thing about the day was that the scenes were all exteriors and midtown is a pretty fucking chaotic place to do exterior scenes in the middle of the day or during rush hour, what with Rockefeller Center and Times Square right there. And we were there for both of them. It was sickening. I hate crowds anyway, but this was pushing your way through person after person, not really knowing where the hell to be and the like. I might have needed a break at some point. I MIGHT have wondered off set for a bit to get away from the insanity. I MIGHT have used that time to go to my bank to make a deposit. I don't know though, doesn't sound quite like me. The day was relatively short. Well to me, it seemed like a half-day. 7 hours. That's nothing, a walk in the park!! I've been doing double days for who knows how long, probably got golden time on three different occasions in the last three weeks. Really 7 hours! It's a hiccup.

Anyway tomorrow I'll be standing- in on a series. It's the same series that I was offered regular stand in work on before, but couldn't take because I was already committed to Choke. I'd like to think that maybe I still have a shot, but seeing as how I am on a second unit tomorrow, I'm not getting my hopes up. I'm just happy for the work. Still I'm going to shave just in case. The real bonus is that THIS set is even closer. Right in Queens. I'm coming home SCup!!

Back To The Drawing Board

Well some 3 months after losing my license in a taxi cab, I finally went to the DMV today and applied for a replacement card. I now have my temporary license and am expecting my real card within the next couple of weeks. Why did it take so long? pro-crast-I-nation! But really I didn't have much incentive. I don't drive anymore. I look old enough to have never been questioned upon entering a bar. I am able to use my old passport for work identification. And that's it. I really didn't have any complications due to my lack of a license. Compound that with the nightmare-like vision I had of going to a DMV office in NYC and I really didn't have any reason to apply for a new license....except that eventually I would need it. So today I went and the line was ....intimidating. But I stuck with it and waited ever so patiently. For some reason people kept approaching me and asking me questions about the whole process, which lines to go in and the like. So I became the information desk apparently. It even got to the point of ridiculousness of someone approaching me to borrow my pen, no one else, just me. Well anyway long story short I was able to skip a few steps and I got out of there much more quickly that I anticipated.

In other news I think I've come to the conclusion that I need to rethink the storyline of my script. I am just stuck in it and I think why I'm getting nowhere is because I'm just not happy with the story and so I'm stalling. I procrastinate with some things yes, but not with writing, not when I'm truly into what I'm writing. So I got to accept that I have to come up with some new ideas and move on from there. Yup.

I recently caught an headline about Barry Bonds tying Hank Aaron in home runs. I happen to think this is bullshit. Forget about Bonds being a prick. Which he certainly seems. Aaron actually earned the home run record, while Bonds pumped his body with steroids to enhance his performance. So why the fuck does his shit even count? I'm not going to say fuck you Bonds cuz there's a slight chance the media has just painted you an asshole, but I'll sure as hell say fuck your record.

I recently watched Demon Days: Live in Manchester Opera House. Now if I had to choose between Demon Days and Gorillaz first album, I would pick their debut. I'm just really into the blend of alternative and hip-hop sounds. BUT!!! having seen Demon Days live I gotta say I like the album much better. Though I would have loved it had it been a full visual concert showcasing the characters, it was pretty awesome to see the mass involvement that formed the sounds of each track. "Dirty Harry" was fucking brilliant! But probably the song that really impressed me seeing it live was "Demon Days" itself. Maybe because the track on the actual album didn't really stand out to me. I think songs get produced so much sometimes that you can't really hear the true sounds, instruments of the song, because they're just too....perfect. I kinda of joked about that once for DCUP, but there may be some actual truth to it. 2-D and Murdoc made a guest appearance in the balcony, so I'd like to think the concert was actually Damon Alburn covering Gorillaz.

Meanwhile I try to return to something of a "normal" schedule, going to bed at say 3am instead of 7 in the morning. Tonight I hope to be in snooze land by 1am.

All Good Things....

Well that's it for me. At the end of last night (this morning) Sam Rockwell was wrapped on the film I was working on. We were in a big gymnasium for most of the night and the atmosphere was pretty casual and upbeat, I'm sure because the star of the movie was wrapping. After they announced the end of Sam Rockwell's run of the movie, the 1st AD made an announcement that applied particulary to me, "ladies and gentlemen, that is a picture wrap for Rick second team." This was news to me I must say, since I was told my last day would be the 9th. Granted I was standing-in for Rockwell, and he was done, so it makes sense that I would be too. I guess I was just thinking that I'd be used as a utilty stand in. Not the case. The announcement was also odd because the applause that I got from cast and crew was phenominal. I was not expecting so much. In fact I had to make various gestures to past the time as people clapped for me and I still ended up standing there with my head down, looking up and smiling at the crowd around me, completely embarassed by all the attention. I mean I talked to people here and there and made a few friends I guess, but I ...yeah I just didn't know I was so popular. It's odd that it was my last day, people I was slightly more open and talkative that day. I had a brief conversation with the author of the book that the movie is based on (the book and movie being 'Choke.') I also told people of my ghost hunting expeditions and endevoured in a food challenge with one of the producers.
So yeah, now I'm looking for work again. It sucks. Next week on "Choke" their hours are kind of normal and I was really looking forward to that. I'm also used to steady work now, work that I didn't have to seek out. Eh, it sucks. But whatever I'll make good use of the sudden free time I'm sure. Plus there is more and more work coming in, so I should be okay. Yeah, that's it for now.

Where Does the Time Go>>>>>>

Not a complaint. But holy fuck I am worn down!! Fucking beat! These hours man!! It's almost 7:30am and I haven't slept yet. And the tops I'm gonna get before I start for work again is about 5 hours, that's if I go to sleep RIGHT now. Yikes!

The Cat Factory

This is the first day I've actually had a wireless or as I like to call it an ireless connection while working. And now that I have time to catch up I have indeed forgotten everything I wanted to say. So I am more or less writing to jog the process, and maybe I'll get into my script about, which I have worked on very minimally while filming. In defence of myself, it's not the easiest environment, pulled away every 10 or so minutes, rushing about, people yelling out things and having to always pay attention to whats going on. Still... there's is a little opportunity in there, and I really should seize it. Today I'm in Newark, and maybe it's cuz I'm a New Yorker, but I don't like it much here, just not impressed. Anyway, who cares.

One thing I have been meaning to bring up is a big Congratulations to team "Mommy, Why is Grandpa Crying" on the Cash4Cadavers foster. 2 deaths in two weeks! Really that's fantastic!

Another one is my idea for a music video for "The Knife." The song is "Pass This On." Now I know they already have a video for it. It is divinely odd in a transvestite doing karaoke in a retirement home sort of way. But if I ever had a vision of "The Knife" they would be brother and sister cats, not any cats, but the Siamese cats from "Lady and the Tramp." The female cat (singer) would have a mohawk and wear bracelets up and down her arms and also sport leg warmers. The male cat would have an oversized blazer rolled up to his knobby elbows and a star spangled banner bandana on his head with Jack sunglasses; he'd be using Mike Rutherford's custom double neck guitar so he could switch from bass to lead in a snap. The steel drums would of course by played by Jamaican cat with a reefer hanging out of his mouth. His fur would be all matty and twisted into dreadlocks. The keyboard played would be a skinless albino cat. He would be the reserved quiet member who'd sit in the corner at all the major aftershow parties, but it'd count for major sex appeal with the pussy...cats that is.

That's it for now.

Tag You're It!

Apparently I've been tagged, not that I knew what this meant before reading on, but I am obligated to write a certain something and condemn others that read my blog to the same sentence. HAHAHA FOOLS!!!


"1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts. 2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves. 3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules. 4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. 5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog. "

1: When I stand still I stand on the balls of my feet and slightly leaned forward, taking all the weight off my heel. I have no idea why I do this. I also walk with my legs very closely together apparently. The proof? All my pants tend to wear holes in the ankle area.

2. I went slightly mad during my last year in college. Some examples that I remember.... jumping off rooftops, gutting and carving a pumpkin into a Jack O'Latern and wearing it over my head, making sculptures out of silverwear, scaling buildings, being so wasted I had no idea where I was in the middle of the dayor how I had gotten there (that may have actually been during a visit to Bard after I left).... I think it was Tivoli, I still don't really know, many many many elaborate charade pieces, an army of tiny aliens marching in and out of my nose, a beast caretaker/caged beast bit that I just can't explain verbally, sculpting a flower out of a coke can.... I can't remember much more, it was 8 years ago after all.

3: I was once wanted to be a fireman, carpenter and a chemist. Though a the time that I wanted to be a chemist I really had no idea what one was. I just liked the idea of being a mad scientist. In fact I was given some kind of child's chemistry set for Christmas one year, I remember it degrading to me mixing as many bottles of stuff from the set together in a plastic bowl in my background and lighting it all on fire. What a fucking pyro. Anyway that's the way all chemists should be. I'm still not exactly sure what it is a chemist DOES.



4: I am the producer and member of the cult hit hip hop group DCUP. My alter ago, Brekken Brekk aka, Brekken 360 is pretty close to the polar opposite of me, except for one thing.... we both like to get DOWWWWNNN!!!! My alter ego has also been affiliated with the ever brash hip hop band "House of Chicks."

5: I hardly ever wear shorts. I have chicken legs. And as Milhouse says on that one time traveling episode of "The Simpsons" where Homer has the bachelor pad under water, calves are the hardest area of the body to add mass!!

6: I don't laugh easily.

7: I am observer and I tend to analyse things sometimes too much. I have a real interest in the human psychology and cause/effect (including my own) and if I had to pursue a "real" job and the necessary college education, I would probably go in that direction.

8: Adventure is the name of the game. I want to travel as much as I possibly can in my lifetime. the tops sites would be... Italy again, Greece, Turkey, Malta (hell, all the Mediterranean.), Egypt, Scotland, Ireland, France again, England, Africa and the moon.


Ok, I really don't know many people that have blogs, Dave, Curran and Sara you're it!

Smells Fishy

Jeez, work had kept me pretty tied up. Last weekend was a brief 1 ½ days because of an overnighter on Friday. Sunday I went out and did some careless shopping to celebrate my abundance of employment. My bought myself a Zune, I know I know....what the hell is that? It’s much like a Ipod with video capabilities. Except I’m not paying for a name and not quite a cool as the average joe, which is fine with me. I spent much less and got more much. So naturally when time has been allowed I have been filling it up with a nice diverse library of tunes and a few videos.
The second thing I purchased was a new phone. My sidekick had been falling apart and having more and more frequent glitches and it was about time to turn it in. What did I purchase? The Sidekick ID. I wanted to be a little more adventurous but there was really nothing out there that compared in the features department in the same price range. It just didn’t feel like paying 400 bucks for a phone. Anyway, I am happy with the new Sidekick, it’s put together a little better and has a fun game complimentary. I was getting bored with Tetris honestly. You don’t know how many times I played that damned game.
And then I bought myself some clothes. Yeah, clothes, nothing too exciting about that.

Pretty much all of the filming left is being done in an abandoned mental institution that production is using as their own temporary stages. It's said the place is hunted... yes that's right up my allet isn't it... people feeling a squeezing sensation around their bodies, toy bowling pins mysteriously replaced in the same spot every night, but I haven't had any experiences. The place is however, to say the very least, interesting. It's 700 acres of old buildings. It looks like a riot had broken out before is was left, rooms are cluttered with anything and everything... boxes of personal belongings, shoes, various equipment, tv's, pianos, files, office supplies...the list goes on and on indefinitely. Despite production's best efforts, last night went into Golden Time once again. I barely made it to 16 hours, but I did it. I was definitely ready for the weekend. The job hasn't offered me much sleep, but I'm not complainging. I'm certainly not complaining. Something I find occasionally challenging is not offering my creative advice on a film. I know no one wants it, but I get some really good ideas on set sometimes that I would just love to offer to the director. Oh well, their loss!
I finally broke down the other day and played some of instruments in that room while waiting for crew to set up. I totally dig the zylophone!!! And I was fucking rocking out! One of the crew stopped working and gave me a nod, so I know they were digging my jive.
There's also this restaurant on my way to the train station that is really starting to make me sick. It's a seafood place, and it keeps its dumpster close to the sidewalk. So everytime I pass by I'm flooded by the stench of rotting fish. It totally turns me off to fish for about 15 mins. Eh....

Music Shuffle

(In the collecting of music lately....)

The most emotionally bipolar song I can think of: full version of Peter Gabriel’s "I Grieve"... to me the story of a person who has lost the love of his life and stuck in memory of her, until he reminds himself that there is a scope to the world and everything in it that makes anything of a singular personal nature minuscule in comparison. But by the end of the song the idea is gone as emotion reclaims him and he is left alone and grieving again.

One of the most romantic songs I can think of: "Blood of Eden" also by Peter Gabriel. Despite the biblically-themed title, the harmony of Pete and Sinead O’Connor is undeniably moving and enough right there to qualify "Blood of Eden" as a top notch candle-lit love making soundtrack. However PG is a masterful lyricist and describes the union of two lovers pretty damn effectively. Plus I think Pete is a Buddhist, if not a sceptic of organized religions. He more uses the reference as an allegory.

The best comeback song I can think of at this moment: "Down"by Stone Temple Pilots. Yeah they had rough seas in the follow-up of "Purple." Tiny Music.... didn’t really present much ambition. And though I kind of remember "#4" being a bit monotonous, the first track, "Down" fucking rocks shit out! I would say it brought them back to their roots, but it kind of brought them back and then stamped it with a "new and improved" seal. A fucking awesome free weight song. Can you feel the burn bitch????

Caught in the Act

Ugh! I'm never going to catch up at this rate! I'll probably forget most of what I wanted to say by the time I get time to really post.

Randomity

I don't really have time to blog tonight, but I am going to anyway. Let's see...mostly random things...

I like foamy soap. I don't know why, I just do. If I see a bathroom has foamy shop there's a little exclamation inside my mind that sounds like, "hey, foamy soap!"

Recently while I answered the phone to a friend, we were playing with the idea that being a working actor I need a good greeting when I answer the phone. I was trying out, "what you got for me?" I still kinda like it.

I recently blogged about hating the hip handshake. One handshake I don't mind is the fist handshake. Nice and simple. Pound your fist into someone else's fist. I can do THAT!

"Steamburg" both an actual and a fictional place. The fictional one was discovered sometime during the Ohio trip. Any comments out of context or generally awkward and weird resulted in the driver turning the car around and heading for Steamburg. Unfortunately the car ALWAYS crashes on the way to Steamburg. Therefore I don't believe anyone has ever been there.
I have no idea what someone said today but I thought I heard lobster mash, so for hours I was inserting lobster mash lyrics to the tune of "Monster Mash."

Discovered the expression, "bent like a crazy straw" today. I can't wait to use it.

A little while ago I blogged about an apparent brain embolism on of the Astoria Blvd train station. While I was on the platform again night time and the flashes came again. Well I figured it out...There is a camera on the street level that takes periodic photos of the station, for security reasons I'm sure. The only thing is I was dancing shit out when it was taking pictures this time. Now I don't dance much in public or in front of anybody I know even. I'm just not a good dancer. I move to the music alright, it's just....I dance weird, anyone that's seen my patented dance moves knows this.

Today I was in a room with musical instruments, namely percussion and piano. It's so hard for me not to pick at them and play them a bit. It's just an impulse. I see an instrument I want to PLAY it, get some notes out of it. It's like when I listen to songs, I almost always sing along to them, that includes on the sidewalk with my headphones on, passers-by be warned.

Eh, I must go. What a senseless post.

The Handshake

I hate the handshake... scratch that...I hate the cool handshake, the one in which you move into a bunch of combos and snap fingers and shit. That's the one I hate. I NEVER know what to do and its ALWAYS awkward. I don't know if there's some standard cool handshake out there that everyone used as a base or everyone invents their own and expects everyone else to adapt to it. I HATE it. I'm not playing along anymore. If someone wants to shake my hand, they can shake it the fucking normal way.

..............Unless I'm just being stupid with someone then I'll do it.

The Missing Piece of the Puzzle

Ryan and Mr. Pizza Box say 'ah.'

HAHAHAHA NO SLEEP!!! WOOHOOO!!!!!!

Three Ears

To illustrate how unusual my days at this job are, last night I ended up bringing home three uncooked ears of corn.

It's Golden Baby!

I got that motha fucking golden ticket from Willy Wonka and I'm running up and down the streets with that shit, yo! Of course I refer to golden time, that 16+ hour mark in a SAG actor's work day when they start marking some mad cash. It's near legend. This is my second time getting it. 17 1/2 hours in total today.

A little more than two hours ago yesterday I woke up to go to work and I just back back from that day about 15 minutes ago. What's with the gap? Well that would mostly be all the fucking time it took to get back to my apartment. Major traffic and subway delays had me pulling my hair out and in the mood to smash something, not just break, SMASH! But fuck it, I'm home now.

My name has finally made it onto the call sheet. And so it should! Not only am I standing in for pretty much all the characters, today I did some background as well, playing a bored Colonial guard. Also got some writing done. My phone was causing me some headaches, as I have no internet capabilities or emailing. Well I gotta get to bed. Night y'all.

Forgotten Things

I had a long list of things I wanted to get done today and I managed all of them. Well, I would have liked to have written more, but I believe I have committed to a story line, so this is good. It's been one of the things slowing me down with the script. Since a laptop isn't practical right now for work, I am bringing my note book to write. Working isn't enough, I need to be otherwise productive while I work, or during the down time at least.

A couple of things about the ghost trip I forgot to mention....

- I saw a bear running across the road.

- we found a dead bird in the road, with all her babies chirping about near her. So we moved the bird off of the road to prevent the babies from dying. They were pretty much able to fly, so I think they have a chance.

- I thought I saw a UFO while on a mountain near Pinebush. We were on the trails, it was cloudy and I saw this craft in the sky zig zagging and ....vibrating. It was a good minute before it revealed itself as a jet. I guess the cloud coverage made the effect.

- Clancy kept saying he was going to "dominate" this and that and so we all soon using the expression, it got sick fast.

Now onto a couple of ideas I came up with others that are themed in the environments that they were formed.

The Deer King: (This a two week old idea, if anyone remembers the specifics better than me, please present them.)

This idea came about while we were in the abadoned military base, home of the alleged ghost deer. It kind of felt like a SNL skit. A man enters the woods and sees all these deer (the place was filled with deer) . And for a reason I don't remember he becomes the leader of the deer, I think he fights the head deer and then he stakes over his position and becomes more and more deer-like, prancing and such. Well times passes and about 20 years later a stoned college student enters the woods and encounters the deer king. And the deer king tries to convince the stoner to take his spot as the king. There was something more funny about all of this, but I don't remember. The deer king is also known for trying to hot wire the cars of people who park near the woods.....yeah, sorry, I don't remember too much of the story.

The Rat Parade:
I was stuck of the subway with a friend the other day and my friend suggests that the train is waiting for someone to get out of the way, so I make like a rat, and scuttle across the track. My friend soon suggests there is a rat parade. And so began the details. A rat in lead, bouncing a wand, the parade melody, rats holding brass instruments jiving to the melody as they walk, acrobatic rats, rats holding onto parade balloons, the rat crowd cheering, little rat kids on their rat parents' shoulders, holding bag of popcorn dropped from the street level, a Ricky Martin (i think) rat on a parade float.....That's all I can remember.

I don't know, maybe you had to be there.

Theme Songs: Part 2

This might qualify as the unofficial theme song for the trip. There doesn't seem to be a music video for it.

Theme Songs

This was the official song for the recent ghost hunting expidition, mainly for its catchiness and build up. It so happens the video for it is very odd.

Work, Work, Work

Okay, so yeah, despite not having a call time for Monday, it seems like I am working for the next month doing stand-in on a film. The past week has been pretty tiring, the hours have been long and it's been a lot of waking up early. Which is fine, because I am finally making some money. I don't really want to name the film until I am done working on it. But each day has brought at least something interesting, and the last couple of days have been pretty serene as were are filming in a Colonial town somewhere in Jersey. Thursday and Friday a friend was working on set with me, which was fun. I hope more of my colleagues will get to work on the film, as it's like friends are coming to see me.

Well, I definitely have not to blog, but I think it will have to wait until tomorrow.

Peace.

2nd Team

Haven't really had the chance to say anything, actually still don't....but needless to say I am not in Cape Cod, I am back in NYC. I was offered a stand-in gig for the next month on a movie and I happily accepted. It's going well so far, very long hours but that's what we like around here. Time to make some money!! I heard the loudest thunder-clap today. It made the roots of my teeth shake... really! It was amazing, I even jumped a little bit. Everyone did. NJ was a monsoon today. Until I get more time....

A Week In Ghost Hunting

[Unlike the details of Adventure 2007, where I was given the opportunity to occasionally charge my laptop, this trip allowed no such convenience. Therefore the account has been documented post facto..... in other words, I’ll try to remember as much shit as I can.]

Though not quite the perilous expedition I was somewhat expecting, Adventure 2 of 2007 has lived up to expectation in the way of good friends and good times. I had a fine time during my very brief stay upstate before Dave came to pick me up for festivities. Since my parents were away I agreed to babysit their dogs, four in all. And naturally my nieces wanted to sleep over to their house with me, so they were added into the whole babysitting mix. The following day I was outta there. We were all convening in Ithaca. After the reunion, we geared up and proceeded to our first destination. The abandoned military base. Getting in was much easier than any of us anticipated. We basically drove up a somewhat secluded road, parked the car behind an abandoned county truck, climbed the fence and we were in. The area was quite vast. But immediately ahead of us was an old run down building, I guess a building where weapons or what not were melted down. The place was pretty cool, two levels with a large antique control room and tubs under of the floor filled with about 5 feet of water. There was a tower attached to the building which I climbed to gain a better perspective of the place. There wasn’t really much going on, I could see the prison a bit away and an abandoned line of railcars down the dirt road. We continued down that road and inspected the cars quickly, as there wasn’t much interesting about them, then a few igloo-like storage units that were locked up tight and impenetrable.

The paranormal attachment to the place was reports of ghost deer. Indeed the lands kept an amazing population of deer, more deer than I have EVER seen. Mixed in among the normal deer were a few white deer here and there. Ghost deer: debunked. Though I can honestly say I have never seen a pure white deer before, I would have much rather caught a glimpse of a ghost deer. At some point we decided to return to the car to get some food and alcohol in us before we continued on. As we neared the gate we caught a peek at a white truck approaching. We responded by hiding quickly behind the tall grass and waiting for the truck to leave. But as we were exiting, a man was waiting at the gate. Since our car was on the other side, there was really no avoiding him. He was nice enough to inform us that we were trespassing on a government installation. He was actually pretty annoyed by it and the cell phone is his hand suggested that he was about to or had already called the police. Yeah, he was a dick, and while Dave was apologizing to him and trying to come up with a reason why we were there. I walked up and told him that we were there because we heard about white deer and we were hoping to see them. When he said we could just go up the road to see them, I told him we had been there already and hadn’t seen any. He didn’t know what to saw to this and we kind of just stared at each other for a moment. We apologized for parking the car in his property (now I’m thinking he was lying about that) and got out of there.

We decided it wasn’t really worth going back as we planned since there wasn’t anything too interested to go back to. Instead we went to a bar and played darts and drank and talked. It was a very long game of darts due to both the crappy board and broken darts. It came down to Clancy and me, but in the end I took the victory. From there we went back to Curran’s, picked up his girlfriend got some more drinks and headed to the cemetery, as shown below.















At some point we made it onto a college campus, snuck into a fraternity house, used their pool table, stole a book each, and one skull and left through a window, Clancy carrying all items in a stolen garbage bucket. To be honest I was so completely wasted, I don’t know how I managed to remember it.














It was about this time that we basically became nocturnal beings, staying up until anywhere between 4am to 9am and sleeping during the majority of the day. The following destination was a place called Split Rock Quarry. Long ago it boasted a very successful limestone mining operation.But in 1918 a fire broke out. The flames (and toxic fumes) were so intense it pushed firefighters back for over an hour. As it continued to spread from building to building, the fire hoses lost pressure. But the firefighters and workers continued in their efforts, believing the pressure would soon be restored. Unfortunately it wasn’t and soon the munitions building caught and 1-3 tons of TNT made an explosion that rocked the area so strongly that people thought it was an earthquake. 50 people were killed. A mass burial was conducted for the several limbs and unidentifiables in one big grave.

Well it took us forever to find this fucking thing. We walked trails for miles and no sign. We tried to extract information from locals at a dive bar. We looked for hints online. Finally it was a group of teenage kids who pointed us in the right direction. Figures I guess. I gotta say, one of the more fun things to do on this trip was fucking with people. Having said that as we were approaching the great stone crusher, he hear voices....human voices. We all duck down and Curran and I proceed in stealth mode. We can hear them more distinctly now, two guys and a girl, early 20's maybe. Now we are quite a ways away from them and higher elevation- wise. So I pick up a stone and throw it in their direction. They hear it and the girl SCREAMS something horrible. And one of the guys says, “I swear on my mother’s grave, I heard something over there ” As they make their way down the trail and back to the road we continue throwing rocks to make noises and JUST as they are about out of range, I make a blood-curdling scream from the depths of my fucking soul. I can only imagine they booked it the fuck out of there. Now that they were gone it was time to inspect the ruins. It was actually quite impressive, this stone crusher thing looked like half of a Mayan pyramid from the side. We scaled the rock on the back side of it to the top. It’s kind of hard to describe what it looked like, but there was plenty of opportunity for a good 100 foot fall. We climbed back down and approached the stone crusher from its foot. On each side were man-made tunnels. We entered them and occasionally stood still, closing our eyes and trying to imagine the events that took place there, trying to open ourselves up to any energies. Though it was at first kind of creepy being in this tunnel with weird writings on the walls, I wasn’t sensing anything, none of us were experiencing anything and after one time of accidentally scaring people when I shifted after the lights were out, I decided I had to do something. So I waited until we turned out the lights again and everyone was silent, and then yelled or made a noise and scared the fuck out of Clancy. It was HIGH LARRY ASS Before we left were tried to invoke spirits by other means as well, i.e. reading an account of the disaster, singing a song from that period, I even yelled a recorded quote the foreman yelled to the men right before the explosion. We got nothing and so we moved on.

We went straight from that location to another, the Oriskany Battlefield. The sightings reported here were more of a residual kind. We didn’t reach this site until about 4am. Since it was on the roadside, we entered the woods in a section we thought might lead us more discreetly to the battlefield. Though we ultimately had to turn around and walk down the road, there were still a few good moments, i.e. entering through an opening in the forest that resembled the mouth of a very demonic looking face (per the shapes of branches and tree) and an eery sound...that turned out to be a toad. In fact most of the alarming sounds during this trip were made by toads. There was nothing at all creepy about the battlefield and if there -was- anything there, it wasn’t interested in making itself known. And so we moved on. Yeah, at 6 in the morning we made for our next destination.

Old Forge - Big Moose Lake - Adirondack Park. It was here where Grace Brown was killed by her fiancé Chester Gilette in the early 1900's, drowned in the river. There murder has inspired many literary and film works, the most famous being, “An American Tragedy.” It is said that Brown’s spirit resides there still.













We drove around for a while looking for the lake and stopped by a place to have the most amazing donut I have ever eaten. We reached our campsite around 8am and passed out by 9. Long story short, a few teenagers pointed us to the right place, but because the area was all residential and even the kids didn’t find the site all that exciting, he instead decided to go back to our campsite and enjoy the night with alcohol, s’mores and very long (and at times very disturbing) games of “marry, fuck, kill.”














The next day was July 4th. We went back to Ithaca, watched “Transformers,” and participated in more drinking, more grave yards, personal fireworks, and billiards. At one point we were just walking around and came across a group of girls singing into a phone. They asked us over and wanted us to help them sing “American” songs into their friend’s voicemail. I guess she was Venezuelan and just about to gain American citizenship. Somehow we persuaded to sing “Hey jude” which of course is NOT American, then other songs followed and more people joined in, it was like people just kept gravitating to the crazy drunk singing group on the sidewalk and lending their own voice to it. Figuring that was probably the highlight of the evening we just went back to Curran’s apartment and BS’ed and watched videos online. I’m happy to say I got everyone quoting either “Salad Fingers” or “Spoilsbury Toast Boy.”

Clancy was now gone and the next day there was great deliberation on whether to travel east or west, but we eventually settled on east. Destination: Pinebush, well known UFO hotspot. We were specifically looking for magnetic caves and our intent was to sleep in them for a night. Of course finding these things is much harder than we had considered. We had a couple of hints and so we drove up a nearby mountain. Since we weren’t supposed to be there at night, we had to yet again be sneaky. [As Dave and Curran got ready, I began to approach a deer that was feeding on some grass. It was a very surreal moment, in that the deer did not run away. I was probably no more than 10 feet away from her before she become nervous and slowly ambled off.] The complication to the day was the rain. It had been raining all day, it was still raining. The trail was at many times flooded over, forcing us to find a way around it, that was only a little more dry. When there was stone under the water, they often appeared to be on the surface and therefore I stepped in deep puddles twice. The mines were a ways off and after a little more than two miles of hiking, and only being halfway there, we decided it wasn’t worth it and headed back. Really we didn’t even know if these were the right caves. We drank and passed out in our seats of the car in a Hannaford parking lot. The next morning, at the behest of a local, we went to a barber who was supposed to have all sorts of knowledge about UFO stuff. Well he didn’t but he gave us a number to someone that did. Of course there was no answer. We then tried the library. Still nothing. The only thing for certain was that this town had a UFO club and they met every first Wednesday of the month. So we traveled in search of the next site.

Through incredible chance we found the next location, which was an abandoned mine called Tilly Foster Mines where several 13 people were killed in a collapse, set a little ways in the forest of a dirt road near Brewster, NY. We had decided to split up while we scouting for the opening and I just happened to have found it. Actually to be perfectly honest I noticed the dynamite shed while taking a leak and that lead me to the mine.





























It common sense that a mine is going to be colder than the temperature outside of it, but the difference was something incredible. The cold, moist air of this mine poured out of its opening and rolled straight down the hill. And the change in temperature was extreme to a surprising degree. The mine goes down about 600-700 feet, unfortunately it is completely flooded and we couldn’t travel beyond the iron front doors. At one point we were considering renting a canoe and proceeding. I am now glad that we did not, as none of us considered the almost certain possibility that the tunnels slanted down and we would have been completely fucked. The tunnels did have some amazing acoustics however and it was a pleasure to hear such natural reverberation. Afterwards we tried to find other caves, but it was nearly an impossible task so we gave up. After that we went to visit Ryan in Rhinebeck.

Since we had decided to just go upstate and I would take the train back to the city today (Sunday) we opted to check out one last place.

An abandoned dilapidated asylum near my area called Homestead Asylum. The site offered a few real risks along with the paranormal activity, as I’m sure you can imagine. Though most windows and doors were boarded up and a fence lined the parameter, it was easy enough to enter. The place was HUGE with multiple floors, varying degrees of disrepair and took quite some time to thoroughly inspect. We walked through old shower rooms, an auditorium with a stage, patients’ rooms, insanely (no pun intended) long hallways, a kitchen. The highlight though was the basement. We all had a particular feeling in a certain area of the basement (and by now I know Dave and I are not easily spooked, and Curran doesn’t seem to be either) and as we were addressing whatever spirits reside there, Dave snapped a photo in the direction of Curran and me. I have no idea what to think of those orbs. Then as we were looking at the picture, I felt a tap or something on my head, perhaps from the ceiling, but I am not certain. We weren’t able to capture anything else, but before we left we went back down to the basement. We decided to sing a children’s song for the hell of it. With no more success we spoke out saying that we were leaving now and that if it was going to make itself known, now was the time. And I shit you not, just as I say this there is a noise at the end of the room..... It turns out, the children’s infirmary was directly above this part of the basement. If you look closely at the roof top chapel pic, in between Curran and me there is a whole through the ground that went straight to the floor of the lower level.




























And so concludes Adventure 2 of 2007.

Ghosts, Bigfoot and UFO's Oh My!

I'm fucking outta here for two weeks. Week 1 will be spent with Dave, Clancy and Curran bouncing around New York State hunting down various ghosts and goblins. Week 2, should I survive week 1, I will be in Cape Cod with my family. Needless to say I have serious reservations about being away for so long. Mostly because of missing work and the like I guess, but whatever, I'm just going to try to enjoy myself as I think it's probably good that I get away for a while. I could definitely use the adventure. I am bored and uninspired, I am starting to feel like a spectator, or that I'm not really 'here', I don't know how else to describe it, but at any rate taking some action I think will get me out of that frame of mind.

So yeah, as you (and when I say you I am really talking to me, because I am pretty sure no one reads this fantastic blog anymore) recall Dave and I went on a similar trip at the beginning of the year, traveling down the east coast on a very planned route. In all modesty we did all we could in the way of ghost seeking to the point of standing in the middle of a haunted forest on the night of a full moon at midnight, taunting the ghosts to show themselves, or driving down a haunted back road with the windows rolled down playing a flute, or knowingly entering remote woods in the dark where you previously discovered all kinds of animal bones and skulls hanging from trees. That is the dedication we upheld in actually SEEING something. And after all that we had only a short moment of possible paranormal experience. So yes, I am certainly more of a skeptic now. That is why if I am going to redo this sort of thing, I want to bring it up a notch. Which brings us to the places we have planned including an abandoned (or not) army base with a radioactive past and reported ghost deer in the same general area.... oh and part of the base may be a prison I guess. Needless to say we won't know the specifics of this place until we scout it, if there are guards with guns and spotlights we will of course pass it up, but anything less and I completely willing to break and enter into an abandoned military base. Because of the actual risk of incarceration or detection we are only dedicating one night to this place and no alcohol will be involved. Other places include an abandoned mining tunnel somewhere in the Catskills, a haunted lake featured in Unsolved Mysteries, a well-known UFO hot spot where various underground tunnels surround nearby lakes with fucked up magnetic fields, an old fort where at least 50 people were killed simultaneously in a munitions explosion, various old remote graveyards of course, a battle field and some other places that besides their paranormal promises offer some kind of aesthetic quality as a back-up. I hope to encounter at least one 'thing' from which I feel fortunate to have walked away. Today I am going upstate to my parents' house for the night to pick up my camping gear and my katana sword, which I will aptly apply with holy water (no, I am not religious, but better safe than sorry.) Tomorrow Dave will be picking me up and from there its off to western NY. We don't really have the details of the plan yet, as it is really difficult to arrange such a thing with four people involved, therefore much of the design will come about tomorrow when we are all in the same room.

As for the Cape Cod end of the trip... I don't know. I really just going along with what my family has planned. I'm sure I will enjoy it once I am there, relaxing on the beach, getting myself a tan, swimming, eating out, sipping mixed drinks all day.

Well if I get the opportunity I will blog something sometime, as I like to document such adventures for future reference.

I just hope to fucking god, I get no good calls for work during the next two weeks!

Winter-time in Hell

Well I am getting my wish so far. I've been working since Sunday and tomorrow I will be doing my first promo in about a year. The pay is pretty good and I've been told it will be an easy day, so I'm looking forward to it.
Today was a BITCH. I am drained, completely fucking drained from the heat and sweat I dealt with under that fucking heavy-ass Kevlar fire-proof snow suit. That's really all I gots for now, too tired to bullshit about the small things.

Genius Today, Fireman Tomorrow

A quick recap. Extremes seem to be in style for the summer season. The other day I froze my ass off in the Apple store for 6 hours, working as a Genius employee on the movie, Starship Dave while today was a short and easy day Damages. Tomorrow will undoubtedly be full of sweat and ill-temper as I will be dressed up in full gear as a firefighter on Rescue Me. Did I mention it's going to be 90 degrees tomorrow? ...Yeah.

Also every day of work this week have been early calls. It sucks. I HATE waking up early! Wait, Am I complaining? Jeez man!! Last week I was complaining about having NO work. Really, I am grateful for it being busy. I will happily work non-stop to Friday. For then the plan commences. What plan, you ask? Not yet!

I was stuck sitting next to an annoying person the other day at work. There are some true generalizations about union and non-union actors and here they are: union actors complain about stupid pointless shit on set, they also brag about what they've done as much as humanly possible. While non-union actors have a tendency of hounding you about how to get into the union. Mind you I said GENERALizations. I generally don't like people, doesn't matter if they belong to a union or not. Anyway, I was stuck next to a non-union kid the other day. And he starts asking me stuff. Now I'll throw out what I think is the standard hints and tips, I mean I was given some advice when I started, so I see it as only fair. Well the guy asked me how to get the contact information for agencies and I told him to pick up the Ross Reports (a periodical that list all the talent agencies in NY and LA.) Then the guys exclaims, "but it's like 10 bucks." And that is where I shut him out. I'm sorry, you don't want to invest 10 dollars on your career, but you'll tell me about how you want to be an actor and you sit there and load your fucking backpack up with food from crafty which in all probability values about hmmm... 10 bucks maybe. I only got two words for you....

Fuck off.

And that's my story.

Killer Bird Witness

What have I been up to? Well... not much. I went upstate to visit family for about 4 days. It's the longest I've stayed up there in a while, but people wanted to see me so I stayed to make that possible. I haven't been up there much in the last year, so it was the least I could. Plus I really didn't have that antsy feeling I usually get when I am up there. I had a few accomplishments in my stay... completely embarassing my sister in Walmart once again, this time by yelling out "marinade" over and over in varying tones and inflections. Completely emabrassing my nieces at the bus stop by doing "the twist" as they got on board. And suggesting to my parents that we steal something from a restaurant before we left.

The return to the city has brought about anything worth mentioning. I am exercising consistently. I am watching movies. I am making plans. I am slowly forming my script. Oh wait! A friend stopped by the night I came back. He hasn't been in the city since forever, so it was good to see him here. And after trying to find each other in the rain and one of us without a phone, we eventually stopped by the DCUP bar to play some pool. It was there that I had my best break yet, sinking a couple of balls and setting up a few others. I brought him near the spot where the bird attacks and as I cautioned him, suddenly the bird appeared and side-swiped us. There is a witness now!

Work Sunday and Monday. Ain't it grand! I wouldn't mind working every fucking day next week.

Hey Jude

Somehow I found some pics. These are much more impressive.

A Wedding Chanty

I finally acquired some photographic evidence of the incredible spectacle held during Clancy's wedding reception rehearsal thing. Now this is at the start of it, and I believe we are performing "Barnacles Three: A Pirate Chanty." I was hoping to find a picture of all of us on stage singing "Hey Jude" but apparently we were ALL on stage at that point.

A Day Without Deordorant

Yeah I forgot to apply this morning. I must say I did quite well without it, no stench or nothing y'all.

Worked around such as comedic actors as Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Will Arnett (who before today was known to me only as the magician brother from Arrested Development,) and Greg Kinnear. I didn't even know I was standing in today until I got there. At first I was standing in as one of the characters of a gay couple, where I talked about my sperm being fast swimmers - that was the dialogue, I didn't pick the topic up.....but now that we're there.....

Then I stood in for Greg Kinnear. He had a part where he yells out his line, which I was more than ready to yell out in his place.

There were also a bunch of extras that looked like celebrities, let's call them Celextras. Consider that shit coined! There was Reese Witherspoon, OJ Simpson and anothers I thought looked alot like that magician brother of Arrested Development, until I realized (from his voice) that is actually was him.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents....

Okay, tell me how fucking bizarre this shit is. I've been watching a few Hitchcock films kind of for study, but also because I'd like to watch more classic films.

So today I am walking to the library to return North by Northwest when this bird comes out of nowhere and rushes at me like a kamakaze pilot. He hits me in the arm and then more or less puts it in reverse and sits down on a street sign, watching me and I'm looking up to him wondering what the fuck that was all about. End Scene.

After the library I go to the grocery store to pick up ingredients for a couple of dinners. So I'm walking back home with a heavy bag of groceries in each hand when this SAME fucking bird whizzes past the back of my neck. So close that I feel the feathers of his wing against my skin. I turn around and he's sitting there on a fence, fucking staring me down, psyching me out like he's gonna attack again. Now I have no arms, I am defenseless. I considered putting my bags down and squaring off with the bird, but I had refridgerated items and I get nervous about them being exposed to room temperature too long, because the walks alone is about 15 minutes. So I just backed away real slow-like, my eye trained on him, searching for any movement that might warn me of another attack. Fortunately I return in one piece.

Birds!

Salad Fingers - Episode One

Demented, however undeniably addictive. Episodes 1-7, a progression into madness.

Also Called the Oblique

One of my main frustrations lately has been my utter fruitless attempts of getting my computer to recognize my camcorder in HD mode to capture video onto my computer. I have sought technical direction online and over the phone from Canon, Microsoft, Dell, Ulead....no answers. I'm talking probably a total of 8 hours of answer seeking. Anyone that knows me, knows that I am pretty persistent, being so I needed to fucking figure out what the hell the problem was. Well the other day after about 2 1/2 hours on the phone and online talking tech supports I was finally awarded an answer. You wanna know? The trial editing program I downloaded isn't compatible with my camera. First I'm glad it's only a trial version. Second WHY the fuck could they have not told me this the 1st or even the 2nd time I had talked to this company!?! So much wasted time, so much frustration for the simplest of answers!

For the past few days I've been fighting a cold. The summer cold. What a bastardly thing it is! It more of less knocked me on my ass. I'm still left with an annoying cough, a leaking nose and the occasionally sneeze. My immune system is shit lately.

Okay, so I often find wonder in the most simple, obvious things. Last night I was looking at my hand for some reason and I was all about how cool it is that your fingers, when the hand is fully opened, are all different lengths. Yet when you close your hand into a near fist, all fingers match up. What engineering!!

I also came to the conclusion that much of life is summed up by this: /

Last but not least I have BOOKED work!!! Two days on a Tina Fey movie. I am played a waiter apparently, casting said I was picked by the director. Of course every knows that's said just to make us feel good about ourselves. I am sure the director has much better things to do than cast extras. Still I am somewhat nervous, only for the fact that I am pretty much back to full Brek mode, meaning my hair is growing out (actually longer than it's been in a while) and I have a goatee once again. The thing is I look completely different than my headshot. I couldn't tell casting this because obviously I need the work. I just hope no one in production cares.

Premonition or Silly Dream?

Well I've hit another slow period for work. As frustrating as it is I am trying to make the most of it. From the very minimal of achievements, like finally buying a wallet to restore order to my back pocket to delving back into my script. Still the script goes slowly, though I am trying something new. Instead of just writing haphazardly, I am trying to outline the whole script, trying to write out story and character arcs. I think this will speed things up in the long run and ultimately save me. And yesterday I contatced the Promo guy I did some gigs for before and inquired about work. So yeah, I am getting some stuff done, still not working generally sucks.

I watched a matinee of Pirates 3 today. I am going to be honest here. Everyone I know hates the movie. But I ENJOYED it! Yeah I said it. I thought it was good. In fact it may have been my favorite. For me it was a perfect blend of comedy and action, and epic action at that, I mean two battling ships circling around a huge whirlpool? Come on! That's just good shit!

Ok onto the premonition!!! I had this dream last night where this hurricane devastated all of New York state and who know maybe even the world. For some reason I was upstate and of course it was a struggle for survival kind of situation. It was a very very long dream that had me and a few others surfacing in the aftermath and me scouting around and eventually finding a motorcycle and driving to NYC to find everything in rubble and then some 2X4's in the basement of a building I thought might be useful for rebuilding. okay where this gets weird is that today (post dream) I read some article about how it is likely that a major hurricane is bound to hit NYC sometime soon. To make the matter even more peachy, the East River (because of flooding) is one of the bad spots to be. Yeah, that's right where I live.

I guess that's about it for now....

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