Blow by Blow

Jade's been out of town for almost a week. I am a hermit. I write, I read, I watch movies, I try to write more. My dog's shed. Clementine needs a hair cut. She has an ear infection. My friend Scott calls me and asks me to come over and go swimming. I do. We find a turd in the pool - what we SUSPECT to be a turd in the pool - and jump out. We don't chance it. We make pizza. We eat pizza. We watch an old movie he made in high school and laugh at how cheesey it is. Cheesey in a good way - boxes that eat people. We modge-podge together. He tells me he hates his neighbors. We watch his neighbors in the dark. His wife comes home and puts on Boy Meets World. I try making fun of it but can't stop watching. She leaves to shower. The episode ends. I wait a moment to see if Scott will play the next one. He doesn't. I am disappointed so ask him to. He and I both wonder if the beer drinking dude-bros next door and their slutty girlfriends think we're "fags" because we're sitting close together on a couch, modge-podging, drinking tea, watching Boy Meets World. Ryder Strong is a bad boy and a teen heart throb. I go home at midnight and stay up for another six hours writing, reading, watching movies and trying to write some more. I fall asleep and wake up at two. It's Memorial Day and I stay at home, read, clean and give writing a break. I fall asleep at six again, wake up at two, wash the dishes, go to work at six, arrive at seven. Edit. The night goes well. I am on top of my game. I am pleased with my cut. Everyone leaves early. Everyone is done early. I am the only one left. The building is dark. The hallway is dark. When I'm ready to leave I hit the elevator button and become highly paranoid while standing in the pitch black hallway. I suddenly fear zombies (specifically the one that kills Johnny in the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead) and this giant doll that was featured on Nick at Nite's Are you Afraid of the Dark? These two things have always scared me and probably always will. I fear the elevators opening up and one single solitary zombie shambling out. What are the chances? It didn't happen. I ride the elevator down and think I've gotten trapped somewhere between the second and first floor. No - the door opens. I go to my car and feel a pain in my chest. I think I'm dying. Then it's gone and I'm fine. I drive home. My dog's are excited to see me (no matter what time it is) and that is one of the reasons I love them and I wish I could have that kind of excitement everytime I saw a friend. I write four episodes of Patrick and Molly that I've thought of throughout the day and I think they're okay but could maybe use a little flushing out. I read more of The Rules of Attraction by Brett Easton Ellis and go to bed where I have a dream that Matt Stone (co-creator of South Park) is trying to take away the chinese food he bought me for lunch because I didn't eat it right away. I tell him I just had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich not ten minutes ago and I promise I'll eat it in just a bit. He is very mad at me and the dream is very serious and I want to cry in the dream. The last two nights I've had dreams where I'm naked and feeling insecure. I wake up and have missed the mailman AGAIN. Can't seem to get my netflix out. Want to start watching Breaking Bad - some show everyone is talking about where this guy has cancer. I think about cancer every day. Everyday I think about cancer. This person who follows my blog just got cancer. This girl who was my senior prom date just thought she had cancer (she did not) a guy I went to high school with died of cancer of few years back. A girl I went to high school with died a few years after that. A guy I went to high school with just found out he has leukemia. I cry about it. I send out a message on facebook asking for his contact info and aquire his cell phone number. I call him and leave a message. I tell him what happened to me and that I'd like to talk to him, just to say hello. Just to say that it sucks and I get it. It was good for me to talk to someone who had experienced it. Ridden the Dragon. I get cut off on his machine and call back. I finish my message and leave my email. For some reason, every time I pass a pretty girl on the street I wonder if she's ever had cancer. I don't know why I think this. Only girls. Only pretty ones.

Nick at Night Time

So I'm up late - it's about 2:30. I just finished watching this Andy Dick movie called Danny Roane: First Time Director or something like that. Just getting ready to watch Diary of the Dead. Thinking about going to see Terminator alone at a matinee tomorrow. Buy a pretzel, eat a pretzel...with cheese.

I'm the guy crunching on garbage well into the movie. You can hear me slobbering all over my soft bread, my crunchy nachos, slurping away at my cola (my wife's cola / pop / soda).

I'm a slob. The house is a mess. Spent a few hours tidying it up. Made spaghetti for dinner. Ate it alone. Drank the final to final diet coke. One left. I'm turning into a chunky junky.

Been trapped on youtube all day. Can't stop.

Found a great webisode series called "Leaving Bliss".

Here's the second episode, it's a great still image:



I didn't watch the first episode, so I can't vouche for it, but 2-7 are pretty good.

Thinking about eating more spaghetti.

Thinking about reading more of my book - The Rules of Attraction by Brett Easton Ellis.

Just saw this trailer for the new movie "Sherlock Holmes" directed by Guy Ritchie (Snatch, Lock Stock and Two Smokin' Barrels - he was or is or was married to Madonna). Looks great. His fight scenes are unreal. Check it out:



Been working at that job for BRAVO! that I got last week. People there are all really cool. A few of my friends are there and a couple of them are even working nights so we get to be zombies and eat brains together, hide from the sun in a group. Drive an hour to work alone, wishing we could carpool.

My buddy Scott just started on Thursday. He came into my bay and I ask him if he's brought in dinner. He says no.

I say he should go grab something - and make sure not to make it a turkey sandwich. I made that mistake the first couple nights - bad thing to eat when you don't want to fall asleep.

So I give Scotty my card to get out of the gates and he goes to Ralph's to buy some grub. Calls me about an hour later and says he can't get my card to work in the elevator. Says he's swiping it but it's not clicking on.

I tell him you don't NEED a card for the elevator. He says he's pushing the button and it's just not working.

I go to the elevator and hit the UP button - I'll just buzz him up. The elevator comes up and the doors open - I'm on the phone with him - and nobodies inside.

I tell him I'm in the elevator and he's not.

Poor Scott - he left and then went into the wrong building. In fairness to him, they DO all look alike on the lot.

Funny stuff.

Remember Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell?

Do you think he knew what was going on here?



Oh man, what else, what else? I'm sorry if this is boring. I'm just trying to fill in the time. I'm working on a new web series right now - writing it. I LOVED shooting Patrick and Molly. I had so much fun. It was sort of depressing getting up on Monday and not being able to go back to set.

I'm working on episode 5 right now. I think it'll probably be a 12 episode thing. We'll see how it turns out - maybe garbage. Sometimes things are garbage. Sometimes you hide them. I wrote four more Patrick and Mollies - season 2? I don't know. Maybe.

I'm trying to give a script away right now. It's called Transient. It's a dark comedy about a transgender time traveler that accidentally falls in love with himself in the future. I don't know - garbage? Sometimes it's hard to tell.

I fell asleep last night / this morning paranoid that someone was hiding in my closet and was going to come out and stab me while I slept. Sometimes I'm afraid of things like that.

I used to be afraid of monsters when I was younger. Jason Voorhees. Freddy Kreuger.

Now I'm afraid of psychopaths and madmen with butcher knives - Michael Myers. Three foot tall old women with paper white skin and red hair, chattering in the dark, stabbing me when I'm not looking scares me too.

Is that it?

I think that's it.

Stay cool.

I'm gonna write another page and then watch Diary of the Dead.

peas.

oh shoot, it's PATRICK AND MOLLY!

STUPID MACHINE!

I had about half a page of this blog written and was about ready to start inserting some photos and I hit the backspace key to erase something (what else would the backspace key do?) AND IT BACKSPACED ME A PAGE AND WHEN I CAME BACK ALL MY MEANINGLESS DRIVEL WAS GONE!!!

So now I'm starting from friggin'-A scratch.

Sometimes machines make me crazy. Sometimes robots make me crazy. Sometimes if I don't take my medication I get crazy.




So "Patrick and Molly and all the small things" is in the can. I hate it when people say "in the can". There are certain film terms that I just can't stand and "in the can" is one of them. It really has nothing to do with the fact that it sounds like you're about to put it in the pooper, I just don't like it. You'll never hear me say it. Ever. Unless I'm talking to my wife.

Somehow I feel like an imposter, sitting here and rewriting the same stupid jokes that I'd written before my computer ate my draft. Oh well.




Many of you perhaps......or none of you mayhap.......are wondering what the mysterious Patrick and Molly look like? Will they be played by llamas? Are they caucasian, asian? Are they ragin' and pagin'? Do they like to text? Will they text message you?

Maybe.

Let me introduce them.

PATRICK. Inventor. Last in his class (almost) and lovin' it.



MOLLY. Photographer. Is scared of bird flu.



man oh man. What beautiful people. Let's look at a few photos of them pretending to be a young married couple, shall we?











There were no problems on set. There really weren't. EVERYTHING went smooth. VERY smooth. Ex-lax smooth. We'd planned for everything and everyone did their piece of the pie and the invention worked like clockwork. This neither makes for good drama OR comedy so I'm sorry. I'm sorry no one got burned by a light. I'm sorry an actor wasn't in a car crash on the way to set. I'm sorry my house didn't burn down and I'm sorry no one crapped their pants. This last bit happened to a friend of mine once.....

.......he was at work at went to the bathroom to drain the main vein. When he put the salamy mommy back into his shorts he accident released a bit of leftover urine and it soaked through his pants, creating a wet spot about the size of three quarters. He called his boss from the men's room and told him he had to go home. He'd had a wardrobe malfunction.

True story.

There were no wardrobe malfunctions on set.....unless you count this:



I'll probably begin editing the pieces in about two to three weeks and then we'll begin posting them online about once a week or something like that.

OH WAIT!!! I DID just think of something that happened on set...

We had to leave the house for one of the setups when Patrick is stranded somewhere due to a flat tire. Poor fool. So we drove down the street about six blocks to this real industrial neighborhood.






So we were shooting next to Jade's and mine.....Jade's and my car.....the car that belongs to Jade and myself - our Pontiac Vibe - when we saw these two Volksvagoons.



Jade suggested using one of them as the prop car rather than our own - just have Patrick stand next to it, we'll fire a few shots off and roll out......so we did....

...and then we heard this deep rusty voice say, "DON'T TOUCH MY CAR!"

...and we all looked around and no one knew where it was coming from so we just proceeded.

And then another rumbling and this drunken bum - someone who certainly could have played a Santa Clause type character emerged from the trash heap that was his home across the street. No shirt (no pants?) and sticks his head out from between two wrought iron gates and says, "DON'T TOUCH MY CAR!"

Matt - our cameraman - speaks up and asks if we can just shoot here if we don't touch his car. The brute tells us that we can but if we touch his car he'll come out and "bash our skulls in".

He was pleasant.

We came back, unscathed, had some dinner and finished off the day.






I really like the above photo of Matt, Scott and Vanilla Ice.



Anyway, that's that. I don't really know what else to say. I was CERTAIN I would have tons and tons and tons of things to say once I got going but really.....that's about it.

I'm just going to take these photos and lay them in one after the other for your viewing pleasure.



Here's me pretending to be creative. Please don't judge me because my pointer finger looks like it belongs on The Penguin.



Blurry people doing things.



A real life Ryan Reyes playing real life Super Mario Bros. We turned the system on and everyone was drawn to it like flies. Everyone was telling him where the secrets were, "jump here - jump there! Go down THAT pipe!"



Girls don't like video games. Girls like doing bills and washing dishes.



This is Ryan being a creepy pedophile looking character...I didn't write this.



Givin' a fist bump to The Fist.



Lacy's torso, Nellie and Serrone our sound guy (pronounced Sir-ownee, like macaroni). This one time I was digging around in the fridge, searching for a refreshing beverage when he asked me for a Diet Coke. I gave him one. He said I should probably give him two because he was really thirsty. I gave him two but thought, "man, it's going to get warm fast - you should really just leave it in the fridge". But he's a grown man, he can do what he wants with his own soda. So we kept shooting and wrapped the set about five minutes later. Once we'd cleared out I noticed two empty Diet Coke cans on the stove. This guy knew how to drink the DC and I respect him for that.



Second to last setup of the final day. The last time I was in a bathtub filled with men I was in college and experimenting.



Final setup. We'd all taken an ice cream sandwich break just before this. Gotta keep everyone happy!.....actually, there's a chemical in ice cream that makes people happy. It's called Terramagestarin. It affects your brain.




Two editors pretending they're not editors.

And THAT.......is all. That's everything. These photos, plus possibly a few more will end up on the JRP website shortly as will the videos once they're completed, so stay tuned for that.

Oh yeah - and that nightshift job I told you about - the one that wanted me to start IMMEDIATELY and I said no, no, no because I had to shoot Patrick and Molly? Well I got it!

Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too?

The Subscription

I get my first subscriber on youtube and try to be his friend but quickly discover that he is a raging b-hole.





*****PATRICK AND MOLLY HAS COMPLETED PRODUCTION. BLOG AND STILLS COMING SOON*****

Sexy Time Photos

My wife exploits my pure sex appeal.

I retaliate.




*****PATRICK AND MOLLY and all the small things BLASTS OFF TOMORROW AT 8:30am*****

Is white REALLY right?

There's this restaurant that Jade and I go to about once a week or two - The Hungry Fox. It's supposed to be really good food - that's what the outside of the building says - but it's really not. It's really just extraordinary. And I don't mean fantastic. I mean EXTRA ordinary. Just really blah, you know?



They've got some crazy decor going on - I'll take a camera in there next time and film the stuff they have on the walls. They've got some IKEA style lamps. They've got some grandmotherly woven "Welcome" sign. They've got some paintings of coyotes from the midwest. They've got some fine oriental art - or asian art........I don't know what's PC. Some people say I'm racist. I'm really not. I just don't know what's correct. Is it still hateful if you say hateful things while meaning something completely different?



I had a friend in college - he was this Oriental kid - and we used to say to him, y'know, when he got real rowdy and whatnot, we'd say, "Brett Jones!" that was his name - Brett Jones. Real white sounding. Anyway, we'd say, "Brett Jones! You'd better relax or we're going to tie you to a chair and blindfold you with a piece of thread!"





Boy we really got a kick out of that. Being pretend racist.



Then I had this other friend - he was this black guy named Sedrick Tasker. Now THAT'S a black name. But everytime I saw him he was either a.) making or b.) eating, BBQ chicken wings. I'd always joke with him about it because.....well you know - the whole thing with chicken. Anyway, I guess racial stereotypes are mostly talked about because they're true.



Black people really DO love chicken - well, the one black person I know does - and you really CAN blindfold a college aged Oriental kid - or Asian kid - i don't know, but it's true - you just have to wrap it around four or five times.

So the hungry fox - man - EVERYtime we go there there is ALWAYS some loud mouthed son of a gun at a table near us. Never the same person. Just someone that thinks they have to frigging SHOUT inside. Today there was a young Mexican girl (late 20's) with some Asian guy (mid-20's) and she was just yap-yap-yap. This dude couldn't get a word in edgewise if he WANTED to. Then she just started STUFFING salad in her mouth and jade was like, "finally - silence".



Then she swallowed and just started up again. "And then I got her to flip this guy off and scream at him - it was the best day".

yuck.

Man, I can't even imagine having sex with someone like that - you're trying to be romantic and she's just rambling on about what so-and-so said to her on the phone and you're thinking if you just casually placed the pillow over her face for a minute or two this would be so much easier.



The strangest thing though, was that I'd never seen a Japa-China-Korean-Vietna-whatchyamacallit dating a Mexi-latino.

Do other races have a problem with what to call the whites? Do they say, "do they prefer to be called 'white' or 'american' or 'anglo-saxon'. Man, I just don't know. I prefer anglo-saxon.



I get really offended when someone calls me white. I actually prefer to be called a 'snow flake'.

I find it quite romantic.

A pretty little snowflake.

Roseanne Bar blows it for me again

Sometimes I can be a pretty big idiot - I really can. And sometimes I wonder how I've gotten this far in life. I don't mean by any measure of success, I just mean to age 26 or 27 or however old it is that I am. I keep forgetting.

I haven't had a job in six lousy months because of my chemo and I finally go in for an interview the other day - I meet this real dude bro at Western Bagels on the corner of Federal and Santa Monica. He shows up ten minutes late to his own meeting only to find that the place he's decided to have us meet at is closed.

So we sit down outside and he asks me what I've been working on lately and I say that I was cutting at MGM for a while and he asks me what I was cutting there and I say 'promo' and he says 'for what movies?' and......I COULD'VE said, Terminator. I COULD'VE said Oliver Stone's Salvadore. I COULD'VE said HANNIBAL. I COULD'VE said any of the "original" Bond films.

But no. This information eludes me when I need it. It hides in the recesses of my mind and leaves me hunting for the weaker memories - the ones without enough sense to hide. I pick them off like weak gazelles.



I say, "I cut a promo for Bio-Dome - you know, with Pauly Shore - I just love that movie. And then I did that 80's film with Roseanne - She Devil.






THAT'S what I come up with and this dude wants me to cut a trailer for a horror / thriller thing he did.

What am I thinking?

I'll let you know if he calls me back.

THEN, I've got ANOTHER interview today to cut on this new Fashion Show for BRAVO!, which incidentally, I consider to be the gay network for straight people. So I go in there and it goes pretty well and, actually, that's not at all what this story is about. After the interview I go to Chipotle's alone to celebrate what I think was a very successful interview. I scarf down the burrito while I make some notes to myself in my 5-binder and then split because I can feel my guts bursting. These burritos are about the size of a cinder block.



I'm walking back to my car and I start to heave. It just came on and I couldn't hold it back. I heaved again. I little spittle came up. I heaved again. A LOT of spittle came up. I heaved again and mother of mercy the plug had been pulled. People are driving past me while I casually puke and walk at the same time, barfing behind cars, not stopping to even bend over. Children are crying somewhere.







I get back to the car, barf the rest of the burrito up, slam the bitty into reverse, run over my own lunch and get outta there.

When I get home, the BRAVO! job calls me and asks if I can start on nights TONIGHT - that's a 7pm - 4am shift RIGHT NOW.

Who do they think I am?



I say I can't. I say I can start Monday - I've got Patrick and Molly to shoot this weekend.

They say they'll get back to me.

I hope they do.

All that and a bag of C.H.I.P.S.

I have a dream.

And that dream is me floating around on a marshmallow cloud, riding a unicorn, eating popsicles, listening to music created by garden gnomes.

I also have a nightmare.

And my nightmare is that one day Erik Estrada would come into my life and try to steal my wife.

Notice, if you will, the way he has his beefy latino arm all up in my wife’s biznuss while I stand there like some fruitcake with a poodle. Look at that dumb dog – she’s just staring right into the camera.

And the worst part is, she’s bought into his game! Look at her blurry gaze, staring deep into his Mexico face, reaching up with her hooked fingers to claw at his throbbing man breast. He’s using his B-list celebrity power to hypnotize her. She wants it – she wants nothing more than to wrap her arms around his dark hips and stick her fingers in his shaved naval while he cruises down the highway on his hog.

She desires to live dangerously.

And what can I offer her? A shirt with a lion on it? I probably won’t even technically be a man for another five to eight years. I JUST GOT MY FIRST PUBIC HAIR!!!

How did this happen??? How did I find myself in this situation? Why does my wife love the salsa rojo so much?

I can only tell you what I know.

It all started with THIS GUY:

This is Jade’s “boss”. He’s the photographer she works with and this is his first foray into the world of movie making. He’s one rude, crude dude with a taste for danger and a charming smile.

Here’s Sean riding a homemade dolly as a skateboard.



Travis – the guy on the far right, the guy that owned the dolly – was like, “Hey dooood, watch it – that took me a while to make”. Man, I wish I could’ve made it……but now Erik Estrada was going to be making it with my WIFE. Where was the white C.H.I.P when you needed him – the tortilla chip? I needed someone to come in and show this punk a thing or two.

I went over and tried to be friendly. Tried to show some hospitality. Tried to tell him, yes, Mr. E, you can eat anything from the craft service table and I’d even be happy to grab you a water or juice but puh-lease keep your greasy nubbins off of my wife’s greasy nubbins.

He laughed right in my face.

I laughed back but I didn’t really know why – just being polite, I guess.

So, when he turned around, I flexed my big-azz muscles – RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE BACK OF HIS HEAD!!!!!

LOOK AT HIM GETTING READY TO CRY! Oh, boo-hoo, I’m just a big baby. He’s lucky I didn’t give him the donkey punch-a-rino right then and there.

I went to consult with Sean and Jeremy and the 16 foot monster truck they'd brought in for the shoot - it also transforms into a giant robot. LOOK AT THAT FRIGGIN’ THING! I’m the same height as the wheel! The guy who drives it has some strange sort of little man malfunction that keeps him up at nights. Just kidding - it's actually just made out of styrofoam.

They said not to worry about it. They said they’d already taken care of the situation. They’d already disconnected his brakes. They were going to make sure their movie got big – the last thing Estrada ever did – now only on youtube.

Brilliant. These guys play dirty and I loved it.

I smugly walked over to where Erik was talking to my wife........AGAIN. I get up there and he says, "hey - you look like that bee-a-U-tiful actress - what's her name?"

I say, "Kate Winslet. She gets it all the time."

And he says, "She just won an Oscar."

And I say, "Kate Winslet - she was in that movie with Leonoardo Dicaprio - Revolutionary Road"

And he says, "Revolutionary Road....with Leo Dicaprio"

And I say, "Yeah...that's the one"

Jade blushes and whispers in my ear, "do you think he'll sign my boobs?"

That was it. I'd had just about enough. I tossed my banshee she-wife into the backseat and burned out, hit the stupid curb, made a fool out of myself and went home, gripping the steering wheel in anger.

The last picture I have in my mind of EE is this:

Ol’ Erika E. sitting there, crying on the ground because I stole his trophy. Sorry DOOOOD – you’re gonna have to bag your own beeyatch. This is LA and NOBODY messes with The B.

NOBODY!

Eat your hearts out.

Peace.