funny if it were Bill Murray

Last night I told Jade that I refused to sleep anymore. I said I'd had ENOUGH!!! I had things to do at night. Read, write, burn ants. So last night the ol' woman went to bed and I stayed up with YouTube until 7:30am before my mind started to play funny games on me.

(Just a quick note to film nerdos: I discovered a video series on YouTube called "Indy Mogul". It's just a bunch of tips and tricks given by these young kids on how to do things on the cheap. How to make fake blood or vomit. How to light different situations. How to make your own barn doors - tons of stuff. Check it out).

Anyway, I'm awakened by The Banshee shrieking in my ears at 10am that we've got breakfast with some photographer in thirty minutes. I crawl out of bed, throwing on the clothes I've worn for the last two days and said Banshee tells me I look like a lumberjack.

I take off the red flannel and put on a shirt with a lion wearing glasses. I briefly wonder why I dress like a ten year old.

We get over to Silver Lake....ug....SILVER Lake. This is not a good place. This is a suburb for the Too Cool For Schools. The dude-bros with faux-hawks and girls dressed like Kurt Cobain meets Fallout Boy meets Nicole Ritchie. It's a painful thing to behold - all these hipsters wishing they had what it takes. instead they've just got tight name brand jeans and cowboy boots. Vests and army hats.

ug.

Jade and I ordered a $17 dollar omelette and split it. (That price is not an exxxageration. Silver Lake is also well known for having well over priced food). The photographer we're supposed to be meeting doesn't show up. We start eating. The omelette is just a thick brick of egg. I ordered fancy-shmancy bacon and mushrooms and GOAT cheese and it was just lightly SPRINKLED on top of the egg-brick. You cut into it and just more solid egg poured out. Horrendous.

The photographer still does not show up.

I'm tired.

My omelette sucks.

A bird suddenly takes a dump on my shirt. We're on an outside patio, so this is quite possible. I just roll up my sleeves and think, "what else?" Before the thought is out of my head a bee stings me right above me butt.

My wife tells me to stop whining and I tell her to shut up before I throw her down a flight of stairs.

The photographer still does not show up.

We finally leave and there's a thorn in my shoe. I take it off to get back to the car.

The photographer calls and tells us we've gotten the time wrong when we're almost home an hour and a half after our initial appointment time. Upon further inspection of our emails we find that.......no, she was definitely wrong. We were on time.


Oh, and I got bit by a dog on Easter.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE NOISE

stay medicated,
jrp

THE REANIMATION OF PATRICK AND MOLLY

A few months ago JRP was going to put together some shorts called "Patrick and Molly and all the small things" but then things got crazy and we shut it down. Decided it was a bad time. We were crowding our plate and all of our food was smashing together, getting brown and soggy.

NO LONGER!!!!!

We're hungry again and have headed back for seconds. This Thursday we're getting together with "Patrick" and "Molly" to do some friggin rehearsals and it's going to be just SWELL.

Once we get these beasts all shot and cut we'll probably be releasing one a week SO KEEP YOUR UGLY MUG TUNED IN!!! THE TIME IS NIGH!


In the meantime, to keep your meat tooth happy, watch David After Dentist if you haven't already:





Now watch David After Divorce:




HARDY HAR HAR!

Jesca

A few years ago our friend Shane started up a grassroots organization called Come Let’s Dance. They opened an orphanage in Africa and began taking in all of the street kids and kids orphaned from the Aids pandemic wiping through the nation.

This is Jesca. She was one of many children that were brought to the orphanage. And has stolen Shane’s heart.

We’ve had the GREAT pleasure of being friends with Shane for about five years now but last week was the first time we’ve been able to meet Jesca – Shane adopted her about a year ago and has been spending most of her time in Uganda (someplace we don’t usually frequent). It was Jesca’s second time in the states.

Shane dropped her off with us and headed out to a meeting. For the next four hours we were shown the heart of a child that has not been intoxicated with American culture. One of the first things I noticed was her want to share. We purchased her a pack of gum and she went around the car, asking each of us if we wanted a piece before helping herself. She was quiet and polite and did whatever we asked without question……except play with our dogs. She was horrified of our dogs. In Africa dogs aren’t used as household pets. They are wild or rabid and they attack you. I hate to say it, but watching a child quiver in fear from my curious doe-eyed cocker spaniel bordered somewhere between macabre and frigging hilarious.

Anyway, if you want to get involved and get off your keester this Easter (even if it’s donating your ten dollars a month) go to the website listed above. Shane is the “president” of the company, if you want to call her that and I can vouch that every cent you donate will go towards a phenomenal cause – changing and affecting human life.

The Oregon Trail

After devouring one of the greatest steak dinners of my life, we headed North for Oregon. This was to be our anniversary trip – four years married and still coping – and our “We beat cancer trip”. And we beat it good. We tied it to a chair in our basement. Poked it. Prodded it. Ball gagged it. Have you ever seen Pulp Fiction?





We were taking the historic 101 hwy the whole way to Eugene, it would be Sasquatch country, but we were ready. Jade had her anti-rapist spray and I’d brought along my good sense to run when things got harry.





We’d decided early on that we were going to attempt to “rough it” and sleep in the car for a few nights. For two whole days these rubber tramps had nowhere to rest their heads. We brushed our teeth in gas stations. We peed in the dark. We feared monsters and homeless people with homemade knives or “shanks” as they’re commonly referred to in prison.



Speaking of prison, here’s The Golden Gate bridge. It’s frigging huge and made me feel a little willy nilly driving over it. Alcatraz off to your right, everyone! Quick! Get a picture of the prison!!! You know kids, they used to keep humans locked up in there and if they tried to escape…..CHOMP!!! They’d get eaten alive by sharks!!!



We visited the legendary Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, CA. I’m not going to get into the legend or the details of her specific story, just know that the house is supposedly haunted. The scariest thing we found when we showed up was that tours were thirty bucks a pop and they lasted over an hour – boooooo-riiiiing. Instead of going on what was sure to be the biggest waste of money in my life (next to the 200 bucks I spent on a get-rich-quick pyramid scheme a few years back) I decided to wager seventy-five cents on a gypsy fortuneteller.



She said something about water and a fountain. Something about finding success when I met hands with a Libra. I found it all very trite, cursed the machine and ventured back to our car. I was done with this tomfoolery. Two days later we found ourselves in a bookstore with a man named Todd. He was just a customer and had offered to help me find Catcher in the Rye. We ended up talking to him for about an hour. Politics, zombies, books, movies, Oregon – lots of things came up. Towards the end we somehow ended up briefly on astrology because of a book he was randomly referencing. I told him we should be going. He stuck out his hand and said, “Alright – it was good meeting you. My name’s Todd and I’m a Libra.” WEIRD!!!

We hit the redwood forests and debated sleeping in our car again but thought better of it. Better not to press your luck when you’re in Bigfoot’s backyard. I chased a goose, we drove through a tree, hugged a tree, looked at trees and had our pictures taken with trees. I haven’t been surrounded with so much wood since Jade and I went to this gay bar in West Hollywood.







We stopped at a raging beach and climbed up the side of a steep cliff.



I was horrified.



I told Jade I didn’t want to do it. I told her I was scared. I told her I was weak, but she didn’t listen. She just kept taunting me, making unnecessary jabs at me, hurting me. Eventually I caved and climbed up the side of the rock to appease her insatiable tastes. When I got to the top the panic mounted. She snapped some photos of me “for the blog” and I told her she could use them as long as she got rid of all the crying ones.



Right before our final stop we slept in Garberville, OR, a small town with one theater that does one screening of one show once a week. The International at 7:30. Be there or be square. If you’ve got to work, you’d better hope it’s held over for an additional week.







Once we got to Eugene – actually it was Vida, but no one, including the locals, apparently knows where that is – we spent some time with some new friends and their baby, Frank. We ate and laughed and were merry. I think the best way to describe Oregon is like this:



This truck has antlers purposely glued to the window. I was proud to share my oxygen with this man.



On the way back it was sort of like the way up only not as fun. We stayed in a strange Bates Hotel place and Jade ate a plate of food that resembled vomit. We traveled down the 5 and just looked pretty much at rolling hills.







We were out of Yetti country and that made me feel a little more comfortable, but I know the threat is still there, everyday, everywhere. The only thing that helps me sleep at night is knowing that I’ve seen Harry and the Henderson’s over fifteen times and I know, for a fact, that Bigfeet loves McDonald’s cheeseburgers and prom corsages.



The trip was a total success and we’re glad to be back in black…..actually, that’s not completely true. After being in the lush gardens of Oregon it’s pretty depressing to come back to the concrete jungles of LA. Oh well, you can’t win em all.

Stay medicated.

The End

It took:

1 operation
10 hospitalizations
4 rounds of chemo
15 IV sticks
1 blackout
1 panic attack
35 lbs
and 163 days

to say we’re cancer free.

It was worth it.

Custer's Last Stand

Some of you may have already caught whiff of this good luck fart, but my cancer is gone. It’s been official for a while but now the chemo is DONE!!! Somehow for me that means more - this process winding down to an end. Even when they tell you that you’re cancer free, the whole process stays the same and you’re still sick.



So, treatment is done!!!





Right now I’m just chillin’ at the hospital getting my final blood transfusion. I should be at home tonight and……….what else do you say to that? By 10pm I should be smoking cigarettes and eating butter sticks just to show my body that I AM still in charge and not to get any wise ideas.



For my final round all my nurses brought me in a celebratory cake…..which my dog ended up ripping off the counter and eating alone – stupid, fat, hungry, selfish dog. She had delicious white frosting and chocolate crumbs all over her dog bed and when we came in the house she did that thing where she puts her tail between her legs and puts her head down but makes this scary smiling face at you while eyeballing you out of the corner of her eye and still desires your attention and positive affection.

My mom and I went to Subway the other day and there’s this homeless lady sitting out front. She blocks both the entrance to the Subway as WELL as the little Chinese take-out place so she’s really cornered the market. We get up there and she goes to this lady, “Spare some change?” I hate homeless people begging for change. It’s uncomfortable, awkward and most of all, no. I DON’T want to just GIVE YOU my money because you asked. “Hey, homeless guy, can I have your jacket? Oh – you’ve got some extra cans there – do you mind if I just take them from you?”

Anyway, she’s sitting out in the drizzling rain and she goes to me and mom, “You spare some change?”

And I say, “No, sorry. I don’t carry cash.” This is my preferred answer. It’s not only true but a useful deterrent.

But I’m not a complete monster. I don’t just ride the horse around the ranch whipping black people all day. I have a heart. I ask if she wants a sandwich and bring her into Subway with us. She gets up to the front and goes, “Tuna, white – can I have a footlong?” And I say sure.

What I hated most about it was that at the end of the line, they stuck hers in a plastic bag even though I said we were staying and they stuck my mom’s and mine on a separate tray.

She started to walk off with her sandwich and I go, “Hey – you get a drink and either chips or cookies”. She comes back and says, “Oh, I love the macadamia ones – thank you so much for letting me pick what goes on my sandwich. People buy me sandwiches sometimes but they’re loaded in jalapeños and I can’t eat that.”

I laughed and said she was welcome. Then I stuck out my hand and said, “I’m John”. She shakes it and says, “Nancy” I asked Nancy if she wanted to sit and eat with us but she says, “Oh, I’d love to but I’ve gotta make SOME money today.

Unbelievable.

Next thing, after lunch (still raining), mom and I are at Rite-Aid picking up a bunch of my medicine. We’re sitting in the parking lot watching the old man in the car next to us. He’s touching his steering wheel and moving levers and looking around and my mom and I are laughing, talking about how he’s forgotten how to drive but he’s pretty sure it has SOMETHING to do with this wheel here. So we’re laughing and having a jolly time at this old fool’s expense and HE LOOKS OVER AT US AND SEES US LAUGHING! I quickly turn away but not before seeing him shrug at us like HE AGREES. He doesn’t know what’s happening!

Next thing, this old man steps out of his car and stares into mine – my mom is driving and he’s on my side so he’s staring directly at me and he just keeps shrugging. The kind of shrug that says, “I don’t know”. So mom and I step out of the car and the old man says to me, “I forgot how to turn my windshield wipers on”.

He opens his door for me and signals for me to get inside – to fiddle around. I comply, but the full time I’m keeping my eyes peeled, thinking he’s going to try and kick me into the passenger seat with one geriatric leg and then sell me into the sex trade what with human trafficking being on the rise and whatnot.

It all turned out okay, though, thank God.

On a lighter note, hopefully the next blog will have NOTHING to do with cancer (unless it’s about one of the support groups I’m thinking about joining!) and will be more focused on movie and photography related topics.

So check this out:



www.theletterbphotography.com

This is Jade’s and my photo website and it JUST WENT UP!!! IT’S BRAND SPANKIN’ NEW – I GUARANTEE YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT!

We’re building our portfolio right now so we’re just trying to line up shoots. If you or your loved ones want to help us we would be GREATFUL! It’s all free right now so ACT FAST!

Without further ado, that’s that.