An Improvised Jigsaw Puzzle of a Movie

The idea is simple: Twelve ten-minute movies that work as individual pieces, but when viewed in succession they make up a (hopefully) coherent feature-length movie.

I've wanted to make a full-length film or video since I was eight years old. Instead, I've made hundreds of sketches and short films and videos over the years. I've written a dozen or so incomplete scripts for features and have a drawer full of scenes that so far have not gelled together into anything I could call a workable screenplay.

I'm tired of looking at these "ideas" for films. It is time to make them. Lest they rot on the vine.

So I've decided to play to my strengths.

Beginning in January of 2007, I propose to start filming these "scenes" and sketches, all the while trying to make them work together as longer film. I am going to work in ten-minute increments. (This was chosen because I plan to post each new segment on YouTube as I finish them, and the limit is ten minutes for each video) I know I can make a decent short film and I hope that these shorts can also combine to form a decent feature.

It's an idea that I've been kicking around since college. I thought about approaching a film this way after seeing David Holzman's Diary in 1996 when I was going to UNO. I was very inspired by that at the time and also the Dogme 95 movement of the late 90s, which seemed to be more about just making a film without the gloss and contrivances of standard filmmaking procedure.

There is no "Vow of Chastity" like Dogme 95, but I do like the challenges created by trying to make a series of films that must work alone as well as being part of a whole, and I am inspired by a paragraph from the Dogme manifesto:

Today a technological storm is raging, the result of which will be the ultimate democratisation of the cinema. For the first time, anyone can make movies. But the more accessible the media becomes, the more important the avant-garde, It is no accident that the phrase “avant-garde” has military connotations. Discipline is the answer ... we must put our films into uniform, because the individual film will be decadent by definition!

People Against Goodness And Normalcy

I’d only been back in town for a few weeks. I was at a bar in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, nursing a double shot of Jack Daniels. My childhood friend Andy was tending bar. And I was watching a mean-looking member of the Pagans biker gang walking in my direction, intent on pummeling me into a lump of dog chow.

Let me back track.

It was the winter of 1998, and I’d recently crawled back to the Philadelphia area with an unfinished college education, a mountain of insurmountable credit card debt, and no hope for a bright and sunny future. I had contacted as many of my old friends as I could track down, trying to validate moving back home. I wanted proof that not going to college and not leaving the town you grew up in and not following the promise that you had shown in high school, could actually be a recipe for success.

My search brought me to many bars. As it turned out, one of my oldest friends, a guy I’d known since kindergarten (my cohort in class-clownery through elementary school and on to making videos in high school) was a bartender at one of the establishments I wandered into. I started frequenting the place, trying to suck back as much free booze as I could before I wore out the “old friend” bit, where people feel obligated to treat you to drinks because they haven’t seen you in years and you keep talking about the good times you used to have together. Nostalgia can be very dangerous when you’re drunk. On the few occasions where I was the one with money, I’ve easily dropped a couple hundred dollars rehashing the good ol’ days with friends.

One particular night, Andy and I drank shot after shot with a toothless, long-haired ex-biker named Wyatt. We told him stories about the insane things we did growing up, the crazy things we had planned, and we played round after round of pool with him. I never heard anyone laugh as hard as Wyatt. Whatever we did, he loved every minute.

“You guys are some funny motherfuckers!” Wyatt would yell every so often, between laughs or hacking coughs.

I asked Wyatt about his biker days, and he told me some colorful stories. He’d started out riding with The Warlocks, the second largest motorcycle club in the Delaware and Chester County areas. The largest club was The Pagans, a gang he eventually started riding with, though he never became a member. He was friends with many of them, but his club days were over. Too many fights. Too many near deaths. Too many drug-addled years lost on the road behind him. He just liked to ride.

Andy mentioned that the bar down the street was a Pagan hang out. I knew this from trying to buy beer there in 9th grade. My friends and I had stood around outside the bar waiting for someone who would buy a few six-packs for us. We asked one of the bikers who was on his way in if he could buy us some. We gave him $20 and waited across the street by the train station for what seemed like hours. Eventually the biker emerged from the bar and got on his bike. We ran up to him and asked for the beer. He laughed when he saw us. “You’re still here?” he said, laughing and shaking his head. We asked for the beer or our money back, but he didn’t listen and revved the engine and roared off. Lesson learned.

My friend also informed me that when the bar down the street closed, if the Pagans still wanted to drink, they’d saunter on in here. He pointed to the clock. It was 12:50 in the morning.

“The place closes at one,” he said. “If they’re not here by 1:15, we’re safe.”

As luck would have it, a couple of Pagans wandered in to the bar at one in the morning, as if on cue. They were old and grizzled, long graying hair dripping down the back of their crusty leather jackets. They look like they’d been sent over by central casting as extras in a biker movie. And they had with them four beautiful, teenage biker chicks.

I tried to focus on my drink and not look at them, but it’s been wired into my DNA to stare longingly at any remotely attractive woman that enters a room. And so I found it difficult to tear my gaze away from a particularly sexy young biker girl with silky, flowing red locks and a halter-top that was barely concealing her pert, full breasts.

Andy went to the other end of the bar and greeted them, taking drink orders. The men looked around, sizing up the place. The redheaded lovely looked over in my direction before I had a chance to turn away and we locked eyes. She smiled. I gulped and weakly smiled in return, then pounded the rest of my drink.

She pulled on the arm of the biker closest to her, never looking away from me. I furtively glance at what was going on and saw her whisper something to the man, then nod in my direction.

The look on his face was not a happy one. I don’t know what she said to him. He started moving in my direction. I grabbed my pack of cigarettes off the bar and nervously pulled one out and put it in my mouth. I missed and it dropped to the floor. I got up and picked it up off the floor and as I was standing up I saw Wyatt dart from the pool table and quickly intercept the biker.

He patted him on the shoulder and shook his hand. The Pagan continued looking at me over Wyatt’s shoulder. Wyatt seemed animated and launched into a story that made the man smile and soon they were walking away and the biker stopped looking at me. As they moved to the other end of the bar I saw Wyatt look back in my direction. His look betrayed nothing. Maybe he had just run into an old friend and was looking at me to say he had to attend to other things for the time being. Maybe he was letting me know that was a close call and to keep my eyes to myself in the future. I chose to believe the latter.

When Andy returned to my end of the bar, I told him that whatever Wyatt was drinking to night, it was on me.

“I think he just saved my life,” I told him.

Unfortunately I had very little money on me, so I was hoping Wyatt wasn’t planning to drink the bar dry. Andy knew my situation and said not to worry, that it was on the house.

“Wyatt’s a cool guy,” he said. “And we made him laugh.” He laughed at this himself and went to help other customers.

After about an hour I took the last forty dollars from my wallet and left it on the bar. I was hesitant because I didn’t have a job at the time and had no idea where I’d find another forty dollars in the coming weeks. I said goodbye to Andy and Wyatt and walked to my car. I got in and realized I had less than a quarter tank of gas and a 30 mile ride home. I wondered if it would be improper to go back in and take one of the twenties that I’d left on the bar, and if they were even still there. I wondered if that girl was screwing one of the ancient bikers. And if so, why? And was I really in danger of having the shit beat out of me or did I let my imagination get the better of me? I started the car and drove home.

Answer Your Telephone

As I left a message on my friend's voicemail the other day, it occured to me that I am having less human interaction each day.

I thought about how, only five years ago, I could easily contact someone and speak to them on the telephone. Now, however, I find that most of my communication with people is done through emails.

I chat with friends online and we "pretend" we are interacting. It's not the same, though, and that usually becomes clear when we finally do hang out face to face. There is something forced and awkward about it all. We've become so comfortable with our online relationship, the real thing doesn't feel right. I am not as witty in person, as I can be online, where I have those few extra seconds to properly phrase a clever retort. Aside from work I don't have much interaction with others, so I tend to get stuck in my head when I'm out with people, and I'm sure I seem retarded at times. Where're those damn emoticons when I need them in real life?

I miss the days when people answered their phone. Talking to someone is much more fulfilling than reading and writing emails. And if we talked more often, maybe it wouldn't seem weird to have to talk when we actually do hang out.

Then again, maybe it's just me, and no one else feels this disconnection.

Complaints Department

I think this blog may just become a litany of my semi-regular complaints about mundane things. Of course, isn't that what blogging is supposed to be?

This morning I am annoyed because my new sneakers are too small.
I have two different-sized feet and my shoe size runs between 10 1/2 and 11. Last weekend I was visiting a friend in North Carolina and I bought myself a new pair of Vans. Size 10 1/2.
A week later, I wish I'd bought a size 11.

The problem is the last few times I've gotten shoes in that size, they've been a tad too big.

I can never tell.

But today I feel like a "lily-footed woman" in ancient China with her feet bound into a grotesque fist.

Blah Blah Blah

1. I've had no internet for almost a month now. We've had nothing but problems with the glorious corporation that is Verizon. Calls to them go something like this:

"Please enter the account number you are calling about, starting with the area code."
(Entering phone number)
"Press one if this is about a residential order..."
(Pressing one)
"Press one if this is about Verizon DSL..."
(Pressing one)
"Please enter the account number you are calling about, starting with the area code."
(Entering phone number again)
"Thank you. Press one for billing, press two for tech support, press three for..."
(Pressing one again)
"Press one if this is about your residential DSL service..."
(Pressing one!)
"So that we can better serve you please enter the number you are calling about."
(Pressing zero repeatedly and cursing)
"Hold on, you will be connected to a customer service specialist"
(Waiting 10 minutes)
"Hello, thank you for calling Verizon, can I get the account number you are calling about?"
"I've only entered it about 15 times. What was the point of all that shit before?"
"I don't know sir, can I get your account number?"
(Repeating phone number yet again.)
"OK. and what is this call in regards to?"
"I have a broken modem. I talked to tech support on saturday and they told me to call billing on Monday and order a new modem."
"OK, that sounds like a tech support problem, hold on..."
"No!! Wait..."
(Customer support specialist transfers call to tech support)
"Thank you for calling Verizon tech support can I get the account number you are calling about?"
"Can you just transfer me to billing? I already talked to someone in tech support the other day about my modem being broken and they told me to call billing and order a new one, but they transferred me he..."
"You'll have to call billing about that"
"No, I did...I was transferred here, can you..."
"Hold on"
(Line is transferred somewhere else now. Billing maybe?)
"Thank you for calling Verizon, can I get the account number you are calling about?"
"Before I bother giving you that information, let me ask if you are the person who can help me"
"Is this a billing question?"
"Yes. I need to order a new modem. The one I have, which by the way, is the third one you've sent me in the last year, is broken."
"OK. That's a tech support problem"
"NO!! I want to order a new modem! I was told that billing handles that!"
"Yes. Hold on."
(Waiting another 10 minutes)
Automated voice: "The following call may be monitored."
"Please! Monitor it! See what idiots you have working for you! For God's sake monitor this fucking call!!!"
"Thank you for calling Verizon. This is tech support. can I get the number you are calling about?"

This goes on for awhile, until finally being able to order the new modem.

Which does not arrive for a week and a half.

At which point my brother calls to check the status, only to discover that there is no record of an order ever being placed.

2. My DVD player died the other night while I was watching season 5 of "Curb Your Enthusiasm". So I had to buy a new DVD player.

3. The worst invention in the history of mankind: the car horn. People should have to roll down their window and shout obscenities at other cars. It's just too easy to lean on the horn. And little kids like to lean on that horn for as long as they can. And I would like to strangle anyone who honks their horn in front of my apartment for as long as I can. Unfortunately, every car that drives past honks their horn, and I just don't have the time.

4. Maybe I should take down the "Honk if you like Menudo" sign in front of my apartment now that I think about it...

New Party Hall sketch

This was fun. We had filmed some stuff last Sunday in HD and when I got home and loaded the footage into the computer I discovered we had not recorded any sound all day. (Still unsure how we screwed that one up. I thought the mic was hooked up properly...)

After the initial frustration, I got real inspired to take the sketch in a different direction and make it into a silent movie. I spent about half a day working on it, trying out different filters, looking for the proper ragtime music to go with it, making title cards in photoshop. It's not the greatest thing (there are a few problems with the way the filters worked with the HD that I'm not completely happy with) but I had fun making it.

On the Cutting Room Floor

A lot of good stuff gets cut out on a reality TV show.

Here's a clip that didn't quite make it to any episode of "COPS"*:


*though I hear it may be included on the upcoming DVD "Too Hot For Civil Liberties: Police Brutality! Vol. 10"

Self-promotion Vs. Hollywood Mega-blitz

A month ago, Terry Gilliam promoted his new movie Tideland by walking around New York panhandling.


Yesterday, David Lynch was sitting at the corner Hollywood and LaBrea with a cow and a poster of Laura Dern, promoting his new film The Inland Empire.


The lengths filmmakers must go to promote their films without a Hollywood studio backing them. And these guys are icons!

On the flip side, I can't walk five feet without seeing an ad for Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.

Self-Styled Quackery and Petty Grievances

I worked a double last night, or more accurately, a one and a half. Twelve hours of loading footage and eating a post-Halloween, 50% off bag of Starburst. Today I woke up at 9pm and quickly realized that everyone I knew was doing something else. Ah, the benefits of working the graveyard shift!

I've started getting sick. Every day I wake up I can feel that pre-illness, scratchy-nasal-cavity sensation at the back of my throat. I have been successfully battling the onslaught of a sore throat by chain-smoking. This is part of a holistic medical breakthrough I discovered in college. In those days, when I would feel the sickness developing I would just get really drunk, the theory being that you get the germs in your body drunk as well, thereby impeding their efforts to sabotage your immune system.

By coating my throat with a film of nicotine and tar I have hindered the ability of said germs to implant themselves and begin their work. Crazy you say? Perhaps. But, to quote George Bernard Shaw, "All great truths begin as blasphemies"!

In other news, my latest pet-peeve is the existence of inner pockets in most of my pants. Is this a new phenomenon? I don't remember these existing before. But every pair of pants I've bought in the last year has an extra little piece of fabric sewn in at the base, creating a tiny pocket where loose change and keys inevitably get stuck. I hate being at the checkout counter and struggling to retrieve change from there. I always have to pull the pocket from my pants, turn it inside-out and try desperately to fish those nickles and dimes out.

Why even bother paying with change when I can just break a bigger bill you may be asking? Because when my Grande drip coffee at Starbucks costs $2.05, I don't want to be stuck with even more loose change in that cursed extra little pocket.

These are the things that bother me.

This is how exciting my life is.

I recently stopped being strictly vegetarian. Not because I wanted to eat meat again, but because I'm tired of having my eating habits scrutinized. When you're a carnivore, nobody says to you, "Hey, you know there's no meat in that minestrone soup you're eating, don't you?" But when you are classified as a "vegetarian", it seems that everyone is focused on your failure. They seem to revel in finding ways that meat or meat by-products were involved in the making of your meal. "You know those fries are cooked in lard?" And often, people confuse the idea of living a predominantly vegetarian existence with being a vegan or an environmental terrorist. If people find out you don't eat meat they always want you to justify why you don't eat meat. They want to know the reason you are unlike them. Most people I know who don't eat meat could care less about saving the world or challenging people on animal rights. It is always the meat-eaters who get upset and want to start a conversation about the issue when confronted with another's vegetarian lifetsyle.

I still believe that a vegetarian diet is healthier*, and in many ways cheaper. And as much as I say I don't care, I suppose I have some moral issues with the way we harvest sentient creatures for food. But if I steal a chicken finger from you at a meal don't berate me. They are tasty. And I'll sleep better knowing I didn't contribute financially to the slaughter myself.


*I know that the idea of having a "healthy" diet is in direct contrast to my prescribed method of illness prevention as described above, but so be it. I'm a walking contradiction. Deal with it.

If You're Looking for Cosmo Kramer Pics...

You've come to the right place!

For the last week or so my lil' blog-thing here has been heavily trafficked by people from around the globe looking for pictures of Kramer from Seinfeld.

See, many moons ago (a year I think), I wrote a little story about my hair. To illustrate how my hair looked ten years ago I included a picture of Kramer.

So, I'd like to say hello to all you unsuspecting visitors from Uruguay or Poland or New Zealand or wherever.

Please, take your coat off and stay awhile.

For The Completist In Me

When it comes to my favorite directors I have always tried to track down every film they ever made, especially their early student films. I remember being very excited when I was in college and came across a VHS copy of Martin Scorsese's "Who's That Knocking At My Door?", his first feature-length film. At that point I had seen almost every film he'd made and this discovery brought me one step closer to seeing them all. Later in my college career I was able to find a VHS of "Italianamerican" and "The Big Shave". With the recent release of two Scorsese collections on DVD, I was ever closer. At this point the only two films of Scorsese's I hadn't seen were his first two student films. I figured that eventually, someone would put them out on DVD as an extra or something.

Luckily for me, there is YouTube. You can find just about anything on there. And, as luck would have it, I was able to finally see those two student films.

I am amazed at the density of these two very short pieces. He shows his talent very early. One of the common traits of the student films I've tracked down is that they're all pretty bad. Which always made me feel good. Because my student films weren't that good either, and I thought, "If they could eventually make it, so can I!"

On the other hand, Martin Scorsese was Martin Scorsese from the moment he picked up a camera, apparently.

What's A Nice Girl Like You Doing In A Place Like This?


It's Not Just You, Murray Pt. 1


It's Not Just You, Murray Pt. 2

New Schedule

Well, they've switched me to more "human" hours at work, coming in at 6pm rather than 11:30pm. Which means I will have to readjust to a new sleep schedule as well. Not bad though.

I am hoping to get more writing done in the wee hours after I get home. I am usually awake for a few hours when I get off work, and if I am getting home at 4 am rather than 10 am, there won't be anyone I know online to distract me. Started writing a few treatments for movie ideas I've had kicking around my head for the last year or so. Maybe I can finally focus on them and get some scripts written.

I've also been scanning old artwork and pictures and posting them to my Flickr account. Started putting together a series of "Bored At Work" drawings, since that is usually when I sketch the most anyway. The most interesting stuff, at least. If I sit down to actually work on something I don't usually tap into the same creative wells I do when I'm bored and killing time at work. I've collected pages and pages of stuff over the years, so why not put them all in one place, right?

Browsing through my collection I found some sketches I did in 1983. They are illustrations for a short story I was writing about a monster who killed kids in their sleep:




Yeah, I was fascinated by disturbing images from an early age...

Speaking of twisted stuff, I saw a great little movie this weekend: an old Swedish exploitation film from the 70s called "They Call Her One Eye". It's about a woman who is raped by an old man when she is a child, becomes mute, grows up, is kidnapped by a pimp who gets her hooked on heroin and has her turning tricks in his bordello, after he gouges out one of her eyes. He sends a fake letter to her parents, pretending to be her and tells them how much she hates them. They commit suicide and finally "One Eye" has had enough and goes postal. But only after she trains in sharpshooting and karate and how to race cars. This film was apparently one of the many inspirations for Tarantino's "Kill Bill". Good stuff.

After The Fact

Here's a cartoon that someone who attended the play "Jungle Woman of the Jungle" drew up after seeing it:



I am the mustached guy in the cage.

Bump and Grindhouse

Spike TV has a trailer for the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez '70s exploitation movie tribute Grindhouse online right here.

I wanted to see it the moment it was announced a year ago. Now...I can't wait!

Rose McGowan as a one-legged stripper with a machine-gun for a pegleg? I want to reserve tickets right now.

Punk Rock and Tofu

A few years ago I happened upon a Craigslist posting looking for an editor in Brooklyn who used Final Cut Pro to edit an episode of a punk rock-themed vegan cooking show. Well, I was vegetarian, I lived in Brooklyn, I used Final Cut Pro, and I'm more than a little familiar with the punk rock.

So I called.

And thus began a four month long disaster.

I had just moved to New York and this was my first editing gig here. In fact, it was really my first editing gig anywhere. Aside from my own films and videos (which were numerous) I didn't have much experience. I was just learning FCP. I'm still learning, in fact.

So it was a trial by error sort of deal. I was paid $100 for the episode. I figured it would take me a few weeks to finesse. However, my computer decided to crash, and I had to replace the hard-drive. Then my mini-DV cam, which I was using as a capture deck, didn't want to be left out and went on the fritz as well. I had to replace the camera's motherboard.

Eventually I had a pretty wobbly rough cut. They had grown tired of the delays and sent an actual editor friend of theirs to rescue the footage. I pretty much lost touch with them after they got the footage back and I never got to see the finished episode.

Last night I searched around to see if they had it posted anywhere. What I was able to find were the two music segments from the show, which were two of the parts I actually enjoyed working on. The band that performed on the episode I edited was The Cuban Cowboys and they have the "videos" posted on their website. The songs are "Mentiroso" and "El Jardin de la Verdad".

I also discovered, as you can see in the "El Jardin" clip, that I am listed as the editor in the credits, but that they spelled my name wrong!

But then...who doesn't spell my name wrong?

A Zombie Halloween

Normally, I am dead-set against remakes of classic horror films. Basically because they've all been disappointing. One of my favorite movies of all time, horror or otherwise, is the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And the remake that came out a few years ago was completely pointless and poorly made. I feel bad for younger viewers for whom the remake was their first introduction to the movie.

However, I am interested in seeing what Rob Zombie does with the Halloween remake, or "re-imagining", he has in the works.

I'll look the other way for some filmmakers.

Scorsese did a brilliant job of "re-imagining" a perfectly good Hong Kong action film. So...

Ugh!

I discovered last night, as I was taking a shower, that the water had been turned off. I discovered this because the cold water was not running, only the hot. So as soon as we ran out of the water that was in the hot water heater...

I finished work early last night, so, with so much free time, I decided to deposit this week's work check at the ATM. It was about 1 in the morning so I pulled out my wallet to get my check card to open the door to the bank's ATM. And I discovered that I no longer have a check card. I think I left it in the ATM when I got some money out on Wednesday.

The headphone jack is fried on my iPod and I cannot hear any audio, no matter what headphones I plug in. The iPod plays fine. I just can't actually listen to it! I was going to take it to the Apple Store tomorrow and see what can be done, but now that I don't have any sort of credit/check card, I should probably wait.

I really need to get the water turned back on. Cuz I have to poop...

The Enigma

During one of the performances of "Jungle Woman of the Jungle", there was a photographer taking pictures.

I am not a very photogenic person. Between the ages of 12 and 17, I would hide everytime pictures were taken at my family reunions. Year after year of family group photos are missing me. My cousin and I used to get a kick out of it. One time, we hid in the tree above where the family was taking pictures. It was hard to stifle our laughter as my aunt yelled out, only several feet below us, "Where's David?! Where's Tommy?!"

These days I don't have to hide. I seldom find myself as anyone's photographic subject.

The irony, of course, is that I love looking at pictures of myself.

I'm an unabashed narcissist. Unfortunately, I am usually the only one harboring this desire to look at pictures of David Michael Orsborn. And so, unless I am taking the picture myself, I often must be content with seeing myself in the background of other peoples' pictures.

Looking through the pictures from the play, I was amazed by my uncanny ability to escape the camera's gaze almost entirely. I was onstage in many of these shots, but all that is captured is an elbow here, a chin there. Like the Bigfoot of the stage! There is little evidence of my existence. You just had to be there...

Check out the pics HERE

Finally Taking a Breath

Well, the play is done with.

I think we had a good run. There were a few slow nights where the crowd wasn't as responsive as you'd hope, but Friday night sold out and the audience laughed and enjoyed themselves. Saturday night was also a full house and seemed to go over rather well.

I realized, after it was all said and done, that the character I played sort of anchored the play. A fellow performer half-complained, "I think it's safe to say that Dave was the star of the show every fucking night." It's true that I got laughs at every performance, but I feel that my lines were a little easier to milk. My character was the most "normal" in the play. Sort of the voice of reason in many situations. And I think that having a character to identify with makes the audience feel safe. Especially in a jungle play with a race of cat-people, a "living waterfall of beautiful girls", a grizzled old prospector out of the Old West, and biblical references. It was a tad absurd, and my character provided the grounding in reality necessary for an audience to take the trip.

I've never been good at analyzing things, and I certainly never drew these conclusions beforehand. But I picked up on it as the performances went on. It's interesting how an audience's reaction makes you look at scenes differently. That's one thing I learned in improv. That the audience will lead the scene. As a performer, you've got to let them. I delievered some of my lines differently each night. Depending on the audience's laughter I either amped it up or reigned it in. I certainly let some scenes drag on if I was getting laughs. C'mon, I'm a big ham.

As much as it drove me nuts rehearsing this thing for the last four months, it was well worth it when we finally got up in front of a paying audience and delievered our goods. I had a good time and enjoyed working with my fellow performers. And yes, as much as I'll bitch and moan during rehearsals, I would love the opportunity to act in Simon's next play..."Witch Prison"! (If you're reading this Simon, keep me in mind as you write it. I'm down for whateva.)

And to top it all off, I went to see Martin Scorsese's new film "The Departed", and it was awesome. The performances were top-notch, it moved so fast you never got bored, the changes made from the original film were intriguing and added a whole new layer of subtext, and I am planning to see it again and again. In fact, I felt a lump in my throat when the final shot faded out and the words "A Martin Scorsese Picture" came up. I was reminded once again by the master just why I love film and why I've been making films and videos for the last 18 years.

As my character in the play would say, "Hoorah!"

The Play's Almost Here

You should reserve tickets by going to junglewomanofthejungle@yahoo.com. They are $15, but go up to $18 at the door. So reserve them!

There's also more info about the play times and stuff if you email them.

Can I Get A Reacharound?

One of the things I love most about moving is that I end up without internet for months at a time.

Last year, I was unable to get my TimeWarner cable internet account switched over to my new apartment because it was not a real "apartment", forcing me to go with Verizon DSL.

Now I am trying to switch my Verizon DSL over to my new address, and they informed me it would take 3 weeks to switch everything over.

Why? Because they can.

Well, two weeks into my wait I get an email from Verizon informing me that "Verizon DSL may not be available in [my] area" and that "further testing is required". I am only 30 blocks from my previous apartment, but for some reason it's a big hassle. Naturally.

Oh, but they did say they were "sorry for the delay in processing [my] order".

So I applied online for TimeWarner Road Runner internet and was informed that "an order was already placed on 8/24/05" and that they could "not continue further with [my] request".

Huh?

I know I shouldn't be, but I am continually baffled by the incompetence of huge corporations. I'd complain more, but who'd listen? Certainly not Karla in customer service, whose temp agency woke her up at 10 am this morning offering this gig, that she only took because she got really trashed last night and blew, like, 200 hundred dollars on too many margaritas and stuff and she really needed that money for textbooks for that stupid Contemporary Media Issues course she signed up for only because Geoff was taking it, but, like, now they're totally broken up and it's too late to add/drop and God, the last thing she wants to do is listen to stupid people bitch about their internet problems, like, hello, do I look like I spend all day in front of a computer?

So it looks like I'll have to do some more hoop-jumping before I am "connected" again.

St. Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast

I'm behind the times, but I was checking out the MTV Video Music Awards from a few weeks ago and discovered that my friend Ken from college won the Best Editor award for editing the Gnarls Barkley video "Crazy". Long way from the days of getting stoned in the University of New Orleans television studio, trying to finish a video hours before it's due in class.

Ah, memories...

All I Want For 9/11 Is My Two Front Teeth

How many years do you think we'll have to wait until September 11th becomes a paid holiday?

The prevalence of 9/11 movies on TV and at the video store this year makes me wonder: will we get a new slate of movies each year, like all those Christmas movies? How many reinterpretations of those few hours can we get?

In an effort to be truly tasteless, I've compiled a list of possible titles for future cinematic 9/11 ruminations:

'Twas the Night Before 9/11
It's a Terrible Day
How the Grinch Stole 9/11
A 9/11 Carol
A 9/11 Story
National Lampoon's 9/11 Vacation
A Very Brady 9/11
Ernest Saves 9/11
Silent Morning, Deadly Morning
Bin Laden Is Coming To Town
Yes, Virginia, There Is A Bin Laden
The Year Without A Bin Laden
Bin Laden Conquers The Martians
The Muppets Take Al Qaeda

Just some food for thought, Hollywood.

All Moved In

It's done.
I am finally completely moved into my new place, I got the deposit back from the old spot, and now I can spend my time unpacking and making my nest livable.

It took 12 hours and multiple trips with a UHaul van and a friend's car, but we did it.

Unfortunately I had to go straight to work afterwards, but I did take a shower before going and fell in love with something I had overlooked when scoping the place out originally.

Not only was the water pressure good and strong, and the water sufficiently hot, but I discovered that the shower/tub combo is quite large and the walls are the best part. No standard tile here. The side wall of the shower is exposed, treated brick! And the wall with the shower head is stone. How cool is that?

Granted the bathroom is pretty tiny. Not a lot of wiggle room when you get out of the shower. You're almost standing on the toilet.

But the tub/shower is so spacious when you're in it.

I really dig it.

Oh yeah and we have a fullsize kitchen finally. With more than enough counter space. A big complaint with the previous hovel.

Movin' Out

We signed a lease for our new apartment last week. The second floor of a well-lighted brownstone in Sunset Park. Gonna start hauling things over there this Wednesday. By Friday, I will say goodbye to this sodden hell-hole.

So let's look back on some of the good times that were had here:

1. Signing the lease one year ago and realizing that this was not an apartment after all. Due to housing laws, this basement cannot legally be rented as living quarters. Therefore it was rented to us under the guise of a "storage space". The ensuing problems we encountered throughout our stay were par for the course, I guess. We should've known better.

2. Waking up on the second morning of my stay in this place to discover that it was slowly filling with water. Most likely the sewer backed up and decided to flood our little abode.

3. Tearing up all the carpeting as a result of the flooding. At one point we had to move my bookcase aside to get the carpet from under it. I began taking the books out to make it easier to move. The landlord said, "No, just lift" and as he did the cheap pre-fab bookcase fell apart and my books tumbled into the remaining water from the flood.

4. Due to this place not being a legally recognized apartment, Time Warner would not transfer my account and hook up my cable internet. They wanted to send out someone from the Housing Authority to survey the place and determine if it was indeed an apartment. I cancelled my account and went with Verizon DSL, which took almost 3 months to install.

5. Sometime around mid-October we discover there is no hot water in the shower. We continually complain to the landlord, who finally gets around to fixing the water heater in March. 6 months of cold showers in the dead of winter. Awesome.

6. One day I try to leave the apartment and discover that I cannot open the door from inside. After about an hour, I am able to open the door and leave. A week later i come home from work and find my brother laying on the futon. He tells me he has been trapped in the apartment all day and finally just decided to call in sick to work and watch TV until I got home. We duct tape the door jamb and use the deadbolt to keep the door closed for the remainder of our stay.

7. As a Christmas present, the apartment floods again the morning of the 24th as I am leaving for Philadelphia.

8. We discover a hole in the wall next to the front door one day. We plug it with tinfoil and ignore it. A week later a friend of my brother is visiting and as we sit around talking the tinfoil pops out of the wall and a giant wire starts moving into the apartment. Steve's friend screams and runs away from the door. We later find out that the landlord is installing a call box so people can call from the front door.

9. Since the call box was installed, the landlord's children continually ring our doorbell. At least three or four times a week. I usually just press the talk button and calmly announce, "I'm gonna kill you all."

10. Sometimes the toilet handle sticks and the toilet keps running. If this happens at 3 or 4 in the morning, the landlord will continually ring our doorbell and say, "Jiggle the handle Steve! Dave! Jiggle the handle!"

11. Being a basement there is always some water that seeps up from the ground. I will often forget this and leave some books or Cds in a pile in the corner and when I pick them up a week later, they are mildewy. Again, awesome!

12. There were a few weeks last autumn when it rained alot. One night as the torrents came down I heard a dripping sound. I woke up and discovered that part of the ceiling had torn away. Chunks of plaster and drywall were dripping off and a steady stream of water was pouring onto the floor. I put a trashcan under to catch it, went upstairs to tell the landlord, then went back to sleep. Two weeks later he fixed the hole in the ceiling.

13. A strange smell starts eminating from the laundry room next to our apartment. Since we are not allowed to use the laundry room, I've never been in there. days pass and it smells more and more like death. I am convinced there is a dead rat somewhere. One night, as I am leaving for work I ask my brother if he's noticed the smell. We open our door and start hearing a cat mewling. I open the laundry room door and there is a kitten scratching at the door and the strong whiff of uncleaned cat litter. I shake my head and go to work. The next day there is no more cat sounds from the laundry room. But that night the landlord cooks up a lovely-smelling curried "lamb"...

Jeez, I could go on, but you get the idea.

One more week...

Ah, Treadmills...

I am currently in love with this video. Like everyone else, I guess.

Jungle Woman of the Jungle Ad

Here's an unofficial poster for the play I am rehearsing for right now. It's shaping up rather nicely. So save those dates!

Freedom of '76

I love this video. An oldy but goody. A Spike Jonze-directed video of Ween doing their ode to The City of Brotherly Love. How can you miss?

And who of us has not at one time, in some drunken stupor, contemplated stealing that damn Liberty Bell?

The Roominghouse Madrigals

Rent in the New York area has increased 25% in the last five months. My brother talked to a landlord today in our continuing search for a place to live and he confessed that his properities are nowhere near worth what he is charging. But that is the going rate and it keeps climbing. He said that this was not a renter's market but a landlord's market. I read an article recently that said vacancies are "hovering around 0%".

When I first moved to this section of Brooklyn, I was paying $1300 for a pretty sizable 2 bedroom. If that place were on the market now it would fetch $1600 or more a month. Most apartments in this area are going for $2100 or more.

Another problem is the need for outstanding credit in order to even be considered a a renter, something that neither my brother nor I have. I know mine's not that great but the only balance I am carrying is my student loans. My brother's credit for some reason is terrible and we've been shown the door more than a few times when looking for a place.

I am too old to be dependent on my parents. But I am constantly told I need a guarantor to cosign the lease on a new apartment. Unfortunately for me I started a new job and that doesn't help matters. Never mind the fact that I make more now. I haven't been there long enough, so it counts against me.

So I am seriously considering putting my things in storage and renting a room by the week in a roominghouse until I find a place. Maybe I can help find bodies buried in the backyard.

Ooo, the excitement!

More Error Than Trial

Most of what I've learned about computers comes from constantly fucking things up.

Today, as I was trying clean the cache on my computer and generally make it run smoother, I deleted the System kernal extension and irreparably damaged everything. After much more "fucking around", trying to repair the problem, I ended up having to do an Archive and Install of the operating system. This is probably the third or fourth time I've done this.

I'm a jackass.

But i'm learning what NOT to do in the future. Perhaps in a few more years I'll know what I'm doing. By then I will have bought a brand new G5 a week before Apple introduces a G6. Cuz that's the way I roll.

"Bummer man, that's a bummer."

I found myself half-way through Gilbert Hernandez' new graphic novel Sloth, thinking to myself, "This is fantastic! I want to option the rights to this thing and make it into a film." It felt very Lynchian at times and it seemed to be building to an amazing catharsis. Having lived through a coma myself, I was particularly taken by the nonchalant treatment of it as something that "just sorta happened" but, regardless, has completely altered the characters' lives in subtle ways. I completely identified!

Then suddenly there is a body-switch/parallel universe thing straight out of Lost Highway, and now I'm completely hooked. I start to get giddy and excitedly flip through the pages.

And then...pfft!

The story peters out in the third act and fizzles and loses its momentum, I feel. I was so bummed by the ending I almost felt like returning it. And that so rarely happens to me. I am pretty accepting of everything I read or watch and don't invest too heavily in any work of art to the point where I get upset if it fails to live up to my expectations.

But the first two thirds were great!

"Eighty percent of success is showing up"*

I'd like to congratulate fellow Party Haller, Chris Sullivan, on finally getting a piece, "Your Flight, Three Years From Now", published by McSweeney's. They still haven't accepted anything of mine, but then, I'm not the writer he is, so I'm glad to see they still have standards!

(I've just realized this is the second post in a row where I've sung the praises of Mr. Sullivan. You owe me a beer next time we go to Reservoir, bitch.)

*quote from Woody Allen, who, as far as I know, hasn't had anything in McSweeney's either.

Party Hall's On Notice

Party Hall For Rent are currently putting together a new show to be performed in the coming months. You should go! If for no other reason than to witness "The Calamari Sketch", a wonderfully sick little gem from Chris Sullivan's twisted mind. (I had not been to a group "meeting" in several months and this was the first new sketch I was presented with when I met up with the other Hall members last Saturday. Perverse. Unsettling. And in terribly bad taste. What comedy is all about.)

And yes, I do sport the porn 'stache again. But this time it is for a role in a play. Though, I have to say, I am growing to like it. It has completely made me persona non grata. I walk the streets and get disapproving looks from people all the time now.

With Great Weight Comes Great Responsibility

When I was in high school, I weighed an average of 95 lbs. I remember being very excited when I finally broke the 100 lb mark.I tried hard to gain weight then, to no avail. In fact, being the gangly kid I was, I always secretly wished I would one day be fat. Like really fat. Orson Welles fat.

Well, it seems my wish is coming true.

Last night I found that my brother had recently purchased a weight scale. I hopped up on the thing and found, to my dismay, that I am currently weighing in at 210 lbs.

What?!

I thought I was somewhere around 185-190. This had to be wrong!

I took off my shoes. I was sure they were responsible for adding a significant amount of poundage.

Still 210.

Well, damn. Be careful what you wish for. I calculated my BMI on the internet and discovered that I am considered "overweight" now. In fact, about 30 lbs. overweight. I am heavier that 74% of men my age and height. Ironically, I still look skinny. My arms and legs are still as bony as they were in high school. So I am probably carrying about 50-60 lbs. in that spare tire around my midsection.

I remember seeing a doctor when I lived in New Orleans and he ran some tests and he said everything was fine, but when I took off my shirt and he saw the great bulk hiding in my gut he had a look of dismay.

"You probably want to do something about that," he said. "Carrying around all that weight in one area can lead to serious health problems in the future."

But he didn't know about my secret childhood wish of being fat someday. And my lifelong aversion to exercise.

Now, I am not completely sold on all this "modern medical data" about the "proper weight" and the commonly held view that "thin-is-in". Would I be any better off if I weighed the proper 184 lbs. recommended for my height and age?

I do have a gym membership and for several months I was working out pretty religiously. I was seeing very little results, even after three months, and this "high" they talk about was always elusive. Going to the gym just became a chore. It's something I feel that I "need" to do, like going to school when you are a kid. It's not always fun. In fact, sometimes it's downright miserable, but it is supposedly something that will benefit you in "the future".

I'll probably continue to make concessions, though. I'll try to be more active and I'll cut back on the beer and fried food. But sooner or later I should learn to be content with the way things are. If I didn't feel overweight and unhealthy before I jumped on that weight scale, why did seeing that number change anything? Does being considered "overweight" in a list of averages really affect me personally? What's good for the goose is not always good for the gander.

Right now, I am a gangly guy with a huge belly.

The question is: Do I use my obesity for good? Or evil?

Can I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight, Mister?

I am tired of moving.

I've moved 5 times in the last six years. The process of finding a new apartment seems to be a yearly activity. And it's a stressful activity.

I would like to be able to put down at least some temporary roots. I'm 32 and I am sick of the uncertainty of not knowing where I'm going to be from year to year. There's something to be said for following the "traditional path" of getting married, buying a house, starting a family and all that. It's not for me, but it's got to be a comforting feeling. You must feel like you belong somewhere.

You Tube Shenanigans

Posted some old films and videos I've made on YouTube.

As a friend pointed out, I've now subjected myself to the barbs and criticisms of "tons of 13 year olds across the world".

To win them over, I posted a sketch about poop.

R.I.P. (1946-2006)

The Medium is the Massage

A music video I made for my friend Eli's band Los Halos is currently on this month's Timecode:NOLA. It is for the song "Blue Star". As always you can view the episode as a podcast on iTunes. To subscribe for free: click here.

The video was compiled out of found footage, particularly short industrial films and cartoons in the public domain that I found online at The Prelinger Archives.

And in unrelated news, I finally picked up the DVD of one of my favorite films of all time, Peter Jackson's zombie classic Dead Alive, hailed as "the goriest fright film of all-time". It's certainly one of the funniest.

Closed Captioning

Blasts From The Past 1

Tonight after work I got drunk and watched some old films I had either directed or shot during my college years. I realized that I was really interested in bright colors and weird compositions when I was 23. In the fall of 1998 I was, for some reason, asked to be the director of photography on quite a few student films. I remember being particularly interested in strong primary colors and I took a liking to the Kodak Vision 7246 16mm filmstock. It seemed to fit whatever style I was aiming for. Unfortunately I think my inexperience and experimental attitude worked against a lot of the films I was shooting. I didn't approach the material and adapt to what they were trying to say, but instead went my own way with the cinematography. I liked negative space and faint shadows. By contrast, with the films I directed I made sure I had an experienced Director of Photography lensing it. I wanted someone who could tell me if my experimental ideas would look like shit or not before I rolled any film. basically, when it's MY money, I'm a cheap bastard, but if someone else is footing the bill I'll try anything. It was fun to look back at some of the things I was toying with eight to ten years ago.

Here's a short B&W film I shot for my friend Reed in '98 called The Hit. We shot this one night after closing at the PJ's Coffee House on Camp Street in the CBD. I don't remember why we decided to cover the windows in newspaper. (Oh, and please check out some of Reed's other work)

Geeky aside: I remember having a discussion with an older grad student about an idea I had of of shooting an outdoor scene in daylight with tungsten balanced film and lighting the principle actors with tweenie lights, so that the actors were color balanced and the background was an off-color blue. Several weeks later the guy came into the bar where I was working to ask my permission to steal my idea for a film he was shooting that weekend. He was someone I respected and looked up to, so it made me feel somewhat validated.

Summer Blockbuster

One of the exciting things about living in a city is the increased chance for accidents and fires.

In the past year I have gotten to see a dead body laying on the sidewalk after a motorcycle accident, an SUV flip over on its roof and smash into the side of a store after doing 80mph on a residential street and slamming into another truck, and a parked car that exploded and caught fire to two surrounding cars.

These events are always a big spectacle and tend to draw big crowds of fellow curious Brooklynites. I enjoy the sense of camaraderie in our shared search for eyewitnesses and answers to our questions. "Did you see what happened?"

This morning I was woken by the THUP THUP THUP of a hovering helicopter.

After about ten or fifteen minutes of trying to block it out, I realized it was probably not just a traffic copter covering the usual gridlock. I decided it might be worth investigating.

I walked several blocks, using the two helicopters as a guide. It turned out that part of a building had collapsed and there were two trapped construction workers under the debris. The streets wre swamped with FDNY vehicles, rescue workers, and interested onlookers such as myself.

I worked my way closer and set up camp across the street from the accident site, trying to get a good eyeline into the chaos. Unfortunately there was a hook and ladder truck blocking any view of the scene, so I made sure I was next to the ambulance that was ready to receive whomever they pulled from the rubble.

Some onlookers had gotten to the roof of an adjoing building and were giving us thumbs-up/thumbs-down assessments of the situation. Several news camera-folk that had been wandering around found out how to get up there as well and I could hear news reporters fresh on the scene complain, "How the hell'd they get up there? Frank, find a way up there!"

The guy next to me was pulled aside to do a man-on-the-street interview about the incident. He didn't have much to say and I'm glad they didn't try to question me.

One of the guys on the roof shouted down to us on the street and gave two thumbs-up. "They're OK!"

By this time the cops had arrived to start herding people away from the action, so I figured it was time to call it a morning. I can always watch the highlights and stuff I missed on the news tonight.

There was drama, danger, excitement and the very real possibility of a dead body. Best of all, it was free! And besides, the new Superman movie doesn't come out unti tomorrow. I needed something!

William, it was really nothing

In entertainment news, I have been awarded the role of William in the Jungle Woman of the Jungle play.
Rehearsals start in earnest in July. They are aiming for a late August run of four performances at a TBD Manhattan venue.
Fun fun fun...

Wanna see my hand jive?

I think a great way to start off a story you are about to tell would be to say, "Once upon a time..." and then launch into your tale. Has that ever been done before? Or am I a genius?

Is the Church of Christ, Scientist broken down into specialized branches? I would like to belong to the First Church of Christ, Etymologist.

Sometimes I make up diseases that make me laugh: Semi-colon cancer, Solipsistic fibrosis.

I saw an obese woman on TV who actually said, "It scares me that I might wake up one day and be dead."

Here's a bad joke I made up once: "That girl is so white trash, when I dropped her off after our date I got fined for littering. Thank you. Thank you. I'll be here all week."

The Father, Son, and the Holy Toast

In 1994, Diane Duyser of Hollywood, FL, made some grilled cheese. After taking a bite she looked down at the sandwhich and saw the Virgin Mary's face staring back at her. She was taken aback by this saintly apparition and kept it for ten years. She believed she had been blessed by the Virgin Mary's appearance on her sandwhich. Miraculously the grilled chese sandwhich never rotted over the years and remains in the same condition as when she first removed it from her stove. The grilled cheese performed a second miracle in 2004 by netting Mrs. Duyser $28,000 when she sold the sandwhich on ebay. I believe the real miracle here is the amount of preservatives in the bread and cheese she used.

I personally think it looks more like Greta Garbo than the Virgin Mary.

In 2005, Machelle and Crysta Nylor of Nebraska opened a bag of Rold Gold Honey Mustard pretzels and discovered a pretzel that looked to them like the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus. They sold the 2 inch pretzel on ebay for $10,600.

Again I don't see it. I see a fucked-up treble clef.

In 1996 a manager at a Nashville, TN coffee shop noticed that one of the cinnamon buns he was selling bore a striking resemblance to Mother Teresa. Seven months ago in December of 2005, the infamous "Nun Bun" was stolen! It is feared to have been destroyed by godless heathens.

I DO think this looks like Mother Teresa. Or a Goomba from Super Mario Bros.

The lesson here, I believe, is that people want to see religious icons represented in foodstuff. And they will pay handsomely for it on ebay.

Playacting Again

So, last night I read for a part in Simon's new play, Jungle Woman of the Jungle. As you may recall, Simon was the writer/director of last year's production The Young Romance Play. That was a lot of fun, so when Simon emailed with news about his latest opus, I was eager to participate.

This one has a lot of great characters and is again based on obscure comics from the 50s and 60s, this time various jungle-themed comic books, like Sheena and Tarzan and other really lame characters of that ilk.

Runnin' With The Devil

Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 is the National Day of Slayer.

So crank up some "Reign In Blood" and then go see "The Omen" and read USA Today's interview with Deicide.

Some British mother's-to-be are actually worried of giving birth to the hellspawn.

And the devil's concubine herself, Ann Coulter, is releasing her new book "Godless: The Chruch of Liberalism" on Tuesday.

Gotta love the marketing potential of superstitions and fear...

Have You Seen My Stapler?

I love Staples.

There is one a mere twelve blocks from my apartment, which I only became aware of a month ago. Before this discovery I used to take the bus to the Office Depot at the Atlantic Center, which is three subway stops from my apartment. On a nice day it is walkable, but it is still far enough so that it didn't become a regular destination point. There isn't an OfficeMax anywhere close.

The Staples is a different story.
I go there a lot.

Point of fact is, I am a stationery whore.

I have an almost fetishistic interest in office supplies. Wandering around looking at binders and pens and monthly planners on dry-erase board provides me with a real sense of calm. When I look at a collection of stackable modular cabinets i cannot help but think, in the midst of the chaos of the 21st century, that dammit, we're making headway. Mankind will not be overcome. We have hanging file folders and multi-colored vinyl-coated paper clips.

I can trace this obsession back to the mid-80s and the Mead paper company's introduction of the Trapper Keeper. This new-fangled binder became a talisman of sorts for us fourth graders. Not only did it keep your papers in order (homework and tests you needed to have signed by your parents were always in danger of being ripped or trampled in our rough and tumble world) but there were plastic slots that also held your pencils. It was a status symbol, and the more bells and whistles your Trapper Keeper had, the cooler you were.

As kids we also decorated our pencils with useless items. I remember the fad of collecting pencil grips, little rubber triangles you slid onto your pencils "in order to hold them better". Of course the goal was to fit as many grips onto your pencil as you could, so that your pencil looked like a red-green-and-orange triangular rubber rod.

And to store these pencils and sharpeners and assorted cap erasers (and the ocassional big-haired troll) there were zippered pencil bags. Some were shapped like giant pencils, some were mini-handbags, and some could even be clipped into your binder or Trapper Keeper. Efficency and order!

Even as a young child I was predisposed to the desire to be organized. My mother and grandmother used to love telling me about the time when I was about two or three and my older cousin came to visit. I had a toybox in which I kept my toys. According to them I always would take a single toy out, play with it for awhile, return it to the box, take out another, play with it, return it, etc. I never had more than one toy out at once. My cousin, on the other hand, came over and began taking every toy out of the box in order to decide which ones he would play with. I am told that I had a look of horror on my face like I was witnessing a life-altering tragedy.

In junior high I remember getting my first filing cabinet. Ironically, this did not help keep my room clean. I am a notoriously disorganized individual and have always kept a messy room. For all my enthusiasm for organizational materials, I find myself surrounded by mounds of papers and clothes and stuff. I used the filing cabinet to keep only certain aspects of my life in order, mainly my creative endeavors. Files were dedicated to scripts and comics I was in the process of working on.

So now, many years later, I still like the idea of being organized. I buy things to catalog and arrange my stuff, but somehow am never able to keep on top of it all. That three year old who played with one toy at a time is long gone and I now spend my days fighting through the clutter. If you were to go through my journals of the last twelve years you would probably find a couple hundred entries that talked about needing to put things in order.

But just when it seems to be a lost cause, and I am drowning in receipts and notes and clothes I haven't worn in years, I take a trip to Staples. Maybe I'll buy a 15-sheet capacity, adjustable hole punch with a few two-pocket portfolios with prong fasteners. Or a 100-pack of CD-Rs and a 14-sheet cross-cut paper shredder.

And I will not be as overcome by my life's disarray. Because dammit, I'm making headway.

Must-See TV

Free lampshades for all the audience members!

Cruel Summer

They always say that "the holidays" (ie. Thanksgiving through New Years) are the worst time for lonely people. As a long-time Lonely Guy, I have to disagree with that bit of folklore. No, I think that summer is incredibly depressing and hateful for the individual suffering from loneliness.

Why?

Because that is always when couples come out en masse, to flaunt their happiness. To go for walks and enjoy being alive. What's up with that?

For this reason I tend to hibernate in the summer. This year should be no different. In fact, I have a job working the 3rd shift, so I will be sleeping most days this summer, saving me from having to interact with people and subject myself to the world around me. What some folks refer to as "living".

It's been quite a few years since I got any joy out of that interminable season called summer. I blame this on Hollywood. A man in my condition needs summer blockbusters to make it through the day. A darkened movie theater is a safe haven from the outside world of roving couples armed with picnic baskets or strollers.

I hope that the cinematic drivel I plan on spending my summer with this year doesn't completely rot my brain. And if I'm lucky, there may be a few that warrant repeat viewings. That will help keep me away from parks and beaches and other dangerous communal, anti-lonely guy locations.

Party Hall News

Party Hall For Rent, the sketch comedy group I am in, now has their very own MySpace page. I've posted a few more videos from our performance last August. So check 'em out!

We also got together on Saturday to plot the course for the group's future. This involved lots of drinking, calling each other homos, and discovering the largest cockroach in New York City reading the paper on the toilet in the men's room. (We discussed a few projects with the roach, but he refused to sign a release form so we may get slapped with a lawsuit if we pursue any of those ideas further.)

We should be shooting some short videos and stuff in the coming weeks. These will be posted on the aforementioned MySpace page. I will probably link to them from here as well.

Verio Web Hosting Is a Front

I am now being pursued by a collection agency for one of the charges on my credit card from my recent identity theft.

I am required to pen a letter to the collection agency and the company stating that I am disputing these charges. Will it never end? I sent the following letter:

ATTN: George Sell
Verio Web Hosting

RE: Disputed Charge for account No. XXXX-XXXXX-XX

Dear Mr. Sell,

I am writing in response to IC System’s recent attempt to acquire monetary settlement for an account I never set up with your company Verio Web Hosting.

On or around February 17th, 2006, I discovered that there were multiple felonious charges on my credit card at the time. I disputed these charges and signed an affadavit with my creditor. These charges were dropped and reinstated to my account.

Now I am being approached from your company about these charges that I never made myself. You assert that I requested you host a web site named www.ozsale.net. This is simply not true. Not only have I never tried to acquire said domain, I recently tried to access the site and did not have authorization. So if you are hosting this site for me, you’re doing a damn poor job of it.

I can only assume two things:

1) This site was purchased after my identity theft by some third party, and you have no other involvement in this case aside from unwittingly hosting an illegal site. (On a Google search for ozsale.net, I came across multiple listings for Australian ebay sites. I have never been to Australia and I would not be interested in selling Australian goods, unless you count the Nerf boomerang I have listed on craigslist as an “Australian” item.)

2)Your company engages in nefarious web activities that steal consumers’ financial information and sells it to other web-based companies, and is actually a money-laundering front for your true nature as an international arms dealer and white slavery ringleader. By bilking unsuspecting consumers out of $40 here and there, you have been able to fund an elite fighting force in Paraguay, whose mission it is to stamp out truth and justice wherever it rears its head.

Hopefully this second scenario is merely a Red Bull-addled fever dream and not something I should report to the Better Business Bureau. Either way I call upon you to cancel this account immediately. Because in the end, I am not giving you one red cent.

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

Yours,
Dave Orsborn

Elementary, my dear Watson

I believe that one of my email accounts could have possibly been hijacked. I have been getting messages from a Barry Cohen who uses a South African email address. They are regular messages (forwarded jokes and such) and I am listed in his address book it appears, along with others in South Africa and one gmail account. Under my actual name, mind you, not just my email address.

Perhaps he knows another Dave Orsborn and found my email address in a Google search or something. Or maybe he is an evil co-conspirator in last February's theft of my credit card information! And he has accidentally exposed himself.

Let me start off by saying I don't trust anything that comes out of South Africa, especially not after seeing Lethal Weapon 2. Those people are nothing but trouble! They killed Mel Gibson's wife, not to mention the cute blonde girl that worked in the embassy, only minutes after he had sex with her. Evil South Africans! Oh, and that goes for Charlize Theron too. Talk about bait and switch. She swindles her way into an acting career using her statuesque good-looks, then covers herself in ugly-make-up to win awards. Fie on you!

Of course, it could've been the Australians who stuck it to me.

I got a letter from a collection agency yesterday attempting to collect on one of my disputed charges from February. The website they say I registered and am having hosted for $40 is www.ozsale.net. I tried to go to that site but did not have authorization. After googling ozsale i came up with several listings for Australian ebay sites.

Aha!

That's what I said.

But I didn't know what to say or do after that. I'm not Sherlock Holmes.

So I just removed that suspicious email account from anything connected to monetary transactions I may conduct online.

If my identity is stolen again, they can have it. I've been meaning to get a new one anyway, and that would just be the impetus I need.

Hey Jude

I'd like to give a shout-out to Misha and Trudy on welcoming their new son, Julian, into the world.
Congratulations! Hope to see you all soon.

Check out Julian's web page for pics of the lil guy.

Glub...Glub...

David Blaine failed to break the world record for holding his breath. Boo hoo. I say they put him back in until he can do it right! Oh? You're a minute and 52 seconds short of beating the record? Well, back under you go, David. You don't want the world to call you a quitter now, right? If you fall off the horse you gotta get back up on it!

He spent 177 hours under water. I ask you, what's two more minutes?


As any five year old kid will tell you, the best way to get someone's attention is by holding your breath as long as you can. That, and pissing all over yourself.

Cinco de Mayo Ideas

The other day a friend of mine asked if I had any ideas for her Cinco de Mayo party. After the usual suggestions of tequila, mojitos, salsa, chips, a pinata, sombreros, I said,

"Oh! You can put barbed wire around your yard and make your guests sneak into the party!"

In fact, they can be considered temporary partygoers, because they will be expected to return to their homes when their period of partying has expired. Undocumented partiers will be expected to pay a one-time fee to register for the partygoer program. Everyone should be required to wear a badge with thier name. This is merely in hopes that someone will say, "Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!" Once this phrase is uttered, you can abandon the badge-giving charade. Of course there will be those who don't register and still get past, but that is fine as you will most likely be able to find them working in the kitchen. In fact, a few may be of use to help you clean up after the party.

And the guests should all be dressed up like Zorro.

Down The Memory Hole

Over the last few days I have been rewatching Stephen Colbert's roasting of GW Bush and the press and thinking to myself, "Thank God there is someone in this country with fucking balls." But, apparently the White House and the press didn't find it funny. It was interesting how the laughter died whenever he touched a nerve and exposed the truthiness of a situation.

Check out the video here

Fatty Fatty Boom Blatty

After spending a good 10-15 minutes Saturday to try to button my suit's pants before my friend's wedding, I realized it was time to take some action. So today I plopped down $200 for a gym membership. I get a free nutritional counseling, free personal trainer consultations, and free towel service. Woohoo!

Party Hall For Rent, "Teacher's Pet"

This is one of the filmed segments from Party Hall's first sketch comedy performance last August...


Get this video and more at MySpace.com

Deconstruction of a MySpace Bulletin Post

Original Text:
for those who are on my friend list...
I totally have to agree with all of you who say people are getting fake In here. So I gave in and let's see who really reposts this. This is a test to see who's paying attention. It serves to eliminate people who are desperately trying to add "friends" like its a popularity contest in High School. This is a test to see how many people in my friends list actually pay attention to me. Copy and repost in your own bulletin. Lets see who the true friends are and I think I know who you are.. Repost this if you are a friend.. if you don't, you get deleted.. Don't reply... just copy and paste this in a new bulletin as "bye myspace"


for those who are on my friend list...
That means everyone who is reading this, because if you are able to read my bulletins, you are obviously on my friend list. So, I guess I should say "for you who are reading this", but even then I am kinda stating the obvious, unless of course this is meant for those who are NOT reading my bulletins, in which case I would make a plea to the reader to relay this message for me. I am not entirely sure how I would go about doing this. Perhaps I would make a list of all those people I would suspect of not reading my bulletins and provide their phone numbers so that the persons who do read this would be able to call them and notify them of the following important information, which I felt inclined to share with both friends, strangers, bands I'll never listen to, performers I'll never see perform, and anyone else i've decided to accept friend requests from, by posting this bulletin. i.e. the people on my "friend list". This message is for them(you).


I totally have to agree with all of you who say people are getting fake In here.
Who the hell is saying this? Really. Aside from posts like these, I've never had anyone honestly come to me and complain that people are being "fake". And what does that mean? It means that I feel that I am being ignored by you. I may have 1,893 "friends", but dammit, our particular myspace friendship really means something to me. And I'm a little upset that the only time I hear from you is when you have a show to promote. Who do you think I am, buster? Some kinda myspace whore?! Well fuck you!!

So I gave in and let's see who really reposts this. This is a test to see who's paying attention.
That means you Little Miss High-and-Mighty. Don't think I haven't been reading your comments. I know that you went to TGI Fridays last Saturday and got ripped on shooters. Shall I refer you to Karen's comment on the 13th? And who the hell is Sebastien?

It serves to eliminate people who are desperately trying to add "friends" like its a popularity contest in High School.
Because myspace is not like high school at all! I mean, why don't we hang out? I thought we were tight, yo. (Did you get that? I was trying to sound "street" there. Sometimes it's hard to get the inflection right in emails and stuff. That's why we should hang out more. I'm sorry i said those things earlier. i didn't mean to say fuck you. I was in a weird place. It's just...you seem to be having a lot of fun...with only 34 myspace friends! You realize I have 1,859 more friends than you? If this WAS high school, I certainly would've been invited to TGI Friday's last Saturday, don't ya think?)

This is a test to see how many people in my friends list actually pay attention to me.
Why aren't you paying attention to me? I mean, like, I go out of my way to add cool Flash animations to your comments and you, like, never write back, or send a message that says "Hey! Cool comment! I noticed you put that Neutral Milk Hotel song on your page. Even though I hear it on 6 out of 10 peoples' pages, I still think you're cool." Like, that's not a lot to ask, is it?

Copy and repost in your own bulletin. Lets see who the true friends are and I think I know who you are..
I've never even met the three people who always respond to these things, but I guess they are my "true friends". Unlike you.

Repost this if you are a friend.. if you don't, you get deleted..
Sometimes an ultimatum is the only thing that works. But, I mean, I won't really delete you. Just in case you were on vacation or were too busy to repost. Or maybe you've got too many people on your friend list and get way too many bulletins each day to sift through. I know that happens. I mean, like, sometimes I'll spend almost 28 minutes just going through my bulletins just to see if you posted something. You always post the coolest things. Most of the times it's just bands posting about their upcoming shows...I know, right? Like I'm really gonna come see you play. Be happy I added you to my friend list dude. So, like, if you don't repost, I'll still be your friend, don't worry. But it'd be real cool if you DID repost. Then I'd know we were meant for each other...

Don't reply... just copy and paste this in a new bulletin as "bye myspace"
That way, if someone really does think about you as much as you think of them, they'll click on it and try to talk you out of leaving. Cuz that's what "true friends" do!

The Messenger

Several months ago, a girl I went to high school with (but never interacted with) contacted me via myspace.com. She acknowledged the fact that we weren't friends back then, but added, "so what! we both live in brooklyn now. we should hang out."

Last night we finally were able to meet up at a bar in the Lower East Side.

She had kept saying we should catch up. Since I don't remember anything about her, I didn't think there'd be much catching up to do. And there wasn't. Aside from going to school together and now living in Brooklyn, we didn't have much in common. What we did was tenuous. We talked about tattoos for awhile. She has them, I work on a televiion show about them. Each of us kept bringing up old names of people we knew in high school and we both drew blanks at each others' remembrances. We were from two different worlds.

But I did walk away from our encounter with some important information.

One of the first things she said, as I sat at the bar, was, "When I think of you back then, I think of Aaron Parsons." (That is not his real name, in case you are wondering. I've decided to change it to protect the innocent.)

Aaron Parsons was one of my best friends growing up. We had been pals since kindergarten. Our parents would tell us about parent-teacher meetings with our kindergarten teacher, who was at a loss as to how she could control us. We apparently took control of our kindergarten class every morning by clowning around and entertaining the other kids. This was something we continued to do throughout our schooling. By the time we had reached high school we had started making videos of our shenanigans. Aaron was my partner in comedy growing up. He had one of the most fertile imaginations of anyone I've ever known. And he was goddamn funny. Always.

"Am I wrong in thinking that?" the girl I had met at the bar said. I explained that she was correct. We were good friends. I went on to explain that I had lost track of him in 1999 and have been thinking about looking him up.

"I saw him last month,"she said.

"No shit?"

""His family is good friends with mine. His parents and mine went to Hawaii together last month," she continued. She explained that Aaron has been living at his parents' for the last six months.

"He's a little...odd...isn't he?"

Aaron was always a little over the top. Like Robin Williams. He had a lot of energy, as I remembered. "I guess he is," I chuckled.

She explained that he had disappeared for three years.

What?! Apparently I wasn't the only one wondering where he was. So were his parents and siblings. His brother got married three years ago and Aaron never showed up. And no one ever heard from him. He just dropped off the face of the earth. Until six months ago.

She told me that one night his parents came home from a trip and there he was sitting on their porch. He's been living with them ever since.

As odd as the story is, I was excited to know that he is around. More importantly, I now know where he is.

We kept talking about high school stuff. She had gone to the ten year reunion a few years ago and talked about how lame it was, and told me about her job as a teacher, and what she's been doing with herself, and I told her what i've been doing, but the whole time I wanted to go home and call my old childhood friend and ask him how he's been and tell him that I've missed him.

I think I will do that later today. He's obviously got some stories to tell.

Briefly...

Paris Hilton is being considered to play the role of Mother Teresa? Yes, it's true. And that will make any sexual fantasies I have about her even more disturbing. I believe the title of the proposed film will be "Saint Skank".

I hope to someday make it on to this list. I think my chances are quite good, probably somewhere between Joey Buttafuco and Gary Shandling. Mike D of the Beastie Boys beat out Richard Simmons and Clint Howard. He is looking rather haggard these days.

You really should cut back on your cholesterol. But after paying $55 to fill your tank, do you really care how many more days you'll add to your life by NOT having the donut?

The Wedding Videographer

Dear Mr. Sullivan,

I am writing to inform you that I will be able to capture your "greatest day" (i.e. your marriage to Hope) for posterity next Saturday April 29th. In fact, I will be able to create a nice little DVD package for you, so you can have it close at hand to pop in the player whenever you come across guests who refuse to leave when the party is winding down.

I must say, however, for a man who spent the last three years engaged to this woman, and the last year and a half attending classes and converting to Catholicism for this occasion, asking a friend with a digital video-camera to provide his services 2 weeks before the wedding, shows an amazing lack of planning. And your chicanery in this matter does not escape me. I realize that "employing" a guest who has already RSVP'd, instead of hunting down a professional wedding videographer, will certainly save you some cash.

Your offer of "there might be some beer in it for you", was particularly Scrooge-worthy. Assuming that there will be free beer at the reception, of course. Or did you scrimp on that too? If so, good day sir!

Since you seem unwilling to put forth the dough for a proper production, here are some meager requests I have:

1. Assuming we won't be permitted to lay down dolly-track on the aisle of the church, I would require a wheelchair or a shopping cart to achieve the desired effect. Nothing screams "high production value" like a nice tracking shot. If he has RSVP'd, I can use Mr. Michael Shaughnessy's services as dolly-grip. If not, I request that one be provided.

2. Permission from the priest performing this little marriage, to get POV shots. This would require the priest to wear spy-glasses. The pair I have are equipped with night-vision, which would serve to distinguish the priest-eye view from the audience's. In post we can add cool scrolling numbers to make it look like "Terminator" or "Predator". Of course, this is an artistic choice I will leave up to you.

3. I would also like to be able to pump in my own music over the sound system, to get the audience members pumped up. There is nothing more amateurish than background extras who don't appear to be "real". By blasting some hardcore dance anthems, we can achieve this. Some will get into it and begin dancing, while others will become annoyed and want to leave. When I call action, some will be sweaty and some will be looking at their watch, and it will have the appearance of a real wedding.

4. Green M&Ms in the sacristy. Please.

Hopefully, we can work out these details. Please feel free to give me a call so we can further discuss things.

Yours,
Dave Orsborn

Wiki-what? Wiki-who?

Wikipedia is a fascinating way to waste a few hours.

What started as a quick reference stop to look up some info on filmmaker Roger Avary ended with enlightening research on where I grew up.

West Chester is the county seat of Chester County, the county in Pennsylvania where I grew up. (Wow. I just used the word county three times in one sentence) It is also where i went spent my first two years of college.

From the Wikipedia page on Avary, I discovered he is an Atari aficionado. I linked to a page on Atari, and then on to a page about the wonderful Commodore 64. From there it was just a click away to finding out more about West Chester, Pennsylvania.

Some facts about West Chester:

It was the birthplace of composer Samuel Barber (I knew that already), famous for his Adagio for Strings, and also Hasidic rap sensation Matisyahu. (I didn't know that)

I also discovered that humorist Dave Barry began his career as a writer for The Daily Local News, a newspaper I was "lucky" enough to have had my picture on the front page of back in 1995.

The per capita income for the borough is $19, 073, and almost 10% of the population lives below the poverty line. And yet every time I visit, there are more and more $400,000 homes being built.

The newly-constructed West Chester Transportation Center cost 1.25 million dollars to build, and though I've never been to it, I am looking forward to not waiting outside for the bus to Philly. I wonder if they have a food court. And juggling clowns who sell popcorn. That would be sweet.

I was also interested to find that there was an actual Wikipedia entry for the band Plow United, one of Creep Records' "biggest acts". Ah, West Chester Rock City. (That actually should be the title of the documentary my brother and I are planning to make about our friends and the whole WC music scene and the enigma that is Arik Victor.)

You can spend forever clicking around on this site. And there are so many random things that actually have listings and articles. Crazy.

I really should get out more.

Noisy Neighbors

"Good neighbors keep their noise to themselves."

My landlord's family, the neighbors upstairs, have a pretty regular schedule of noisy hobbies. My brother and I have started to map out the various daily activities. We can fairly accurately guess when the next one will take place. We have had to do this, in order to figure out when is a good time to go to sleep.

I am not sure if it is a cultural difference (the family is Indian) but as a family unit they all stay up really late. They continue to make noise until long after I have turned in and am trying to get to sleep.

The first event in the Noise Triathlon is The Moving Of The Furniture.This begins around 4:30 or 5 in the evening usually. When everyone has returned home from work and school. My brother and I are often preparing dinner and watching the news, when the sound of tables, beds, and sofas dragging across the floor overhead starts. This lasts for about 15 or twenty minutes. I imagine the look of their apartment constantly changing, like the buildings in the movie Dark City.

Next up is the operating of the Weird-Jackhammer-Sound-Making-Device. We are not sure exactly what they are doing. But every evening we hear, in five minute intervals for about half an hour, a rhythmic drilling/pounding sound. It is very loud. I think it may be a device used in cooking. Perhaps they are slaughtering their own animals for the lamb curry. This often happens around 7 or 8 in the evening.

The third event takes place at least three times a night. That is The Running Of The Kids. This is a less structured sport. The only constant is that it must be done three times a night, and the last running must take place shortly after midnight. The event itself is merely the youngest child, who is two or three, running back and forth through the apartment in sets of seven. Seven full sprints from one end of the apartment to the other. Sometimes one of the other children runs around as well, but their participation is not always necessary. For a child no taller than my knee, she sure has a heavy footfall. The stomping is very loud and quite annoying at 12;15 am.

I don't know why a child of two is awake and running around at 12:15 at night. But then, I don't have kids.

Perhaps some day you may like to visit Brooklyn for The Running Of The Kids. You are more than welcome to stay and enjoy the noise with us. You all have an open invitation. I'm sorry I can no longer offer you a freezing cold shower as well. Maybe, if you are lucky, the apartment will flood during your stay.

The Cable Guy

Last night I watched the first four episodes of IFC's reality series "Film School", via my Netflix. Today as I was walking around, I passed one of the students from the show, Leah, on the street. I thought,

Hey, that's the girl from the show I was watching last night. I wonder how she's doing. How long has it been since they shot that show? Is she still in school, making movies? How has her relationship with her multiple-sclerosis-suffering mom turned out? Does she still have that obviously-gay-boyfriend who she likes to dress up in costumes with?

And then I thought,

Damn, I sure know a lot about a total-stranger-I-just-passed-on-the-street's personal life. I feel creepy.

Oh Sweet Melinda...

Glarg started out on burgundy but soon hit the harder stuff

Fungus-faced Toad-sucker

One of my favorite films as a child, Six Pack starring Kenny Rogers, is being released on DVD next week. Yes, I have moved it to the top of my queue on Netflix.

My strongest memory of that movie was when one of the kids called another kid a "fungus-faced toad-sucker", which I thought, at the age of 8, was the most derogatory thing you could call someone. You were telling them their face resembled a spore-producing organism, and that they also sucked on toads.

Needless to say, I started using the phrase all the time.

In fact, one particular neighbor was known only as "Fungus Face". And yes, the name was appropriate. His face did resemble a yeasty, fungal infection. He was about 13 or 14 and plagued with severe acne. I had no idea who he was. But one Saturday afternoon, while my neighbor Tony and I were building a dam in the creek that ran through the woods behind his house, our paths crossed and the wheels of destiny were set in motion. It sparked a small neighborhood war, of which Tony and I became the chief instigators. Our encounter became "the shot heard 'round the neighborhood".

As we were splashing around in the creek, fashioning our make-shift dam out of rocks and mud and tree branches, laughing and having a grand time, we were beset upon by three teenagers on their BMX bikes. Their leader, soon to be dubbed "Fungus Face", pushed me into the creek and smacked Tony with a stick.

We had never seen these kids before. They weren't from our neighborhood. They were from the neighborhood that bordered the woods on the other side. But we had never encountered them, in our limited dealings with the kids from that neighborhood. They were foreigners. And they scared us.

Earlier, Tony and I had found a rusty oil drum which had been sawed in half to use in burning leaves in our neighbor's yard. We requisitioned it for use as a boat, to sail in the "lake" we were creating with our dammed-up creek. Our "lake" had a diameter of about 8 feet. Tony was in the middle of said "lake" floating in the oil drum when the BMX bandits had rolled up on us.

As I crawled the out of the creek after being thrown in it by the leader of the gang, I reached to help Tony out of the boat. My hand was smacked away by one of the other teens and everytime Tony tried to row closer to "shore" one of the teens would push him back to the middle of the "lake".

"What are you little shits doing out here?" Fungus Face asked.

"We're just, um, making a dam," I said.

"You can't do that unless you have permission. This is my property," he said.

"Nah-ah," I said. "These woods don't belong to anyone! They are the county's property." I was pretty certain of this information. I think I had actually asked my father once, "who owns the woods behind Tony's house?" And he had told me something about it belonging to the county and the surrounding properties only reaching back half-way.

So we were well within our rights, I believed, to conduct our mini-TVA projects.

Fungus Face and his goons disagreed. They hassled us for about 15 or 20 minutes, broke apart the dam we had constructed, threw our Huffy bikes into the creek and tossed mud at us repeatedly as we tried to retreat.

As Tony and I ran back to his house, I began to fill with rage. Whatever rage an 8-year old boy could muster, I called it all up.

"That fungus-faced toad-sucker!" I yelled to Tony. "We should do something!"

"What?"

"Let's fight them," I said.

"With what?" Tony asked.

"With everyone we know."

And thus began our day-long recruiting efforts.We figured we'd get a small band of kids from our neighborhood together and get them angry enough to fight the battle for us. I knew I wasn't much of a fighter, but after years of neighborhood "wars" involving tree-forts and slingshots and rotten walnut husks, I knew I had the mind of a general. I had always been able to gather and organize my forces, equip them with the proper weapons (sticks and stones), and lead them into battle with whoever we were fighting that day.

So we knew we had to get as many friends together as possible. These were teenagers we would be fighting. Our strength would be in our numbers. If we had a group of ten 8 and 9 year olds, I was sure we could take at least three 14 year olds.

We first recruited our friend Brian, who was a scrappy kid, always looking to wrestle or fight. You always knew when he was going to turn on you because he would begin chewing his tongue and his eyes would glaze over. If we were playing football or basketball and Brian sudddenly stared at you and began chewing his tongue, you knew you had made an illegal move. It was best to forfeit a few points in the game, lest you incur his full wrath. his hero was Ric Flair, in 1982 the star wrestler with the NWA, and Brian had mastered Flair's trademark move, the figure-four leg lock. We knew we wanted him on our side and it wasn't hard to convince him.

Brian went around the neighborhood with us recruiting others and his passion abut the upcoming fight was addictive. we had no problem getting people to join us.

No one knew who this Fungus Face kid was, but Tony and I painted him up to be an evil monster, threatening life in our secure little neighborhood as we knew it, unless we all banded together and did something about it. I was like William Randolf Hearst helping to start the Spanish American war. Remember the Maine, boys!

When we finally had about seven neighborhood guys, ranging in age from 6-12, we went back to the site of our encounter to see if we could find them.

As luck would have it they were still there, riding their bikes through the creek and splashing mud as they slammed their brakes. They were trying to see who could spray it further. If you haven't figured out by now, I really had some redneck moments in my childhood.

The group of us approached.

"Fungus Face! Fungus Face! Fungus Face!" I had the boys chanting.

Brian, who was all of four feet tall at the time, asked, "Which one of these nasal drips is Fungus Face?"

Whereas "fungus-face toad-sucker" had been my catch phrase that summer, Brian's favorite phrase was "nasal drip". He had heard it from his older brother and laughed for several days about it. As a matter of fact, he and I laughed about it at his wedding a couple years ago, when we were reminiscing about the old days.

I pointed to the leader of the group and he looked at Brian.

"What are you gonna do you little Monchichi?" he said. And then he swept his leg, knocking Brian's feet out from under him. The other teenagers laughed.

Brian jumped up and started punching the kid, but he just swept his legs out from under him again. The rest of us moved in. The other two teens goaded us on, then jumped at us. Several of the kids we'd brought scattered and ran into the woods.

We watched as Brian kept getting knocked to the ground.

Everytime we tried to move in, the other guys looked more threatening.

More of our "army" left as the minutes dragged on, until it was just Tony and I.

Brian kept getting thrown to te ground each time he stood up. he looked at us.

"Anytime guys," he said. "Feel free to jump in." he swung punchs but they never hit their target as Fungus Face held his head at arm's-length.

Then Tony and I sat down and watched.

Brian looked at us with a sense of defeat in his eyes. Here were the guys who'd provoked him into joining this fight, and they were sitting on their asses watching him get his ass kicked.

I felt gutless. But I didn't do anything. I sat there and watched my good friend get thrown around like a rag doll by a kid nearly twice his age. But Brian never gave up. He fought and fought, and laughed at us for getting him into this and then not joining in. He couldn't believe it.

Eventually the teens got tired of the game and left.

We helped Brian up and we all started walking home.

"Thanks for helping out," Brian said. "Who wanted to fight these guys again?"

Tony and I just shook our heads. But Brian wasn't mad at us. He'd fought a new enemy. The "Legendary Fungus Face". We'd hyped him pretty good. And no one else saw the outcome of the fight. As far as we were all concerned he'd won by default. The teenagers quit. He'd stayed in the ring until the end. Fighting.

And so that is how the story would be told in the weeks to come. As the mythology of Fungus face grew, the story of Brian's epic battle with him grew proportionately. We knew that's how the story would be handed down. We knew that from the moment we walked away from the woods on our way home and Brian turned to us both and said,

"Those guys were a lot bigger than you described them."