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!"