The Story Game

I went out on a date with my wife Thursday night to an authentic old Western bar/restaurant in the bay area. Date night doesn't happen as often with a little one in the house now. I'm not talking about our baby, I'm talking about the mischievous, jig-dancing leprechaun that we recently adopted. Sure, at first he was a lot of fun, with his magical teleportation onto my ceiling and his crass joke telling..... but after a while I realized he was just a small drunk who hides my car keys.
We were sitting at the end of the bar, when a local regular shuffled in. With his walker leading him, it took 15 minutes for him to get from the front door to his regular barstool, which lucky for me, was right next to mine. He couldn't have been a year under 90, and I'm sure he was partially being slowed down by the weight of his cowboy hat. He finally sat down, his drink already waiting for him. The bartender motioned to him...
Bartender- "Hey there, Cowboy. How you doing tonight?"
Cowboy- "I'm here."

'I'm here'. And those were the only words he said all night. He was there and that was all that mattered. I began to wonder about the Cowboy. Did he have a hard day? A hard life? What's his real name? What's his living space look like? Does he have a closet full of those hats like Batman? How often does he come here? What time in the day did he leave to get here? Was he ever a real cowboy? Could I take him out if a bar brawl started? Is he packin' heat?
This is how you play the story game. My wife and I play it whenever we see interesting characters wherever we are. Airports, city parks, strip joints, nudie bars, gentlemen's clubs, church functions ....wherever there's people you can play it.
It's easy: you pick someone out, and to yourself, figure out their life story. Their name, occupation, family life, social situation, why they're where you are.....etc. Whenever I play this game I always wonder how close we get to the actual truth. But that's the fun part I think....not knowing. If I did know, I always feel I'd be a tad disappointed.
Take this photo that I stumbled upon on Google.

Soak in it's awesomeness. I googled the word "natives" for something I was doing, and this image popped up. Besides being in my top ten list of coolest pictures ever, I wonder what's the story here? Who is this tight denim shorty-shorts guy? Is he dating both these girls at the same time like some real life Archie dating Bettie and Veronica? Has he ever met these girls before this picture was taken? Is he married/divorced to one of them still today? Is that his jeep? Where are they? Who's taking the photo? Are these people still alive? Then there's the story of this actual photograph. This was taken with real film, which means it was developed at a photomat most likely, put in an envelope with the other photographs that were developed, given back to the photographer, they kept the photo (probably in the bottom drawer of their dresser with all the other photos they were going to put in an album...someday), and eventually it was scanned by someone and uploaded onto the internet. Why? Again, I don't want to know. The potential is better to me than the reality.

These are the universe's billions upon trillions of daily tiny questions that few know the answers to, and the rest of us will never know.
But it's also fun to just make up the answers yourself.

Unrelated question: Anyone know how to properly dispose of a leprechaun? I got mad and kicked him in the crotch and he split into two mischievous, smaller leprechauns...and they won't stop mocking me. Is there anything I can spray into their eyes to blind them?
Thanks in advance.

New UP trailer

I spent many years storyboarding on this film, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. After seeing how it's turning out, I'm reminded of a quote Pete Docter said once in a meeting, that is hanging on the wall near my office....

"I better dip my socks in cement, so they don't get blown off."

See the trailer HERE!

How about this Economy huh? Boy does it blow. I had to let go of the one employee that runs my lemonade stand that I put up in front of my house. So now I have nothing to do on Saturdays. So to make ends meet, again, I have to rent out space on my blog to the classified ads.

PERSONALS

Portly Male Real Estate Tycoon ISO Sexy Female Banker

I own houses and hotels from Mediterranean Avenue all the way to Park Place. Why not chance a turn with me? Are you currently incarcerated? Not a problem. I can have you released from jail without having to pay a dime. I have plenty of free parking, a scottish terrier, and a small iron you can use to press my tux. Must have nice community chest.

HOUSE FOR RENT

2 Bedroom/ 1 and a half Bath, 35 sq ft, gingerbread home in desirable neighborhood. Remodeled bathroom and kitchen, new frosting roof. Convenient location-25 colored squares from Lollipop Woods, 76 from Gumdrop Mountains. So easy to locate, a child could do it. Winding colored path leads to front door. Nice view of Molasses Swamp. No Pets.

FOR SALE

Orange Hippopotamus - cheap! I can no longer afford to purchase food for this starving hippo. I am constantly disciplining it by smacking the lever protruding from it's backside, but that doesn't seem to help. It never stops eating. Never! I'm losing my marbles here!

Knowledge... was their Trailer.

I have only been sad two times my entire life.

1. When they said 'the Last Crusade' would be the last Indiana Jones movie, and

2. When I walked out of the theatre after watching the last Indiana Jones movie

I know I've complained about it before, but that movie haunts me. I'll be out enjoying a sunny day, usually skipping with my woodland creature friends, enjoying a rainbow... BAM! Crystal Skull enters my brain and my head wants to explode as if I looked into the Ark. It makes me want to leave out a bowl of dates in the off chance I'll be poisoned by a nazi monkey.

Anyway, I channeled my hatred and made lemonade out of lemons, by fixing the Indy 4 trailer so that it better matches the movie.

Didn't realize the video was so small. That's the last time I use my iPod nano to edit.

UPDATE-

Larger version available on a not very popular site called Youtube.

My night with Ashley Judd

I was being "politely asked to leave" a used bookstore the other day, because I was "disturbing the customers" when something on the shelf caught my eye. It was a used DVD copy of the Ashley Judd/Morgan Freeman smash hit, High Crimes. I told the manager to get his grubby mitts offa me, because I had six dollars and I wanted to buy the movie. Why would I want to buy this DVD? It's boring, it got bad reviews, and it's a sad follow-up (not a sequel) to Morgan Freeman/ Ashley Judd's Kiss the Girls fueled only by their star-power.
Why would I want it? Because I'm in it.

December 2000, around midnight-ish. I was walking through Union Square in San Francisco with two of my lady friends. (That's right, I said two.) I saw a bunch of guys setting up lights and trailers everywhere. They were obviously shooting some movie. So I walked up to a security guard. Here was our conversation verbatim:
Me- Hey, what's going on? Someone making a movie?
Guard- Yeah.
Me- Who's in it?
Guard- Ashley Judd and the guy who drove Miss Daisy, what's his face.
Me- I want to be in the movie.
(Guard stares at us.)
Guard- hold on...
Guard into Walkie Talkie- Hey Vince, you need more background?
Walkie-Talkie- yeah, send'em up.
Guard to me- go to the third floor in the Saint Francis Hotel, they'll tell you where to go.

And that's how easy it is to break into Hollywood and be a star of the moving pictures.

And so we went to the third floor where we were served a free buffet dinner with all the rest of the background extras and film crew. I mingled with all the top background extras: the stand-in for Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act 2, an extra who had a close-up in The Nutty Professor, and the horse wrangler from Wild Wild West. The real stars of Hollywood.
In the middle of dinner, this guy slowly wanders over to our table, holding his dinner tray, like the new kid in school trying to find somewhere to sit in the lunchroom. Here's our conversation verbatim:
New kid guy- can I sit here?
Me (with my mouth full)- Ummm.....I think someone's sitting there.....
No one was sitting there.
New kid guy leaves, sad.
Lady at table- What are you doing? No one's sitting there....and that was James Caviezel.
Me- Who?
Lady at Table- One of the stars of this movie.
Me- Well, who's the star now!? Ha ha! Pass the salt!

Only years later would I realize my horrible mistake. I single-handedly prevented the movie star that would eventually play Jesus in Passion of the Christ, from enjoying his shrimp cocktail and mini-burritos at our circular folding table.

I rejected Hollywood Jesus.

I only pray that someday, J.C. (James Caviezel) will forgive me for my sin against him.
Finally it was time to be an actor. It was 2:30 am, we were in Union Square preparing for the shoot. Here's what the background director told us verbatim:
BG Director- You guys start here, on 'Action' walk to the curb and try to hail a cab until 'Cut'.
Me- Question?
BG Director- yeah.
Me- Can we stand closer to Ashley Judd?
(Her starting mark was 6 feet away)
BG Director- You're pretty close already.
Me- I want to smell her hair.
BG Director- Just hail the cab.
So that's what I did. I acted the hell out of my role as Taxi Hailer. In fact, one take was ruined because I actually hailed a cab and it stopped traffic. I don't want to toot my own horn here, but if there were some sort of award for background extras who specifically hail cabs....well, I'd think I would be a shoe-in but...I'll let you decide...
(By the way, I'm not that guy with the Santa hat and whistle hailing a cab, that guy sucked. His performance was lacking, and I didn't believe any of it. My cab hailing has emotion.)



Was my acting so good that it blended in and you missed it? Here. I slowed it down and added a big arrow so it's easier to see my performance for award considerations...

The Bug Zapper- UPDATE!

My good buddy Doug and I made this short last weekend for a 48 hour film festival. You get 48 hours to write, shoot, and edit a short film. To make sure you don't start early, you get three "ingredients" that HAVE to be in the film right at the beginning of the 48 hours.
This year's ingredients-
1. A plunger
2. a case of mistaken identity
3. A line of dialogue (at least three words) that is said three times in a row by at least 2 people.

Enjoy the next three minutes of your life.

UPDATE!

The Bug Zapper made the top of Will Ferrell's 'Funny or Die' homepage. Check out the different edit of the film (without the three ingredients) at...

FUNNY OR DIE!

My favorite vegetable

I have a problem.

I don't smoke, don't do drugs, I'm not high on life...... I have a bigger problem. Like those penguins that instinctually march thousands of miles every year for penguin sex, every October 1st I instinctually march literally hundreds of feet to the nearest Rite-Aid. Why? Because that is the exact day that Rite-Aid stocks their seasonal shelves with Brach's Big Bag 22 oz, made with real honey, America's #1 Candy Corn.

I know what your thinking. Your saying to yourself, "Sure, I like candy corn too, what's the big deal about it, stupid?" Well, first of all, was calling me 'stupid' really necessary? That was kinda harsh. And second, You don't understand my problem.

I'm like a crackhead for Candy Corn.

Every Fall I try to avoid those nasty, little tri-colored, high fructose syrup triangles of temptation. But then my grandma puts out a tiny bowl of them on her family room table, and I say to myself, "I'll just have a small handful." Next thing I know, I'm wielding my grandma's knitting needles, threatening to 'cut' her, if she doesn't hand over the rest of the bag. I'm sick.
The worst part is that after eating maybe 3 pieces, I'm sick to my stomach....but I keep eating them. In fact, I have eaten half a bag so far while writing this. My heart feels like it's working twice as hard to pump my blood that has the consistency of Elmer's glue. Candy corn is killing me. They are disgusting. But I can't stop. I need them in my stomach. It tastes like I'm slowly eating a candle, one bite at a time. But the sugar....it's so...sugary. And the Titanium Dioxide Color Yellow 6....it's so....yellowy.
But luckily, as quickly as the urge to splurge on candy corn arrives....come the stroke of midnight from Oct 31st to Nov 1st, it's gone. And I don't want to even LOOk at--......kkf397bviorvbj3judc asubv ksfvfskbn vskfuvkubn unvt3ubnvo3vojnfvojjsf

Whoa. Sorry about that. I just passed out onto my keyboard for like 3 hours, and I woke up in my neighbor's front yard, Halloween decorations. I think I need to take a long look at my life...after I get back from Rite-Aid.