In Five... Four... Three... Two...

Dad, I will be posting in full very soon. 

It's just that things have been busy and this website wasn't loading my videos correctly and my internet connection in my apartment is spotty at best. I have nine more excuses, which you can read on my new Excuses blog, starting in May.

In the meantime, here's a video I took from my seat in the control room during rehearsal. 

i really enjoy this ee cummings typesetting style that I didn't choose (and can't seem to change)

This 'n That

I think it's time to change the name of this blog to something more indicative of it's random, sporadic nature. It's less "word for word" in the classical Kilgariff sense and more "blah blah blah" with pictures. I just want you to know I realize I've stopped reporting on my day to day and now I'm just trying to string my iphone photos together with some kind of logical narrative. It's the hackiest kind of blogging and it will not stand. I'm onto me, big time.

It's just that my life of late has been boiled down to work, pizza and the bi-weekly New York night life moment. Let's see if I can dig out a nugget of interest for my people. Auntie Ping, this one's for you:

Can you smell the fame?

OK, here's me writing at Jerry's desk. I can't remember why, but I had to leave the writer's room that day to write by myself. There was no internet service in my office, so Tom said I could use the office he shares with Jerry. Of course, I sat at Jerry's desk because I am a rebel and an upstart, then figured I should take a picture of such an epic moment. Just so you know, there is not one personal item in or around this desk. Even that tangerine is mine. There's a good chance he's never even sat there.

But still, I know how people love celebrity desks, so I thought I'd share. 

This is a traveling see-thru antique truck. Talk about class.

So, remember my friend Lisa Leingang? She was the manager at The Improv in SF back in the day? Red head? Now she lives in NYC and she's going to have a baby in December. Aren't you fascinated by what the connection could possibly be between Lisa and this picture? THERE IS NONE!!! I was walking to her baby shower and I passed this screened-in flatbed truck full of antiques and lo and behold, there's the lion drinking fountain from Fairyland!

This is a picture from Children's Fairyland, Oakland CA. Trust me on this. 

So this became one of those bittersweet moments where I was so excited to see the lion fountain, but then I realized I was alone in a strange city where no one really knew me. I mean, I could've run into a bodega and quickly explained the magical happenstance to the cashier, but that's not really my style. I just decided to take a picture before the see-thru antique truck drove away with one of my earliest childhood memories. (I know it's not the exact same one, but it's symbolic, goddammit.)

Focus on the left side of the screen.

And finally- this picture was taken as I passed the front of Bergdorf-Goodman in a cab at night. Do you see the fashion atrocity being presented as a choice for winter wear?! Red pants! Where am I right now, Paris France? 

All right, this post has been as disappointing for me as it has for you. But I promise, my shame will be the catalyst for my improvement. That's how I did it in high school!

My eyes!

It’s the second show day of our first week of shows and I gotta say, I show am tired! (I love that joke.)

We taped on Tuesday and although it all went great, I’m pretty sure I’m not legally allowed to talk about the details in this public setting. Let’s just agree to not discuss it at Thanksgiving (wink wink).

After the Tuesday show, we went to a VERY fancy restaurant (name withheld for legal reasons) and fittingly, they had the fanciest butter I’ve ever seen. 

Like buttah...

When the waitress put the bread basket down, she started explaining how there were four different types of butter and how each bread went with a different one, blah blah blah.

I wasn’t paying attention because it was 11 o’clock at night and my eyes were burning and I could barely read the menu. When I was able to make out a word, it was either Italian or one of those fancy restaurant words I’ve never seen before, which made my attempt at ordering to sound something like this:

“Could I ask, what is machantato?”

“That’s a beef stock lightly blended with Wondra and drizzled over the meat.”

“So, it’s gravy?

“Well…technically yes.”

“All right. And what is supsinteri?”

“That’s codfish with some parsley next to it.”

“Can you come back to me? I’ve lost the will to live.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

I ended up getting a tootsie-roll shaped pasta with gorgonzola inside. It tasted like something only people who live in castles eat. Rich like you wouldn’t believe. It was delicious, but delicious in the way that eating frosting out of the can is delicious. A little goes a long way.

I started with a salad that looked like a handful of something you’d feed a goat. Weeds and clover and dandelions and lawn trimmings, topped off with just a drizzle of balsamic to help you choke it down. I decided I’d man up and eat everything that wasn’t spiky or thistled. You know, make the best of it. After about three bites, I had to stop. It was like someone had walked through a field, spilled their salad dressing and didn’t want to waste it. I realized it wasn’t my problem and the butter lady came and took it away.

The desserts seemed nice, but at that point, my eyes were closing up shop and I knew I only had about seven more minutes before I went face down in the profiterole. 
The good news is, we're going there again after the show tonight, so I'll have another chance to get it right.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: I don't know why the text gets all big like this sometimes. It's not intentional. It's actually kind of embarrassing.) 

TESTING...TESTING...CHECK ONE TWO...

Will this one work like the good old blogs? Who knows? I'm just going to throw some stuff up and see...

Here's a movie of a talented lady who was singing and playing a Casio keyboard at the Hell's Kitchen flea market I called you from last Saturday...

I only caught the jazzy vamped-out end of that number. She was either singing The Look of Love or the jingle from the Empire Carpets commercial. I wanted to film her more, but I could feel her watching me from behind her dark glasses, so I became unnerved and moved on. She was also wearing gloves, which seemed suspicious to me for a keyboard player.

Is that video going to end up being too small to make out any hilarious details? Goddammit! It's fine, it's fine. Let's just keep going...

Here's the only item at the flea market I even remotely considered buying...

One of the extras from Babe.

It could be nice over the mantel, right? I don't know. I guess I'll go back this Saturday and if it didn't get snatched up already, I'll take it as a sign that it was meant to be mine. Those fangs might just be big enough to hang coats off of. Or stick some daily affirmations onto. You know what, I'm not going to decide right now. I'll let the universe guide me.

They also had an old steamer trunk sitting open and this picture was on the inside of the lid:

This makes me wish I went to fishing school, but oh no! You insisted I study theater in Sacramento.

I think there's a chance that steamer trunk once belonged to Molly Malone and that's the sticker she used to put on all her stuff to let people know it was hers, cockles and mussels and whatnot. 

Hey, have you noticed that this is all working out great so far? Pictures going where I put them, captions for the pictures going where they're supposed to, the whole sheblog! (Sorry. That was terrible.) 

Except for how tiny that movie may or may not turn out to be, I think I'm back on track. Let's just forget that mess of a blog yesterday ever happened. 

I Really Tried

Dad- It used to be so much easier to be a blogger. I'm not sure what changed. Maybe I've begun to take this magical city for granted. Maybe I've stopped taking pictures because of the constant purple halo that keeps appearing when I use my camera phone. (It's actually my phone cover getting in the way. I finally figured that out. I secretly hoped it was ghosts.)

I haven't done anything compelling since my last post, except for one lovely day trip.

Don and Adam thought it would be nice to go to Cold Spring, about half and hour outside the city, so we could see the fall colors. We climbed a mountain. It was very cathartic.

.
That second picture is the Hudson River valley. You can't see it, but West Point is right there at the bend in the river.

I would've explained that in between photos, but it's not working and I'm getting mad.

And somehow, I've lost the ability to write captions for the pictures now. And that was my favorite part of blogging!

That and the glory. I also can't seem to control where the pictures end up when I upload them.

To be honest, I kind of feel like throwing this computer on the ground and screaming, "JUST FORGET IT!" as loud as I can.

I won't. I want to, though.

I have to stop trying to make the best of this post and just bail so I can fix the settings on this blog site.

Might need to reboot the entire system. Maybe hack into a mainframe somewhere.

I'm going to fix it and try again later. Because that's what blogging is all about.

The Sunday Guilt Edition

Oh, hi Dad! How's it going? Good, good. Me? I'm just blogging to you on my blog. You know, the way you like.

First of all, Go Giants!

Is one of these guys Barry Bonds?

I didn't get to see any of that game, but I hear it turned out well.

I spent the day on 110th and Broadway, shooting man-on-the-street stuff for the show. In the business, we call it MOS. That stands for Man On Street. We feel the "the" is unnecessary in the shortened version. Makes it take too long.

Turns out, we were shooting a block away from the cathedral of St. John the Divine. After lunch, Page took me and our two APs Hannah and Tennile (yes, she was named after Captain and Tennile) down there to look at it while the crew was setting up the shot. AP is short for Assistant Producer. That's the person who assists the producer.

So, here's what it looked like when we first saw it from a block away...

What's all the fuss about?

Then you get up to it...

That double decker tour bus really adds to the majesty.

Then you go inside...

There was a wedding ceremony taking place while we were in there, so we couldn't go up near the altar area, but we could hear everything they were saying. The acoustics were great! I could barely keep from belting out a few bars of 'Jesus Light of All the World'.

After the shoot, we walked across the Columbia campus, which was also just a couple blocks away. That's where Page went to college, so she gave me the tour, which consisted of her pointing to buildings and explaining how much better Columbia is than NYU. Enlightening.

Central Park 2: The Reckoning

This is Don and Adam. Aren't they pointy?

Two different men, two different pointing fingers. 

All right, so back to the virtual tour of Central Park.

I really liked this next part that you're about to see. I didn't know what I was walking into, I just heard the singing and hit record. And now you get to enjoy it exactly as I experienced it.

Awesome, right?
OK, then we walked out of there and found ourselves here:

Those lilly pads are the only unused surface in the entire park. 

It's Bethesda Fountain! Isn't it pretty? Here's a wide shot that some professional took:

Copyright 2004. Impressive.

That pond back there was chock full of tourists in boats. No one tipped over that I saw, but Adam said he once watched a couple totally flip their boat and then start screaming at each other, each accusing the other one of ruining their vacation. He said it was hilarious and sad. It made me think of you and Mike Christie on that ridiculous canoe trip we took down the Russian River so long ago. You guys were more fun about your flipping over, probably because you had more Budweiser in you.

And finally, my proudest achievement of the day:

I screamed out loud.

This was taken as we were walking around the reservoir. You know, the place Dustin Hoffman jogs around in the beginning of The Marathon Man? Click on the link below for a reminder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDx6h251XFc&feature=related

Please note: They've decommissioned it as a true reservoir, probably due to rats or bad vibes, so that chain-link fence isn't around it anymore. Now they have that black wrought iron gate that reminds one of Halloween. Much in the same way that man's pants remind one of Valentine's Day. Or Pizza Hut.