Simple Economics

Things have been really busy lately and I haven't had time to write anything on the ol' blog. I've been working a good bit, have had to make time for a persistent sore throat, and travelled home recently to see my family and friends for Easter. Which brings back memories of the last time I saw my parents before Easter. We all went to a casino together after leaving my sister's. Because the family that plays together....
















Stays together.















(And hopefully finds other ways to "stay" together without becoming compulsive gamblers as we grow old together. Mom and dad, don't get too comfortable near that slot machine. Meanwhile I was in the back bargaining with an elderly woman trying to give her imported cosmetics and perscription drugs in exchange for her winning Keno card. This downward spiral happens so fast....we should just take up Go-Karting.)

April (Snow) Showers and Possible Riders On The Horizon

It is pouring snow in Manhattan right now, three days after our gorgeous Sunday that filled Central Park with blankets, soccer balls, and frisbees. Oh yeah and people. Not just random toys and cloth items.

It's not too surprising to see the snow pour down - a friend told me Sunday that we should expect a cold snap right after the Spring weather. But it is strangely intriguing the way the events are happening.

For instance, today is April 5th, 2006. Seems normal, huh? No no, good sir. You see if you look at the numbers, you'll see today's date is 04/05/06 - it's sequential. But that's not all. Twice today the clocks will turn to 1:02 and 3 seconds. Making the complete date:

01:02:03 04/05/06

SPOOKY!

This phenomenom has garnered some attention already. What's more interesting to me are the events occuring today with this time spectacle (although even a lightswitch working is more interesting to me than my job today). Before the sky rained down it's magical cloud cotton, it donned it's most ominous face and reigned over New York like this:















*from this guy's Flickr photostream. He looks like Jason Dill.

Also, when I sat down to write this post the time on my computer read 11:34. For those paying attention, that's the ominous time on a digital alarm clock when you can turn the clock upside down and it reads "hEll". SPOOKY! Of course, this also happens if your clock currently displays any time with an upside down spelling of the word "HELL" beside it. If that is your case, get a new clock. Today.

I get a little antsy and think about the apocalypse with all these weird occurances. However I don't think the apocalypse is happening today (I'm pretty sure that guy on a horse with a hooded black robe in the office today is a temp. Oh, he just slayed a man with his sicle. Yikes). However, if there are any signs of the apocalypse present today they could be found in our media. Last weekend's biggest grossing movie? Ice Age: The Meltdown. Sounds in line with today's events to me. But that's not that big of a deal. What really gets me is the two that tied for the #10 biggest grossing films splitting an even $7.4 million: Basic Instinct 2 and Larry The Cable Guy: Health Inspector.

We're all gonna die.

That's Racin!

Recently Marshall told me I was due for a NASCAR post. I have a long history with NASCAR. I grew up in beautiful Charlotte, NC, the home of the new NASCAR explosion, Bank of America, and one-time resident and original Charlotte Hornet Muggsy Bogues. When I was a child, every Sunday my dad would tape the NASCAR race that would run for 4 to 5 hours while he worked in the yard and drank unsweetened ice tea (a blasphemy in the South, but my parents are from Texas, where they don't necessarily sweeten it - maybe it's somehow "bigger" that way since Texans love big stuff). I remember going to the track when I was a kid and seeing large men exist on the concrete bleachers (they don't sit, they just exist there) and toss discarded Bojangles' chicken bones down to the lower bleachers. You just dodged them, it was normal (and necessary - you don't want to get hit with a chewing-tobacco-saliva soaked cajun spiced bone - although that sounds like it could be a new flavor...). I think my dad likes NASCAR the same way I like skateboarding. I like going to races with him. I've seen him get giddy and walk fast ahead of us at the race, totally caught up in the action, the same way I will sit for an hour or more and watch skateboarders do flatland tricks at Union Square in New York. (And now I'm thinking about the skate videos I saw Union Square in while I was growing up. Man, I love skateboarding.)

NASCAR came full circle for me a couple years ago. I used my top 25 university degree as an entrance into the world of film as a Production Assistant in Charlotte (and you don't have to have any sort of degree to do a Production Assistant's job - you just have to be smart enough to, say, beat a rock in chess. No, checkers. Even easier). Three and a half years of getting water for Dale Jr., holding a light meter in front of Kurt Busch, and being a stand in for Michael Waltrip and Sterlin Marlin (and one time I got to drive Lance Armstrong to the airport, and I also got to be in a Petey Pablo video this other time!!! Total gangsta!!). All in all, it was almost four years in the trenches of film and TV commercials mostly involving NASCAR, and although sometimes some of it feels like time wasted, I had a lot of cool experiences. I worked with some big time directors and cinematographers, learned about a film set, and had some good times with friends (and I was in a PETEY PABLO video!!! PETEY PABLO!!! It was shown on the GRAMMY'S!!! GOODNESS SAKES!!). Those years in production also gave me my first shots at some TV exposure. Like my Oscar winning role in the 2005 UPS NASCAR commercials as "Pit Crew Guy With Moustache". (Note: I lost the Oscar to Clooney for Syriana. Hack. Oh, and, the moustache is real.)




















Really, that picture brings me more full circle than I thought. All my life growing up my dad had a full moustache and was into NASCAR. And in this picture I totally embody that - very full stache and very much NASCAR. Like father like son. Now I just need a picture of my dad on a skateboard with a Sufjan shirt on.

Piggybacking on my rave success as Pit Crew Swashbuckler Guy, this week I have my first TV job in New York as talent. Thursday I will shoot an episode of Date Night on AMC as a "Dater". That's right ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a dating show. But this one's different, it's more talking about movies and commenting on them with a date, than hot tubbing and salsa dancing in a pre-make out dance of the singles. Whew. The show airs Monday April 24th at 8PM EST. Oh, and the movie we'll be watching - Rambo: First Blood. That is way tough. I should've kept that moustache.