January 2012
3 posts
5 tags
Concordia movie (a synopsis)
Here’s what I’ve got thus far on my script for Concordia, the movie about the doomed cruise liner in Italy, due out Summer 2013.
So this dude, Giampiero Consigliere, is just nailing this hot chick. This goes on for about seven minutes before the opening credits start. There is graphic nudity. “Walt Disney Pictures Presents.” We see flashbacks to the attractive couple...
Gwyneth and Heads
We recently rented the movie Contagion and while I’ll say that it was rather slow and uninteresting (a pity rental), I was curious on why Gwyneth Paltrow chose to do this film. I’m not giving anything away by saying she dies because her death comes at the beginning, but there is a scene where, lying dead on a table, the autopsy-doer pulls her scalp down over her face to reveal her...
Tim's Shirts
A buddy and I recently developed a business concept that we think is going places. It’s kind of hard to explain but I’ll dumb it down: you visit our website and buy a shirt, and then we’ll give a second shirt to a person in need in Africa or Mexico or someplace. Right now we are calling the business Tim’s Shirts. Neither of us is named Tim, or knows a Tim. It’s just...
December 2011
3 posts
Barefoot
Shoes, socks, bare feet. When I walk into someone’s home and don’t know their domestic habits, my eyes turn to their feet. If they’re wearing shoes, I’ve just stepped into a nightmare.
A shoed homeowner means I need to keep my shoes on while indoors, too. To seem polite. “Make yourself at home,” they’ll say, Reeboks hogtied snug around their feet as they...
3 tags
Next Time I'll Warn People Before Bringing A...
Live and learn, that’s what my grandfather always used to say. I tend to be one of those people who has to learn through experience, and sometimes, that means learning the hard way. When I was a kid, I put my hand on a stove burner and quickly grasped the concept of “hot.” It took a speeding ticket - 62 in a 25 - before I quit driving like a bat out of hell. And then last...
On Set
Out of nowhere this week, I managed to snag a role as a Union soldier the set of Steven Spielberg’s new Abraham Lincoln movie. This was, apparently, payoff for the gobs of cash that Cristin and I have mercilessly blown into the stratosphere while eating and drinking at higher-end bars and restaurants around town, all in what has been a fruitless attempt to land a celebrity sighting in the...
November 2011
6 posts
StockWatch: Wayne Enterprises (WEP)
$15.47 (-$0.08)(-0.51%) Photos of a bruised Bruce Wayne have led many investors to fear the conglomerate’s CEO is suffering from lymphoma.
-The Onion’s “StockWatch” featurette
Catalog
I’d traveled to the suburban office building to hand-deliver a package. The guy who was to receive it was out at the time, so I left it at the front desk.
Not one to leave a package behind without a note, I asked the the receptionist for a Post-It. Obliging, she tore off a yellow square and slapped it onto the counter. I began to write my note, but the pen seemed to be out of ink. As one...
Furnace Home
About a week ago, the unmistakable smell of death entered our home, nestling itself around the kitchen. Considering both of us and the dog are very much alive - and, speaking for myself, smelling pretty fine these days - we came to the immediate conclusion that the stench was that of a house mouse in the early stages of decomposition.
After opening the windows, I investigated the probable...
1 tag
October 2011
6 posts
Hepatitis Cteakhouse
This week I traveled Texas for 22 hours, and the group I was with ate dinner together at steakhouse.
Nearby, a small group was assembling in a private dining room. I could see the whole party through the glass door that separated them from the rest of us. The table fit about 12 people or so, and at the head of it was a projector screen reserved mostly for stuff like wedding slideshows or a...
5 tags
DD-L
Daniel Day-Lewis has arrived in my city and has begun filming the upcoming Steven Spielberg film Lincoln, which I’ve written about before. Day-Lewis (or is it just Lewis?) plays the part of Abe Lincoln, who was a president or something. That part isn’t important.
What’s important is that Dan is in town, and my chances of running into him have increased from like 0.01 percent up...
September 2011
3 posts
WatchThe President is in town and all highways were shut down. I needed to get to the airport. Only way there is the highway. I found an onramp with no police. I got on the highway. I was the only car on the highway along with another, which I think was a cop. What I did might gave been illegal. Then I saw the motorcade and Obama. And it was neat. Here is the wacky video. I stupidly panned the camera...
1 tag
August 2011
17 posts
WatchTraining to D.C. for the evening and passing through my college campus. Here’s video of where I went to school and nailed like zero chicks on the reg.
“Recessional: Born to Run”
– Our wedding program. Somehow, by means in which I still do not quite fully understand, I have managed to work this Springsteen classic into the ceremony on Sept. 10. Performed by a string quartet, nonetheless. I’d have loved to have seen the musicians’ faces when that request came...
"UR MOM"
After years of figuring that such a thing was out in the city somewhere, I finally saw it today, two blocks from our house: the completely unironic license plate “UR MOM,” held - apparently - by the mother of a University of Richmond student. Also serving as an insult to every single person who drives or rides behind her, including me. I couldn’t move fast enough to get the...
Sidebars
Decided I want to work more sidebars into my daily life. I rarely use this tool, which hails from the courtroom and is defined as a request for a private conversation while in the company of others, and outside of everyone else’s earshot. Sidebars are a great asset to have in your communications arsenal. How can you effectively use a sidebar?
Say you’re having a work meeting with...
7 tags
Life Lessons And More From Kanye West And Jay-Z's...
Like the majority of white guys on the incoming edge of their 30s, my musical tastes are largely confined to alternative-slash-indie rock, whatever I listened to in high school, and Belinda Carlisle.
Yet if there is an outstanding anomaly among my playlists, it is that of Kanye West. “Ye” is a very hated man, a very loved man, a man with a reverse self-esteem problem, and a man whose...
Special Delivery!
I love the concept - or rather, the terminology - of a company such as Boeing “delivering” a new airplane as if it was a UPS package. How does one go about delivering a 787 Dreamliner, anyway? Must be a pretty custom box size. And I bet the shipping fees are outrageous.
Monster Jews
When I was in second grade, our teacher introduced us to a nonfiction series called Eyewitness Books. You’ve undoubtedly seen these mini-atlases before, especially if you’re in your 20s and 30s: oversized white books, each title dedicated to a single topic - say, Mesopotamia, Armor, or Dinosaurs - and filled with colorful images and details about the subject at hand. Eyewitness Books...
Teller Counter
Who knows where I was. The gunner seat in a tank, perhaps. Inside a Corona commercial. Peeling that thin layer of clear plastic off a new microwave oven. In body, I was in a bank, elbow on the counter, temple resting on the knuckles of my fist, waiting for the lady to deposit my check, eyes on the ceiling somewhere. In the time it took her to take my account number and magically change a piece of...
End Of Phone Call Appreciations
Me: "Well thank you, I appreciate your help."
Lady: "You're very welcome, I appreciate it."
Me: "Appreciate it, thanks."
Lady: "Appreciate it."
Me: "We just said 'appreciate' too many times, I think."
Lady: "Ha, yes, I think we did."
Me: "Ha, okay, anyway, have a good one."
Lady: "You too. Have a good one. Bye."
Me: "Bye."
Lady: "Bye."
July 2011
17 posts
Beachbound
Packed up the car early this morning and drove to the beach for a week’s vacation. Picked up a chicken biscuit and a coffee on the way out of town. I expected the trek would take the normal three-and-a-half hours, but I made it in record time in just under two and with very little traffic. A cop pulled me over for speeding, but when I told him where I was going, he shook my hand and let me...
Fire Station
We recently moved into a new house right around the corner from a fire station. This is an exciting development in my life, as at no time during the past 29 years have I grown out of the joy of seeing a brightly colored firetruck blaring its sirens on the way to somebody’s nightmare or a cat stuck in a tree.
The goal, then, for the past month and a half, has been to find a way to meet the...
