Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 
Tis But A Scratch!

Today was spent doing 1 of 2 things, though not both of them at once. Either I was lounging around with an arrow electrically-taped to my armpit. Or I was on-set, filming scenes where I got beaten up, with an arrow electrically-taped to my armpit. Though it made for some rather humourous, casual conversations with my fellow disposable vampires:

Me: "So, how've you been?"

Random Disposable Vamp: "Staked. You?"

Me: (gesturing to my chest) "Shot."

Random Disposable Vamp: "Ah. Usual, then."

Me: "Yes, quite."

That conversation probably sounds funnier if you imagine us having English (as in British) accents. Or else trying to fake English accents. Things always sound funnier with English accents for some reason.

Anyhoo, today found me on the set of Stages once again, this time from 9:30am to 7pm-ish. It was a Do-or-Die day for filming, and in more than one way. Not only were we finishing up all the shots of the final battle, where we get to see the film's bodycount jump from 2-3 to roughly 24 in the span of ten minutes. Also, this was the absolute last day we could do anything at Stages; we finished filming our last scene in under the wire at 7pm, and at 8pm the contractors were due to arrive to start rennovating the club. Needless to say, it would shoot to shit any continuity we once had if the club undergoes a major facelift in the middle of a grab-bag of scenes.

Everything came together at the last minute for the cast & crew, which is an amazing miracle unto itself. At the last minute we were able to get Stages procurred, and have all the principle players available for the filming. Not to mention that despite the primary digital videocamera breaking down, our director was able to find another one right in the proverbial nick of time.

And so once more, and happily for the last time, I became Wade, who can also be known as That-Creepy-Depraved-Omni-Sexual-Vampire-Who-Really-Ought-To-Get-Kicked-In-The-Nads-Somewhere-During-This-Film. But that other name's a bit too long for such a little bit of nowhere, so we'll just stick with "Wade".

Early in the morning, my face was paled, my hair was sent all awry, and the arrow was strategically fastened to the side of my chest with black electrical tape (a happy thing, since the undershirt I was wearing also happened to be black). The arrow didn't leave my side, literally, until the end, since my close-up scenes were all done at the end of the day--though I spent most of the rest of the day being in the background, since the battle requires 5-6 near simultaneous melees going on regardless of where the camera's focused.

My hair is still all gelled up in the "Wade" look, which more or less resembles what might happen if I had gelled my hair in the morning, and right at that crucial moment where the hair and gel would have gone from wet and useless to dried/solidified, I sneezed and botched the whole process.

But the real prize-winner for me was the blood. Fake blood, of course. Strawberry syrup, if you wanted to be really precise. Apparently strawberry syrup is a laxative; I'm rather glad that despite having it poured all down my wounded arm (and I do mean poured like a small river), shirt and chin, I didn't ingest too much of it. There is an inherent disadvantage to making it appear that you've been bleeding beneath your clothes, however. Namely the fact that you have to apply the syrup/blood on your skin beneath and beyond the edge of your cuffs or sleeves, to give the impression that it just didn't magically start where the sleeve ended.

Take a moment and follow my logic here: the "blood" is syrup; syrup is sticky, very sticky; syrup being applied to the skin in rather gratuitous quanitites results in both the shirt sleeve and the skin being soaked with syrup; since the syrup is very sticky, it glues your sleeve and skin together like a temporary paste, with your arm hairs trapped helplessly between them; adjusting your sleeves for better mobility in a fight scene requires ripping your sleeve apart from your skin; and this in turn helps to rip the hairs out of your arm.

It hurts. A lot.

Currently my left arm is sporting a lot of reddish holes where my strategically-placed elbow hairs once were. I look like a heroin addict, or else a deforested landscape. Despite the ever-constant injuries as I was repeatedly forced to tear the hairs from my arm between takes, I quite enjoyed the last day of filming at Stages. Unfortunately, time could not afford me to get a disposable camera for today, so alas, no photo's could be had.

There was also a lot of talk today about nipples. My nipples especially, which unnerved me to no end. I have discovered that if you want to make someone shuffle around uncomfortably, say some random thing about their nipples. The remark to me was: "Oh, look! You've been shot in the tit!"

Now such an impressively macho wound as having been hit with a crossbow arrow just above the heart just loses all its impressiveness when the word "tit" is followed close on the heels of "shot in the". I told the offending vampiress so, but unfortunately I failed in making it any less bruising to my ego.

Saying, "It's a manly wound when you get shot in your muscular...something-or-other" doesn't quite work. Especially when she's the one who has to prompt you with, "Pectorals?"

This was quickly followed by her laughing at me having been shot in the tit...and that was quickly followed by her tweaking my other nipple, which was happily still intact. And then she walked off cackling manically as she danced upon the tattered pieces of my molested ego. I feel so violated.

Right now, I'm just sitting back and marvelling at how I'm still grinning like an idiot over this. For as tedious if not downright boring as shooting a feature film is at times, it's still a wonderful adventure. I'm happy to have spent time on it as Wade, That-Creepy-Depraved-Omni-Sexual-Vampire-Who-Really-Ought-To-Get-Kicked-In-The-Nads-Somewhere-During-This-Film. And the best part: soon enough, we get to start shooting all the ballroom dancing scenes at the end of August.

Life may not be great, but it's good enough for me to grin and look towards seeing what tomorrow will bring. And those of you who immediately thought I sounded like the end of an episode of "Hamtaro" should be shot in the tit.

Today's Lesson: it's harder than you might originally think to eat a lasagne and salad dinner with an arrow sticking out of your chest.


posted by Phillip at 6:05 PM

 
Might I Recommend The Duct-Tape

In Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s book, “Good Omens”, we encounter Sister Mary Loquacious, a nun of the Chattering Order of St. Beryl. According to Mr.’s Gaiman and Pratchett, the Chattering Order of St. Beryl was founded by,

Saint Beryl Articulatus of Cracow, reputed to have been martyred in the middle of the fifth century. According to legend, Beryl was a young woman who was betrothed against her will to a pagan, Prince Casimir. On their wedding night she prayed to the Lord to intercede, vaguely expecting a miraculous beard to appear… instead the Lord granted Beryl the miraculous ability to chatter continually about whatever was on her mind, however inconsequential, without pause for breath or food.

According to one version of the legend, Beryl was strangled by Prince Casimir three weeks after the wedding, with their marriage still unconsummated. She died a virgin and martyr, chattering to the end.

…The Chattering Order of Saint Beryl is under a vow to emulate Saint Beryl at all times, except for Tuesday afternoons, for half an hour…

Where am I going with this? (aside from a potential lawsuit for putting up a few paragraphs of a published novel without the writers’ expressed permission, or at least not having bribed them first with money and banana daiquiries.) Well, yesterday I encountered someone who might very well have been a member of the Chattering Order.

They, whoever They are, say that silence is golden. If Plato’s dichotomic order of the universe is to be believed, then the polar opposite of silence is nigh-unending noise; and the opposition to gold is, debatably, gravel. If all such things are the case, then this woman could have supplied contractors with enough unpaved driveways in rural Mexico about ten times over.

I’m usually amazed at how some people can keep quiet, but for the first time I was amazed (though not in the pleasant "newfound discovery of knowledge at a museum" amazed) that this woman simply could not shut up. Compounding my growing desire to imitate the afore-mentioned Prince Casimir was the fact that while she talked an awful lot without really any sort of pause, she had very little of worth to talk about. Most of what she babbled on about were third or fourth repetitions of previous babble.

I was almost tempted, aside from merciful strangulation (strangulation as in her, and merciful as in sparing everyone else), to think that she was terrified of silence, that somehow an absence of noise would cause a horrific pressure imbalance inside her brain, causing her head to explode.

If I recall my book of Proverbs correctly, there’s a proverb in there that goes something along the lines of "A fool loves to hear the sound of his own voice." A finishing paraphrase might be, "and a wise man knows when to shut the hell up."

This is probably the closest I’ve ever come to a rant inside my Little Bit Of Nowhere. Odds are it won’t be the last, but ideally all the others after it will come off as quirky and somewhat silly as this one.

Today’s Lesson: The world will not end if your talking does. Shhhhhhhhh….


posted by Phillip at 5:28 PM

 
To Hell (on two and a half tanks of gas)

In the movie The Ref, actor/comedian Denis Leary is heard to remark: "I'm in hell. Connecticut is the 5th ring of hell." I'm starting to think he's more right than he knows. In all honesty, it's a very ominous thing to see just after you enter the state of Connecticut a large sign proudly proclaiming Satan's Kingdom. Now I will attempt to give Connecticut the benefit of the doubt, since other national parks in the state are named Devil's Hopyard and so forth. I might have just seen a backroads sign for one of their parks or forests.

Yet that was merely the last of three ominous signs and portents experienced on the trip to see my beautiful fiancee, Melissa. After that, I was beginning to wonder of someone or something was not-so-subtly trying to dissuade me from seeing her. The first sign was in fact many, and dead. Literally. It's unnerving to be not half an hour past the US border, and come across a ridiculously large amount of roadkill. I counted roughly a dozen-plus animals, including some might-have-been-squirrels and formerly-a-raccoon. There was even what might have been an adult skunk and its mate or offspring killed not 10 feet from each other...either that, or it was in fact 1 skunk, 2 halves. And just to make it special, the last deceased animal we got to see in that stretch was a red fox's stiff body being hoisted up by a shovel, courtesy of one of the government roadside workers.

Isn't the beauty and delicate balance of nature a wonderful thing?

And as if that was not unfortunate enough, the second ominous "take heed and go no further" moment happened about halfway through the trip down to CT. Now one can dismiss all those dead animals as just the casualties of human technology and "civilization", but you cannot so easily dismiss a large freaking piece of metal flying off the back of a truck and bouncing across the Interstate lanes towards you.

Let me take a moment to help give you a mental picture of what happened. My Dad & I were driving in the far left lane. In the middle lane, and about 1-2 car lengths ahead of us was another car happily driving along. And in front of him, approximately by about 1 car length, was a pickup truck. Now this pickup truck was hauling one of those enormous ice cube makers you see in hotels. The machine stands about as high as I do. Initially no one really gave much of a second thought to worrying about the ice machine; it was strapped very tight and securely to the pickup truck.

Well, the machine was.

The grille/cover to the ice machine's motor, however, was not.

Needless to say, it's not every day one sees (or wants to see) said cover suddenly tear itself from the rest of the ice machine in a daring escape, and come flying towards you. The car behind the pickup truck frantically swerved to the right as the cover nearly leapt right onto its hood. Then split-seconds later, the hood decides to come bounding into our lane, resembling some sort of macabre Terminatoresque puppydog. My Dad swerved to the left and we went halfway onto the emergency lane, the cover missing us by a few feet. It then parked itself in the emergency lane, and took a nap.

It's sheer luck and/or providence that the traffic behind us (not to mention behind the pickup truck) was very light, otherwise serious damage could have been done. And I shudder to think of the traffic pile-up that could have been wreaked had there not been the room or time to maneouvre out of the way. But, go figure, the driver of the pickup truck had absolutely no idea that he'd lost the cover to his ice machine. The driver of the car right behind his finally managed to pull up next to him and ideally conveyed the message through wild articulations that the pickup had nearly taken out 2-3 vehicles in his wake.

I don't exactly know what became of that situation. But I'll bet the pickup truck's driver is still wondering just where the cover on for his ice machine motor disappeared to.

Happliy, that was about as pulse-pounding-exciting as Connecticut was. For those of you curious (and for those of you who aren't, you might as well skip on down to Today's Lesson), most of my time was spent with Melissa. We toured some of the nearby casinos, and to my dismay I discovered you could not put small dogs and fansubs down for collateral. We spent many an hour in the bookstores, crying over the many titles we wanted vs. the amount of cash we could spare. I got to ride an old-fashioned carousel, something I haven't done in ages, while Mel laughed at how I was having more fun on it than the 6 year-olds were.

The rest of the time was mainly spent walking around and cuddling with the woman I adore. I also adored the time spent with my Mel-chan, and am incredibly disheartened to know it's over for now. Then again, in another respective month, she and I get to spend time together on pretty much of a "rest of your life" basis.

Being able to just disappear from family (especially hers) and have the opportunity to do whatever we wanted to at our own time and leisure is something I think too many people take for granted. We saw a few movies, and amazingly enough spent more time watching the film instead of necking in the dark. Mel was finally able to have a nice, long bubblebath without any interruption, and I read part of Michael Ende's The Neverending Story to her. I surprised her with chocolates and Pocky. When my Dad & I showed up where she worked, I was even able to present her with a rose I had smuggled across the border for her.

No doubt poor Mel's blushing profusely as she reads me gushing about her, so I'll leave it at that. But if you want to learn about how this proverbial old dog still has a few new tricks up his sleeve, ask her about Chobits, vol.2. That's probably a good way to get her cheeks all a-flushed without me needing to say anything. Love ya, my dear!

Today's Lesson: David Hasselhoff should never be let near a music video. Ever.

http://www.hellonetwork.com/demo/toysclub/video.asp?speed=hook300







posted by Phillip at 1:30 PM

 
Vanishing Act

The odds are looking pretty good that this little bit of nowhere will be running silent for the next week. Why, you may ask? Does it have anything to do with that escaped tiger reported last night? Or perhaps it has something to do with the kidnapping of about 100,000 monkeys and their typewriters as they tried to write King Lear.

Actually, the simple answer is that I shall be in Connecticut, spending some quality time with my beautiful fiancee and saucy wench, Mel. And it's much deserved, much desired and much needed quality time too. I find it rather sad that it's roughly 2 1/2 months before the wedding, and the last time we got to spend time together was two months ago. But that's the evils of international romances.

But I am planning on surprising her at work with a tiger, and 100,000 Shakespearean monkeys and their typewriters. Hmm...in retrospect, perhaps I shouldn't have written that here, since that whole public notice thing tends to destroy the whole "surprising" aspect. Oh well, at least her co-workers will be surprised!

I will leave you all with this thought I had yesterday: it was a beautiful warm day, and I spent a good portion of the afternoon sprawled out on the grass in the shade of a tree, staring up at the clouds in the blue sky. Taking the time to do that helped melt all my tension, fears and doubts away. I'm not saying I tried to ignore or forget them entirely, but escaping for a short while into the quiet tranquility of watching the sky proved incredibly uplifting. I think more people should take the time to sit back and stare up at the sky, not really caring to think about anything at all.

It's the effort of turning one's mind off that's the harder part, though, as opposed to just looking up.

Today's world is moving at such a fast rate that everyone seems to be coiling into tensile springs ready to just snap and lash out in any direction. But it's interesting to realize that despite the speed of the world, it's not going to run away on you if you take a few minutes or even a few hours each day to unwind and be carefree in an almost child-like manner.

This is probably some long ranting parallel to the old proverb, "Don't forget to stop and smell the roses." And at its heart, for as cliche as it has become, it's a proverb that rings true. Unfortunately for me, in the backyard yesterday all I had to smell were Shih-tzu's instead of roses.

Today's Lesson: never leave yourself open for an 8-pound Shih-tzu to use your crotch as a diving board so she can land on your face.


posted by Phillip at 9:16 AM

 
Versus

Yesterday, my Dad finally declared war on the family stapler. This happened only after he tired finally of the stapler's uppity shenanigans. Now in all fairness to the stapler, it is in fact a decade or so old, so in one sense it's allowed to be a little crochety from time to time. However, months ago that almost endearing trait crossed over into the realms of "Just plain malicious & capricious."

Sometimes it would let you staple your papers together. Sometimes it wouldn't fire any staples into the paper. And then sometimes it would be capricious and freeze in mid-staple. Thusly you have only part of the staple lodged in the paper, and the stapler stuck in its "firing" position, which makes it a tasking effort to wrench the entrapped staple out. Typically, this requires the use of one's teeth to yank the staple out and return the stapler to its original, non-offending position.

Which brings us to the events of last evening. All my Dad wanted was to staple a pack of guitar chord song sheets together. The stapler, it appears, had a disagreement with him. It did not want those sheets stapled together, and went out of its way to show its intentions to my Dad. Eight times in a row.

After the 8th failed attempt to staple the sheets together (all of which required my Dad to make considerable effort in prying the staple out and returning the stapler back to normal), my Dad began to voice his frustrations to the stapler by slamming it against the armrest of the chair. From what I gather, it was right about then that the stapler bit him in retaliation.

From there on in, things got ugly. My Dad did not take too well to the stapler head swinging up and trying to staple his forearm. So he threw the stapler down at the base of the desk. The stapler suffered minor injuries, and has left an impressive gouge along one of the desk legs in the process. Seemingly, my Dad had bested the stapler and subjugated it to his will.

He tried to staple his song sheets together again. The stapler blatantly refused, and locked up again in mid-staple. And so my Dad, being the calm, patient man that he is, smiled nicely at the unco-operative stapler, gently took it up in his hands, and proceeded to bend it into a U-shape.

Needless to say, we are now coping without a stapler. I'm sure we'll get along somehow. A new stapler will probably be purchased later this week; I can only hope it behaves better than its predecessor. At the very least, if it decides to offer any resistance, my Dad can now make valid threats about, "You know what happened to the last stapler that vexed me..."

Today's Lesson: sleep is good. Sleep no longer lets my brain think only along the lines of "Fire bad, tree pretty."


posted by Phillip at 7:17 PM

 
"The first rule of Fight Club is…"


It’s Thursday.

My calves no longer ache horribly. I am no longer feeling like I have only half my usual energy to spare. And my brain is no longer the equivalent of Shake N’ Bake. Amazing what happens when you’re allowed to sleep in, isn’t it?

Suffice to say, while I’m still recovering from three consecutive, 16-17 hour days, I’m quite happy to have had the experience of being there for the filming. Of course, there’s still the whole Medieval dancing shoot that happens in late August, but I’ll wax ecstatic about that when it arrives.

To answer anyone’s questions of what I’ve been doing the past few days to warrant a lack of bits of nowhere, here’s the brief synopsis:

Monday morning, I went to bed at 2:30am, woke up at 8am. Ran errands and other random tasks that needed completion. Attended the filming from 5pm – 2am.

Tuesday morning, I went to bed at 2:30am again, woke up at 7:30am. Took my puppy to the clippers (she now resembles a cross between a skinny pig, and the Luck Dragon, Falkor, from The Neverending Story). Ran more errands. Attended filming from 4:30pm – 3am.

Wednesday morning, after crashing at 3:30am, had to get up at 9am to help empty a garage filled with junk and run it down to the local dump in the morning. The early to mid afternoon was spent loading and offloading large, heavy boxes of food (filled with ridiculous quantities of canned lentils and Campbell’s soups, might I add) from the Waterloo Food Bank. Rest of the day was spent with me staring at the walls, unable to get any more coherent than, "Fire bad, tree pretty."

And today, I’ve been reveling in having a day off where I got to sleep in. Yay!

But for those of you curious, here’s some detailed rambling about the adventures and exploits of the past few days.

MONDAY

When I woke up, I discovered that thanks to all the hair gel I had courtesy of the “Wade” character I was playing, I now resembled some poor sot who had stuck a fork in the toaster. All I needed was the melted fork, and I could have limped down the streets scaring people into thinking I had managed to electrocute myself.

But the wonders and aftermath of Sunday’s hair-gelling experience proved to be nothing compared to what the make-up crew had in store for me today. You see, there were no scenes being filmed that required me as “Wade”. It was all outdoor shooting, but I wanted to show up just to hang around and enjoy seeing everything behind the scenes.

Halfway through the shoot, I would up being volunteered into being the guy who clacks that slate together and says official-sounding things like, “Scene 112, take 2.” Did that for the rest of the night, as it turned out, which was interesting.

Incidentally, the Monday night shoot proved that filming isn’t always this glamourous stage. That’s not to say it’s boring, but it proves rather tedious at times, if not downright quiet and blasé. Then again, I wasn’t in any of the scenes, and outside of all the slate-clacking, I had very little else to do. But it was still cool to watch everyone through the monitor.

Back to the hair, though, Cecelia (the director) thought she might need some extras for one scene that required some people milling about the front entrance of the Stages club. Since I openly said I had no other obligations, but was willing to help if they needed it, I was sent within my first hour of being on set to the make-up crew.

There was only one requirement: I could not be recognizable on camera. I had to look nothing like Wade. The ladies asked if there was anything I wanted or didn’t want done to me. I said they had carte blanche to work with; whatever they fancied, I’d let them get away with it.

You know, perhaps that evil little glimmer in their eyes upon learning that might have been a good indicator what was to come. It is no small understatement in saying the two of them had waaaaay too much fun dolling me up. 20 minutes, a little white foundation, and a lot of hair glue (I kid you not, it was glue for hair), I looked like Alice Cooper trying to look like a clown, or else I resembled a mime from hell.

For those of you who are familiar with my appearance, take a moment to think about how I look with my glasses off. Now give me a white face. Now give me black lipstick. Now add black mascera and eyeliner to my eyes. And for the final touch, turn my hair a bright purple--yes, purple--and give me 4 rows of spikes lining my skull, two on either side of my part, and one just above either ear. I resembled a purple-headed pincushion.

Some you may now want to banish that mental image from your minds. At least until I show you the actual pictures I simply had to take just to terrify people with.

Everyone seemed rather impressed that I could undergo such a drastic change of appearances. Alas, though, we never did get to film that scene. So all that hair and make-up was all for naught. But it was fun to see how I looked like a goth, however. Besides, I spent the rest of the night being Slate-Clacker Guy looking like that.

And what made it absolutely priceless were the looks I was getting when John (still dressed as a Catholic priest) and I were milling outside of the bar beside Stages. Apparently people just can’t wrap their brains around a priest who is smoking and chatting next to someone who seems to belong at a Marilyn Manson concert.

So for the rest of the night, I looked like that. During the course of all the filming, I discovered a number in interesting things. Like, boom mikes can be hazardous to your health. I lost count of how many times I nearly clothes-lined myself on the damned thing as I clacked the slate and then raced out of the way so the camera wouldn’t pick up me or my shadow. I also discovered that many of the women there for the shoot, actresses or crew, could not get enough of me doing my best gay voice and going, “Fabulooouuus!”

I wonder if anyone should be worried that there were not one, but four of us guys there who were notably heterosexual (I'm engaged, Dean's married, and John & Ralf adore women), but could act over-the-top gay at the drop of a hat.

Anyhoo, the night shooting finished just under the wire. We could only use Stages until 2am, and then we had to be out. Last scene was completed to the director’s liking with 5 minutes to spare. I went home, and even though it was quarter after two in the morning, I had a shower.

I must openly confess that I didn’t care who I might have woken up. I was not about to go to sleep still wearing all my make-up and giant purple spikes of hair. Everything came off surprisingly well, given how it was only a ten-minute shower. Even the glue, which made my hair so hard I could have been used to gore someone, came out easily.

Then again…when I woke up later that morning, there was still enough residual glue in my hair to make me look like Shaggy from Scooby Doo in mid-scare. My hair was literally standing perfectly straight up. Had I not been possessing the thinking capacity of a rutabaga, I would have taken a picture of it. Alas, I did not, so you will just have to envision it for yourselves.


TUESDAY

By far, this had to be one of the more interesting days. Namely because today was the day we had to work with all the extras. Stages needed to look as if it was packing a fairly large crowd, which is a surprisingly difficult effort given its size. In the end, we were able to wrangle roughly 40 extras for the shoot, which is actually a more impressive feat than it sounds.

Thanks to John, we were also get a local band to play up on the stage. The band members of Puncture Vine happened to be close friends of his, so when Cecelia said she was hoping to find a band for the crowd shots, John said he’d check with them. From the sounds of it, both sides were thrilled with the idea. So, we had Puncture Vine playing one of their own songs at the club.

Well…they were actually lip-synching since the actual set-up would have taken hours we didn’t have, and all the DJ equipment had long since been removed. The crew was able to jerry-rig a computer to some speakers, which blasted their song across the club. Apparently they also managed to fry part of the speakers in the process too. But all the actual music will be super-imposed during the sound editing process in post-production, so it’s all good.

All the extras, most of them looking the goth part (and that was how they normally dressed too), were wrangled up and put over on one part of the club. We only filmed from one side, but did a hell of a lot of different angles. Despite it being one scene, there were roughly 10 takes, almost each one being at a different angle.

Some of John’s good friends from one of the other clubs, Club Abstract, were able to most assuredly get on film. I’d met them all few times prior to the filming, just from hanging out with John, so we made a point of having them talking to me when the scene starts. The basic of the scene is this: Bailey, a heroine and reluctant vampire, enters the club looking for a lot of really mean vampires (me/Wade being one of them) who started the club up as a local smorgasbord. However, these really mean vamps already know Bailey is coming, and I’ve been sent to keep a lookout for her. Once I find her, I intercept her on the dance floor, and drag her off to the lair.

So, the camera needs to be on me for a bit of the beginning. I’ve got my back to the camera until Bailey comes in, so the trio I’m chatting with were all facing the camera. (Though they were all great in obeying the golden rule: NEVER look into the camera. Directors hate it when you wind up with that deer-in-the-headlights look.) I’m pretty sure they’ll manage to get on film once all the editing is done.

Not to mention one of the guys was a valuable asset to me. As Wade, I’m never wearing my glasses. You can imagine how difficult it is to have to casually look out of the blurry corner of your eye, desperately searching through the dim and dancing lights for a girl in a blue dress. I admit it: I’m a “blind as a bat” vampire.

But Peter, being the helpful sort, kept an eye out for her for me. We worked it in so that when Bailey reaches a certain point, he says as if he’s casually talking to me, “There she is.” Whereupon I deliberately look at Bailey. Then I shake Peter’s hand, and part ways with him & the others to follow after Bailey.

And thusly, this scene was where I got to shine as the sinister “Wade” once again. I swear, the way his ad-libbed role has turned out, the guy is some sort of scary omni-sexual vampire. Some of the other actors have joked about Wade now needing his own movie, or to show up for a sequel. I am emphatically not wanting that; ignoring the fact that Wade has in fact already been killed in a scene filmed Sunday, I don’t want to get anywhere near this persona ever again. I’m just playing him, and the guy gives me the creeps.

More than that, this time around I had lines. I can’t begin to say how nervous I was at having to act creepy while delivering my lines. Given how malevolent the persona had become from all the scenes filmed prior to this one, I felt a great pressure in delivering as much of a creep factor as possible. Being sinister is a hard task when you’re at your best when you whisper, but because of the boom mike’s limitations, you have to talk loudly.

I still think I did pretty well for it. Though once again, the ad-libbed parts were the best. It was never called for in the script, but “Bailey” and I decided beforehand that during the confrontation she & I have, I should lick her across the cheek. Apparently, as a shot it worked great.

However, bear in mind that we did this scene from start to finish roughly 9-10 times. I licked Bailey’s face roughly 9-10 times. And with each successive take we did, I seemed to be licking her even more than the last time. By the end I think I was practically lathering the side of her face with my tongue. Needless to say, her cringing and shuddering was not faked at all.

We kept joking about it between takes, to keep the mood light. I wound up saying to the camera as they prepped for another angle, “I think I’m addicted to her foundation! I’m going to be licking Maybelline cosmetic cases at the department stores now!”

And all the jesting was done to also placate her boyfriend, who was one of the key figures on the filming crew. I know that Mel, my lovely fiancée (whose very cute pictures I flaunted all night long to cast members who had been wanting to see what the love of my life looked like), will probably squeeze her eyes shut when she sees this scene on film.

But that aside, the last thing I wanted was to have a take interrupted as “Bailey”’s boyfriend comes flying from off-screen and tackles me in mid-lick.

All the crowd scenes were filmed really fast, and went very well according to the film crew. So after that, the extras were allowed to go home, and we prepped for filming the final fight scenes. During this time, I went up on stage to get a picture of the Puncture Vine band members; since I’ve been using up a roll of film for each night, I wanted to get as many of the people and behind-the-scenes shots as possible. I’ve already got doubles of the photos ordered, so I can give one set of each roll over to the film crew for their scrapbook.

But back to Puncture Vine, in order to take their picture, I needed to get my camera. Ralf had been holding my camera and my glasses for me during the filming, so as he tromped onto the stage, I asked for my camera back (I already had retrieved my glasses a few minutes earlier). Well, Ralf tosses me the camera. It was a gentle toss. I should have been able to easily catch it.

But noooooo, I had to fumble with it. The camera slipped out of my hands just as I was about catch it in mid air. There was some impromptu juggling as the camera bounced from one hand to the other as I tried to snag it. Then the camera went tumbling to the ground--and right towards the edge of the stage. This is a 5-foot drop-off, easily. Visions of my camera shattering as it hit the floor and effectively killing it and the rest of my film horrified me.

What did I do, you might ask?

I did what anyone else would have done: I pulled and Indiana Jones and desperately flung myself across the stage in a frantic bid to catch the camera. I almost wish the entire thing had been captured on film, since I quite literally took a flying leap with one hand outstretched, slid a foot or two on my belly, and grabbed hold of the camera just as it teetered on the edge and was beginning to fall. That earned me applause from the band a few of the extras who happened to see it.

My camera was safe, all was well with the world.

And so, onto the major fight choreography, or as we had come to call them, the “Fight Club” scenes. Admittedly, I wasn’t going to be doing much. The scenes we had done prior required me to be pretty much out of commission for the final fight. I’m sad I wasn’t able to shamelessly show off some of my gymnastics skills, but what I got in return was very worthwhile.

You see, as Wade I’ve already been shot near the heart with a crossbow arrow. This arrow has to stay lodged in my chest, since in the scene where I meet my demise, I pull it out. But, to further complicate things, my death scene happens after the epic battle. So we had to quickly create some continuity that shows I was not killed right off by the crossbow arrow, but also shows how I managed to survive the epic final fight.

Well, the answer turned out to be simple: torture “Wade” more. I get to be sitting on the sidelines as everyone’s kicking everyone else’s ass, the arrow still sticking out of my chest as blood dribbles down my chin. I’m wheezing and looking really worse for wear, and not enjoying it.

Originally, we were hoping to have Bailey see me, storm up to me, deck me in the face, and say, “That’s for licking me!” Unfortunately that just didn’t work all that well with the fight choreography; Bailey is fighting a different vampire with every third step she’s taking, so there’s no real time for her to take a quick stroll and deck me.

It’s been reworked that one of the characters, Ethan (who is the comic relief character, and not very useful in the battle anyways), gets to torment me instead. He already was scripted to be walking up beside where I was going to be sitting anyways, so we added something colourful for him to do.

At this point, I’ve got the arrow cleverly duct-taped to the side of my chest, so I have more arm movement…though the tape had to be wrapped first around the arrow and then around my shoulder so it could be properly secured. Good thing I was wearing an open button-up over my Tshirt, otherwise things could have been messy.

Anyhoo, the planning for the scene is that Ethan sees me and tries to ward me off with a cross when he realizes I’m not too much of a threat. However, I hiss at the cross and try to take a swat at him. Ethan panics and loses the cross…right onto my lap. So basically, the sanctified cross burns a hole through my crotch. As I’m dancing there on the stool in pain, Ethan has this panicked “I’m sorry!” look about him. He looks around, and then knocks me out with a beer bottle. Thusly, I still have the arrow in my chest, but am not dead yet.

So, let’s take a moment to update the “Wade Pain-O-Meter” for a moment. In the movie, Wade has been: burned by a cross on his crotch, shot with a crossbow arrow, slammed into a wall, thrown over someone’s head onto a table, smashed across the back of the head with a beer bottle, cracked across the face with a pipe, bludgeoned repeatedly with that pipe, and then staked.

I can’t believe I’m so jovial about being subjected to so much abuse.

Sadly we did not get all the filming done that we were hoping to do by the time we had to shut down. Another 2 hours and we would have been done, but alas, we’ll have to reschedule another day to shoot at Stages. I’ll be doing my scene with Ethan then.

However, the parts we did manage to get filmed were spectacular. Two of the deadlier vamps Bailey has to fight were large and mean. One was played by Bob, our resident martial arts instructor. He was jumping down from the second-floor balcony, being thrown across the bar and through cups, kicking, punching and getting staked. It was really cool to watch…even though I was half-blind for that scene, since I was still not-dead-yet-Wade and I couldn’t tell when the camera was on me, and had to still play as the character.

The second vamp was large and burly, played by Dean, one of the Club Abstract bounces. His fight was cool for two reasons. First, the man was able to get metal plates grafted (not permanently) to his forearms. So there are scenes where Bailey is swinging her sword at him, and he is literally stopping her blade with the plates on his arms. Since Dean was also the weapons’ expert for the movie, he got to fight her with some chain-less kusarigama (think of small, handheld sickles, only the blade design is more straight like a scythe’s).

The second reason Dean’s fight scenes were cool was Algernon, called ‘Alge’ for short. Algernon is a large, white rat. He was actually very clean, very tame and very quiet. Algernon was Dean’s pet, so what Dean had was that Algernon is sitting on his shoulder when he first confronts Bailey. Bailey challenges him, and so Dead picks Algernon off his shoulder, kisses the rodent, then sets him out of harm’s way. Whereupon Dean proceeds to eventually get himself staked.

So to update the film’s “Colour Animal Extras” count, we have: Algernon, the large white rat; and Aphrodite, the beautiful 8-foot long albino Burmese python. I took pictures of both of them; I hope they turn out.

*Whew!*

That’s more or less everything that I wanted or felt I needed to comment on. Please do excuse this rather lengthy bit of nowhere, and continue on with your normal lives now.


Today’s Lesson: rutabaga is spelled R-U-T-A-B-A-G-A


posted by Phillip at 3:19 PM

 
I Can Lick 40 Nubile Young Women Today

It’s roughly noonish as I write this, and I am sore. Very, very sore. My fingers are sore. My rotator cuffs are aching. My hips are sore. My legs are sore. My feet feel like lead weights. The left cheek of my butt is sore (though strangely enough the right cheek has somehow managed to survive unscathed). My neck is stiff. My shoulders are sore. My back is sore.

I don’t understand just what exactly could have made me so sore. It might have something to do with getting slammed into a wall by a guy built like a quarterback. Then again, it could also be from me getting flipped over said guy’s head and slammed onto a table repeatedly. Or from me getting shot with a crossbow arrow. Or from getting cracked across the face with a metal pipe. Or from being bludgeoned repeatedly with that same metal pipe. Or it could have been from the staking.

The world may never know.

I have to say if being stiff and sore and aching is the price I have to pay for all the tremendous fun I had during the filming yesterday, I’d gladly pay it again. In fact, I’ll be doing that Tuesday, though I won’t have quite as many scenes to film. Being pre-emptively shot and staked more than likely means I won’t have a lot of shots when the big fight breaks out at the end. Then again, I do hold the distinct honour of being the first of any of the characters to have their death scene shot in this film. A winner is me!

Incidentally, I must correct an error from my previous posts. The name of this movie is: Let Me Go. The first movie was entitled Regrets.

Yesterday, most everyone assembled at 10am at the downtown Kitchener bar, “Howl Sports Bar” (formerly, “Howl At The Moon”), which happened to be right next and directly connected to the empty dance club “Stages”, which was where all the filming was taking place.

We arrived at 10am. The last of us (myself included) left at roughly 2am this morning. That tallies up to about 15 hours spent on the set. Granted the scenes I was in took up maybe 4-5 hours max of the entire time, but that’s still a long day.

It was a day filled with many new surprises and discoveries. Discoveries such as: when I eat a pita from the Pita Pit store across the street at four in the afternoon, I no longer require needing to eat anything else for the rest of the night; fake gel blood tastes oddly sweet and fruity; and that I still do apparently look like an other version of Harry Potter--or alternately, Clay Akerman from American Idol, which in fact gives me all the more reason to prefer embracing my Potteresque appearance.

The whole Potter/Akerman thing began when I was set down for make-up and hair. Make-up was easy (oooh, mascera!), but the young lass doing my hair then asked, “So if you’re a disposable vampire, how do you want your hair to look?” My response was, “I have no qualms with whatever you try. Surprise me.”

The resulting hairstyle resembled me having taken a blowfish and styled my hair after it. Actually, it looked pretty cool, since there weren’t any big spikes or bangs; my hair was just sticking everywhere. Combine this with the fact that for all my on-set scenes as a vampire I was not wearing my glasses, and the comparisons people drew between me and famous people varied from Harry Potter to Clay to Tim Burton to *shudder!* one of those guys from the D- pop group B4-4. (I’d sooner be compared to Clay Akerman than one of those guys.)

My hair would have also been dyed red in some spots, to match my shirt, but since we lacked any red hair dye, that didn’t happen. I’m slightly disappointed by that, but oh well.

As it turned out, the last-minute scene John & I had written was approved, and it was the third scene that was shot. Everyone seemed quite happy with the end result, even though it mean some creative rearranging of continuity (since my character was slated in the script to have been shot with a crossbow arrow earlier).

To give a quick synopsis without any spoilers, the scene involves Father Nicholas (an Irish Catholic priest, played by John) and Max (a cemetery manager, played by John’s good friend Ralf) going down to the basement of the club to plant explosives meant to blow it and the vamps sky-high. In staggers one dying vamp (me), who them proceeds to get the crap beaten out of him by Max--but not before the vamp manages to spray a nice arc of blood across Father Nicholas’ face, courtesy of Max’s pipe.

The only downside to shooting that scene featuring my demise was the dust. It was the first scene we were shooting with my character (ironically enough, this scene will also be the last time we ever see him in the film), so I had to keep my clothes in relatively good condition for all the scenes I need to be in later that day. This is a rather troublesome task when the entire room is covered in dust from the cement, drywall and ceiling spackle. I managed to get most of the dust off afterwards with a damp cloth, but it took a while. A looooong while.

This scene was much-loved by everyone for different reasons. Cecelia, the director, loved it because we barely required more than 1 or 2 takes for each camera angle, and we all apparently acted quite well. Rick, the cameraman, loved it because the only real lighting we had in the room were some flashlights, which made everything look creepier. John loved the scene because it was so damned fun and funny for him to get sprayed in the face. I loved the scene because I got to have a particularly fun fight and death scene. Ralf loved the scene mainly because he got to beat me up and kill me.

(Poor Ralf is easily the biggest and strongest-looking of all the characters in the film, and he originally had no fight scenes. John & I helped rectify that.)

I was also complimented on how well I could contort my face and hiss. I chalk it up to my love of imitating the hiss of any of the Aliens.

I am also apparently now one of the creepiest characters in the movie, if not the creepiest. I honestly don’t know why. It might have something to do with me dribbling blood from a wine glass all over one of the female victims/appetizers in our nest, and then licking it off her shoulder and neck. Or it could be from when I gargled “blood” as it was poured down from above my head as I smeared it across my face. Or it could be from the rude kissy face I made at the movie’s heroine after dragging her into the vampire nest.

None of these things were actually scripted. They were ad lib and improvised in the middle of shooting a scene. It’s a little unnerving to be such a pleasant, amicable guy, joking with everyone on the set between takes, and then suddenly become some twisted, little amoral beast without really having to try at it. At the very least, I can look at this character I played and state with no uncertainty that I never want to be this person, ever. And for the record, I did in fact ask permission first with the female victim if I could lick blood off her shoulder.

Besides, I spent more time annoying everyone off-set with all my flowery prose and descriptions of my beautiful and saucy fiancée, Mel. Note to self: find cute picture of even cuter fiancée to show off to everyone today.

On a tangent, the “blood” everyone was drinking in these scenes was actually some form of strawberry syrup. Everyone’s glasses were at least 3/4ths full when we began shooting these scenes. By the time we were done, I barely had any left in my glass (what with all the smearing and drinking and dipping); that may turn out to be a continuity glitch, or else it explains why I was so wired for the rest of the night….

Though the star who stole the show was Aphrodite, the 8-foot long albino Burmese python who was used in one of the scenes. Sophia/Elizabeth Bathory, the big bad vampiress in the movie, got to wear Aphrodite around her shoulders and arms. Aphrodite was simply beautiful and so incredibly tame that we more had to worry about her trying to slither off and explore the club than anything else.

Other highlights of the shoot included John the priest standing outside of the bar, smoking a cigarette. He actually got more funny looks thrown his way than our two female victims who walked across the street to Pita Pit to get some lunch, complete with dirty, torn clothes and bloody faces & arms.

I also got horribly addicted to eating dry Frost Lucky Charms cereal. Excuse me a moment as I angrily wave my fist at the sky and cry out, “Damn you, Lucky Charms!!”

The more curious thing of all was that I never did get to see what the scenes being shot looked like through the camera. I wanted to have the chance to watch on the monitor some of the scenes being acted out, but the chance never came up. I was either nowhere near the shooting, or else I was on the set and couldn’t stare at the camera, or I was on the set and didn’t have my glasses so I couldn’t see the monitor unless I was nose-to-screen with it. I waited for John & Ralf to do the last scene of the night, and was hoping then to check out the filming through the monitor. But go figure, that’s the one scene they do where they didn’t rely on the monitor.

Ah well, today I’m showing up for all the outdoor scenes, even though I’m not in any of them. I’m there for moral support, and just wanting to hang out with everyone again. And probably to help John run lines; poor guy has to chant Latin tonight. I’m not about to stay out as long as everyone else, since this may go to 4-5am, but I’ll probably be there until around midnight.

So yesterday was a fun, new and interesting experience I honestly doubt I’ll ever have the chance at trying out again. I’m glad John thought of me well enough to volunteer me as a dancer (those scenes get shot in late August, I’m told). I’m glad I accepted the offer. I’m glad I was willing and had the time to volunteer my services for whatever else they needed. For as unfortunate as it is for the other guy, I’m glad I got called in at the last minute to play the vampire “Wade” (now known as the scary, perverted vamp).

For as worried as she is about how creepy I’ll look on the big screen, I’m glad that Mel has been encouraging me to get out there and do my best on the set. And I’m glad that at the end of last night, despite coming home late, who should be curled up at the front door waiting for me, but my little Sih-tzu, Shady. (I took her out for a run and gave her an extra-long tummy rub after she greeted me. Such a furry little cutie!)

I’m glad I had the fortune and opportunity to see what it’s like to be in and shoot a feature film. Sometimes life makes you fight for the things you want. And sometimes it just hands you the things you never even asked for. I may be tired right now, but I’m loving every minute of it.


Today’s Lesson: at 2am, the planet Mars is particularly bright and red this time of year.


posted by Phillip at 10:26 AM

 
Speak Softly & Carry A Big, Pointy Stick

Well once again, as life turns up disappointments in one of my endeavours, it also manages to quite pleasantly surprise me in others. The principle filming for the feature film "Regrets" has already begun, and for the next 3-4 days they're going to be shooting the final showdown and battle at one of the local clubs. And now I'm sitting here blinking and trying to understand this latest development, where out of the blue I've been upgraded as a supporting actor yet again.

Here's a quick recap:

My friend John, playing the priest in the film, was told by the director that they were short a dancer for one scene, and he volunteered me to help. I get a call out of the blue asking if I could be a dancer, and I volunteered. And there was much rejoicing. Then I was told that they needed disposable vamps for the final battle (now dubbed the "Fight Club" scenes), and since I was a familiar face already floating around, I got volunteered to help out there. Out of the blue I'm told I get to be in the final battle, with a good ol' 15-second life expectancy rate. And there was much rejoicing.

As of roughly 11pm last night, I've been upgraded yet again. Apparently I've now become a disposable vampire with a speaking role. I don't exactly know what happened to the guy originally playing the role, but I guess at the last minute he wouldn't be able to do all the shooting required of him this weekend. So now I get to have lines.

Well...technically speaking I think I already had at least one line as a disposable vamp. Granted this line might have been along the lines of, "AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!" as I'm staked, but hey, I was looking forward to getting killed on-screen anyways. So added bonus now: I get to have lines, and then probably scream "AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!" as I'm staked. Or shot with the crossbow. Or wailed across the head with a shovel.

Funny thing is that when the call came my way last night, I was out with John at one of the local Williams Coffee Pubs. During last night's reading, a few random scribbles of idea turned into a new scene that he & I wrote, and once we show the director, it may wind up being used in the movie if time allows. This, in fact, may be where I meet my untimely end. I'm someone not only willing but able to take the physical abuse this vampire will endure.

In a lot of ways, the scene mirrors the unique commaradarie John & I have: I try to eat him, he hammers me across the face with a shovel, I spew blood across his face in the process, and he helps stake me. Ah, friendship!

So I may very well have written my own demise. It's quite a peculiar thing to sit back and think about. And in the end, it adds yet another unique and strange layer to an already interesting experience.

Today's Lesson: the worst that can ever happen by at least offering your services is hearing, "No, you don't get to die that way. We have other plans on how to kill you instead."


posted by Phillip at 8:26 AM

 
Tooth & Nail

http://www.hispeed.rogers.com/entertainment/story.jsp?cid=e071020A

According to the article, one of Elvis Presley's teeth, as well as a lock of hair and a gold record, are up for auction. Those of you who want to participate should start coughing up something that can outdo the roughly $100,000 dollar bid that's currently on.

I'm not sure what's disturbing me more in this instance: that a man's tooth is being up for auction, or that the tooth is revered enough to garner such a near ridiculous pricetag. Certainly it once belonged to debatedly one of the best musical artists in the world, but in the end it's just a tooth.

When I'm dead and gone, I'd like the body parts I leave behind to mean something. I've signed an organ donor's card, and look forward to the chance to give someone else an extended lease on life. It's not as if, being expired, I'm really going to sit up on the operating table and say to the surgeon, "Hey, I liked that kidney right where it was, you silly git! Put it back in there!"

In the end, I doubt I'll ever be so famous that a collection of eyelashes that once belonged to me are going to have devotees fighting each other to own for a cool $10,000. And in all honesty, I'm glad. Eyelashes, after all, are not very impressive or things. Tongues, however, are where the real money is!

Today's Lesson: the king is dead, live with it.


posted by Phillip at 4:58 PM

 
The Bear Eats You.

To quote that age-old euphemism: some days, you eat the bear, and some days....

It's been a bear-eat-me day. I can only hope I've caused it indigestion in the process.


Today's Lesson: strength is sometimes measured not in whether you finished the race, but by how far you were willing to run, even when it meant dragging yourself along.


posted by Phillip at 7:04 PM

 
It's All Y-Chromosome, Baby

To properly put this little bit of nowhere into context, I must first relate a quirky little tale that happened, oh about 6 years ago, give or take a summer. With me working the summers in Toronto, I stayed at my gracious uncle's 1-bedroom apartment for the 2-3 months of work. This is where, incidentally, I discovered that for about 3 years the best thing for me to sleep on was a cot; oddly enough I was more comfortable on a fold-away cot than any other bed or mattress.

But I digress.

All of you are no doubt waiting with baited breath to hear of some age-old humiliation, naturally at my expense. If you ever ask my uncle, he will be more than happy to share my embarrassment with you. All I can say in my defense was that it had been a long day, and I was very tired. I cannot recall whether it was a weekday or a busy weekend day, but i do know it was one of those days that ends with the letter 'y'. As we rested our weary feet and contemplated getting back into the act of walking only after a few days of sitting down, my uncle and I decided that tea was in order.

I volunteered to go get the tea ready. Now again, I shall try to impress upon you all (and probably fail) that it had in fact been a very long day, and I wasn't thinking straight. So, I decided to make tea by boiling water in the kettle. My uncle had (at the risk of spoilers, notice the past tense) a nice electric kettle.

First, I plugged the kettle into the kitchen wall socket.

Then I took the kettle, set it on a stove burner, and cranked up the heat on the burner.

About 5 minutes later, my uncle noticed the pungent, acrid smell filling the apartment. Bewildered and fearing something was about to spontaneously combust, he investigated the kitchen. Seconds later I distinctly hear him exclaim in disbelief and amazement, "You just killed my kettle!!"

Yes indeed, I had quite effectively fried my uncle's electric kettle on the stove. But it's not like he hadn't been contemplating buying a new one anyways. And just how useful was that kettle, in the end? Despite being on the burner, the water didn't even boil! *tch!*

The misadventures with the stove don't stop there, where due to some selective dyslexia on my part, I've turned on the rear stove burners instead of the front stove burners, and fried a few other things that weren't meant to end their existence in such a harsh manner. So far the count has been 2 stove burner covers, and the kettle. There may be something else, and I've just tried to regress the memory.

So what does all this have to do with today's little bit of nowhere?

Well, I just learned today that the ability to burn kettles on the stove is genetic. There must be a "kettle-killing" gene on the male's Y-chromsome, since my Dad neatly fried a kettle on the stove upstairs. He fell prey to the same selective dyslexia, and in wanting to heat a large pot of soup on the front burner, he turned on the rear burner instead. The victim in question (aka, the kettle) happened to be sitting peacefully on the wrong burner at the wrong time. Though scarred, this kettle survived the ordeal.

So the "Kettle-killing" gene is not limited to me. With my Dad displaying its traits, I have come to believe that just as this gene was passed down from him to me, so too will it be inhereted to any sons I might have. Oh, how I shall stare wistfully at the molten hunk of metal that was the family kettle, and nostalgically say, "Standing here smelling that foul odour, I can remember the day I fried my first kettle! I'm so proud of you, son!"

Whereupon, Mel will no doubt smack me upside the back of the head for encouraging the kid to destroy perfectly good kettles.

Today's Lesson: a burning kettle has a peculiar yet distinct smell. (Not that I encourage to find out what that is, so you can recognize it for later...unless you're inviting me over to your house and you ask me to fix you tea.)



posted by Phillip at 6:49 PM

 
Also Known As....

According to the 25 Korean kids we had at our house today, I look like Harry Potter. A slightly older version of Harry Potter with blonde hair, mind you, but apparently I still bear a striking resemblance to him. I'm not sure if they're referring to the Harry Potter in their mind's eye from reading the books, or Daniel Radcliffe, who's portraying said character in the movies.

Bear in mind that roughly 2 months ago, I was told I bore a vague semblance to actor Frankie Muniz. Or else his older brother. Or else Frankie Muniz's stand-in.

I'm starting to wonder what other young actors I apparently resemble. Perhaps I should start a betting pool. My bets are on me resembling Dame Edna.

Today's Lesson: always wait until you're certain it's a cash cow before you simply start grabbing udders and milking it.


posted by Phillip at 6:34 PM

 
"Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ..."

Ah, pressure: pushing down on me, pushing down on you, and so forth. They say that you should exhibit grace under pressure. They say that given enough pressure, you'll crack (presumably like an egg). Ferris Bueller explained that his friend Cameron was under so much personally-induced pressure that (pardon his French) if you shoved a lump of coal up Cameron's ass, in 2 weeks you'd have a diamond.

Pressure is a rather unique phenomenon. It's something that can actually tag along after you like a puppy dog. It will follow you wherever you go, no matter how hard you try to dogde it. It will even follow you into the bathroom, never giving you a moment's peace. Pressure has this way of consuming your thoughts and reducing you into a wreck, and then making you feel guilty for trying to find a moment's peace.

I'm getting to a point in my life where pressure is threatening to flatten me like a second-hand pancake found on the side of the road. Actually working to get your life up on two proverbial feet is at times a rather difficult process when it feels like everything is suddenly trying to kick said legs out from underneath you. Currently I've given up on caring about the pressure of the moment. Terrifying myself isn't going to make it go away. Frustrating myself isn't going to bring about any solutions. Fretting about it constantly is going to accomplish a great deal of nothing.

It's a peculiar sensation to look at the pressure dead on (metaphorically speaking, of course), and then upon realizing you've done all you can and the rest is out of your hands for the time being, you turn your back to it and not care. It sounds reckless, but there is a method to the madness, I assure all of you out there. I just won't be going into it here.

Instead I have been slowly letting go of all the tension, all the worry, and all the blind panic. Music, not surprisingly, has proven to be a valuable outlet. There are a handful of songs out there I can listen to in my darkest of days, and when I listen to them, I forget about the pressure, even if it's only for the duration of the song. The release is incredible, and the freedom is akin to an adrenaline rush drawn out over the course of a few minutes instead of a few seconds.

Pressure can push down on me right now, but I'm not yet about to let it crush me. If anything, I'm biding my time and saving my strength for one final coup de grace. Whether or not it will prove a brilliant stroke of insanity or just plain brilliant will depend on my success. But it's out of my hands right now. Worry is there, but I'm not about to let it consume me.

In the meantime, to paraphrase the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I have music as my aeroplane.

Today's Lesson: for those of you curious, the title to this little bit of nowhere is referring to lyrics from the song "Panic" by The Smiths. Not only is the band sharing my surname, but it's also one of the few times I've heard such a cheery, almost prozac-like chant about hanging someone. Then again, this is disco the mob in the chorus is talking about....


posted by Phillip at 5:26 PM

 
Helmet-Head Rides Again!

I have cash once more. Cash is good. Cash is needed to buy hair gel, so when my hair dries each morning, it doesn't go all foofy. What do I mean by "foofy"? Well, picture what a cartoon cat looks like after coming out of a dryer: a giant, floating ball of fuzz with tiny tails and paws sticking out. Tails and paws obviously aside, that's what my hair looks like when given roughly 10 minutes to dry.

Not so long ago, my fiancee laughed when I told her this and wanted to see if I wasn't just over-exaggerating. A short time later that morning, she gawked and had to admit my hair did indeed have "cat-out-of-the-dryer" syndrome.

So, what's needed to stop this? Hair gel, natch. And not just a small amount of it. No, that would be too easy and simply a solution. You see, my hair is cunning and wily, and I really think it has a slightly sadistic bent since it always seems to be taunting me by doing exactly the opposite of what I would like it to. And thusly, in order to lay the proverbial smackdown on my hair (as a literal smackdown would, in effect, result in my smacking myself. And that hurts!) I must be a bit on the liberal side when lathering my hair up with gel.

Ergo, my hair becomes crunchy after gel application and the combing. Most people when they hear "helmet head" think that's what my hair would look like had I just been wearing a helmet for a while. Nope. To me, "helmet head" is my hair after it's gelled and dried. It's about as hard as a fibreglass helmet. My friends enjoy pushing down and cracking the layer of gel on my bangs, which reduces my hair back to its somewhat-foofy nature.

For the last few days I've been at a loss for hair gel. It ran out. I also thought I was at a loss for cash, so I could not replenish my supply. I've had to spend the last while soaking my hair about 3-4 times a day just so it doesn't go foofy, which is rather difficult in this humidity. My lack of helmet hair made me feel weak, unable to carry on with life. It's like foofy hair is my Kryptonite, or something like that. But now I have money, and hair gel.

(Though I discovered yesterday that my debit account had $8 left in it the entire time I thought I was without any cash, so I could have purchased the $1.60 bottle after all. Go figure.)

Today's Lesson: When given proper time to let all the lessons get drilled into my head, I can in fact dance. And not just "badly" either!


posted by Phillip at 6:44 PM

 
I Went, I Saw, I Needed Fries With That.

Well, after hardships untold and dangerous unnumbered, I fought my way to the Goblin City, to...oh, wait. Wrong movie! Anyhoo, 28 Days Later was at long last seen, and all in all I quite enjoyed it. Admittedly I think the North American hype of it was rather skewed; there's not that much run-from-the-zombie action, and more of the movie centres around the characters coping with an "end of the world" scenario. That isn't to say 28 Days Later lacks tense moments, gory moments, and just plain disturbing moments. You can just blame any disappointment on the marketing.

I also discovered why I now have an extra "emergency movie ticket replacement thingy" too. Apparently the projectionist in our theatre was rather new to the job, and managed to royally FUBAR things up in the booth. This news amused me greatly, especially coming from the guy at the ticket counter who also works in the projection booth. His confusion and exasperation at the whole matter (coupled with his extreme relief that he hadn't been working that night) was quite brilliant, since according to him the theatre hasn't had any sort of problem like that in...oh, 3 years.

So there you have it. I got to be a part of local cinematic history. Or infamy.

One of the two.

And I can't help but wonder if, by keeping true to the movie that was being shown in that theatre, the defective projectionist was torn to shreds and/or eaten by the theatre managers....

Today's Lesson: after viewing myself on the webcam, I must grudgingly admit that my fiancee was indeed right. There is no such thing as a "manly" dainty skip.


posted by Phillip at 7:16 AM