Saturday Morning Flashback—TV Funhouse: Shazzang!

It's strange to think that this debuted over a decade ago: May 14, 2005. (I didn't have to look that up!)

Priceless. My favorite TV Funhouse.

EDIT: In case that damn YouTube video won't play for you, try below...

The Long Hike from the G-Train to Brooklyn Stages, 4 Days After the Snowstorm

Test driving an iPhone "steadicam" type device that a good friend gifted me for my 40th birthday, which requires some practice.

(Sorry, the thought of being in my 40s still curdles my blood.)

Last weekend's storm shut down what was supposed to be our last day of shooting. So now we're supposed to be shooting tomorrow (Saturday). And possibly even Sunday. This was supposed to be a little 3-day shoot and now it's been extended. I'm guessing at least another week of the obnoxious daily trek depicted in the video above.

T. G. I. F.

Why Monopoly is a Terrible Game

How to Win at Monopoly and Lose All Your Friends

The Ziegfeld Has a Posse

Ziegfeld Theatre
1969-2016
The Ziegfeld has a posse.

I went to so many big event movies there back in the day. It was THE place to go. I might try to see Star Wars there before it shutters.

Near-Death in Greenpoint

I almost watched a drunk Polish man get run over by the G-train tonight.

Look. I'm on a short movie gig right now. Additional photography for a Jodie-Foster-directed movie called, inexplicably, "Money Monster". Shooting in the middle of fucking nowhere in Greenpoint, Crooklyn.

It's a three day goddamn shoot so it should be the definition of a short-term employment, but the three days are happening Thursday through Saturday THIS WEEK... and we've got a snowstorm a'brewin' this weekend, kiddies!

So. Thursday night, headin' home, I decide to pick up a bottle of whiskey at the local Greenpoint liquors emporium before I hop on the subway.

Greenpoint, if you're not familiar, has a robust Polish community. And while I'm at this Polish liquor store, this extremely inebriated Polish man slouched in and purchased some liquor just ahead of me. He was slurring his words and moving with great effort. As I paid for my bottle of Tullamore Dew, the liquor store proprietors and I watched the drunken Polish man work with great effort to exit through the front door — as if pulling this door open and slipping outside were the equivalent of solving a Rubik's Titty-Fucking Cube.

I put the man out of my mind as I descended into the G-train station and waited on the Queens-bound side.

A heartbeat before a G-train pulled into the Brooklyn-bound side across the way --

A MAN CLUMSILY TOPPLED ONTO THE TRAIN TRACKS BEFORE THE ON-COMING TRAIN!!!

There was basically no time to do anything except holler out in horror as the train barreled into the station...

... and screeched to a stop a few yards before the fallen man.

The inebriated Polish man I'd just seen buying liquor at Mr. Magorium's Polish Liquor Emporium.

I had narrowly missed seeing this man get turned into subway lubricant but though the train had stopped short of killing him — he was now flopping about the nasty THIRD RAIL, continuing to flirt with a grisly ending.

There must have been some Polish Fairy Godmother looking after this poor drunkard soul because he somehow managed to survive getting flattened and electrocuted during my trip home from work this evening. The train conductor exited his metal subterranean steed, descended upon the tracks and made sure the man was all right and brought back up to the platform before he returned to the train and brought it fully into the station. Photo above taken once the train had fully pulled into the stop.

Sony Reshoot Start Date

January 19, 2016.

Just a short, three-week gig. A Sony reshoot on a Jodie Foster movie.

It's way out of the way in Greenpoint, which should be a pain. But it's three weeks.

I'll get this over with.

The Strange Story of the Perfect Crime

The latest episode of the podcast REPLY ALL features the longest running non-musical play in New York history, "PERFECT CRIME".

It also happens to be one of the worst-reviewed plays.

And yet actress Catherine Russell has been performing in it, 8 days a week, since 1987. She's never taken a sick day and has only missed 4 performances (to attend siblings' weddings).

I do not know how a person keeps performing in the same show for all that time—even if it's a great play, let alone if it's one that's been this poorly received. Or how they have managed to keep it going this long. (The WIKI offers a little more information.)

Listen to the podcast if you haven't. The video above is a pretty interesting companion piece to the podcast episode, to get a little better sense of Catherine Russell as a person.

Alan Rickman Has a Posse

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman
February 21, 1946 – January 14, 2016
Alan Rickman has a posse.

It's bad enough I had to turn 40 this year. Suddenly all these cool people are dropping dead.

"In the End..." sung by 183 different movies

David Bowie Has a Posse

David Robert Jones
January 8, 1947 – January 10, 2016
David Bowie has a posse.

This is 40

I've been dreading this for well over a year. The day both Jenny Lewis and I turn 40.

Look, I don't know what it is but I don't like it. I didn't have this much resistance to turning 30. "40" just screams "middle age" to me. It always has.

It's not old but I associate it with certain life milestones that I am so far away from. My friends who have mortgages and kids, they make sense for 40. They're ahead of the game. I need at least five more years of my thirtysomethings. (And no, I don't have the heart to lie about my age.)

I had a reading of new work last night. It was just a cold reading but I haven't had my work read aloud in YEARS, which is baffling. It may not have been a perfect read but seeing it "work", when it worked, was pretty amazing. God, I just need to get my work seen by more people.

Here's a comic my sis made for me:

Vilmos Zsigmond Has a Posse

Vilmos Zsigmond
June 16, 1930 – January 1, 2016
Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond has a posse.

All is Quiet on New Year's Day

Okay, 2016. Show me what you got.