Poe

10:30 pm: The DO EXIST! AHHHH!!!!!!
For those of us who always thought that they emerged fully-grown from the rat-infested caves of the Fourth Circle of Hell, we bring you proof that BABY PIGEONS DO EXIST:



A pair of "rats with wings" built a nest in the rabbit's foot fern in our backyard and apparently hatched these two. Ugly suckers! And with them being "baby birds" and all, we can't just get rid of 'em, ya know!

04:49 pm: Other People Rooting Through Your Stuff
In the end, that's what our lives come down to: family, friends, strangers poking through the things we've left behind - deciding what to keep, what to give away, what to donate to Goodwill, and what to throw in the dumpster.

We've been spending much of the day doing that with my father's things. betnoir and I went over to the facility where he was staying and, with the help of a couple of the attendants there, put all of his things into boxes and bags and brought it over to the house.

We hadn't realized until we started loading stuff how damned many movies he had. There were upwards of two HUNDRED films, including eighty VHS tapes. And it would be one thing if they were all uniformly good or uniformly bad, but they ran the gamut of quality and genres from Slumdog Millionaire and The Departed to major schlockfests like Infested: Invasion of the Killer Bugs and Sleepaway Camp 1 & 2.

Out of this, it looks like we have multiple copies of some movies. If anyone wants ALL of the following movies, let me know: 3:10 to Yuma (the remake), Serenity, X-Men 3, Hellboy 2, Apocalypto (we don't have one, but we don't want it), Mission Impossible 3, and Doomsday.

There was a sizable box of paperbacks as well. My Dad had a penchant for political thrillers (ala Ludlum, Forsythe, and Dan Brown), hardboiled (disposable) murder mysteries, and westerns. We're keeping about six of them and donating the rest.

Going through his clothes was probably the most difficult part. Most of us just don't wanna contemplate sorting through our dead relatives' socks and underwear. And my father had a thing for T-shirts with corny and/or inappropriate sayings on the front, particularly red ones. We'll keep a few things and get rid of the rest.

On a semi-morbid note, both of the TV's in use were inherited from our dead relatives: the wide screen TV came from betnoir's late aunt and the new HD set was the one that I'd purchased for my Dad a couple of months ago.

We found in his things a photo album that I'd been scouring our house and storage unit for. It has pictures of my parents, grandparents, cousins, and other family members. I plan to scan a bunch of them into the 'puter and put them on a digital picture frame.

This experience pointed out what was important in my father's daily life and what was ephemeral. It also shows how ill-prepared most of us are for leaving this mortal coil.

07:52 pm: Thanks
Thanks to everyone for their support after my father's death. Still coping. Still have to figure out what to do about a funeral.

The hospital only gave me 24 hours to make arrangements to pick up his body. Not much time. So I had to scramble yesterday to find a funeral place. (I decided on the Neptune Society as providing a decent, respectful service at a reasonable price.) Then the hospital started giving me/the Neptune folks grief about claiming the body because the hospital had his name as "Ron" and his actual name was Ronald and they couldn't figure out that Ron was short for Ronald!!! (Mind you, they had my name and signature down as his son and the Neptune people's paperwork had my signature as well.)

Another complicating factor: My father never actually divorced his third wife. She just left and hasn't been seen in almost twenty years. I don't have her last name or anything further on her. So it may make things more difficult.

Finally there were the Vultures: Within ten minutes of my father's passing, one of these tissue donation/harvesting places was on the line asking to start carving him up, even though he didn't have an organ donor card. Mind you, I don't have an objection to organ donation (I have an organ donor sticker on my own driver's license.) But why they couldn't have spoken to me about it in the days before he died, when I was in a less emotional condition, I will never understand. Their "You've just suffered a major loss. Can we start cutting now?!?!" approach turned me off so much that I told them no.

Last Saturday I was explaining to him why he wasn't picking up all the stations on his TV (during the digital changeover) and on Friday I'm confronted with people who want to start cutting up his body?!?!?! For F%#k Sake, Have a heart people!!!!!!

12:51 pm: Ronald Bartlett - R.I.P. - 4/20/40 to 6/19/09
My Dad died this morning at the age of 69.*

He'd coded about 8:15 and they were barely able to bring him back. The hospital called me at work and, while I was headed to the hospital, he coded gain. At that point, he had essentially no pulse and was kept alive by meds. I got there and signed a "Do Not Resuscitate" order. He faded pretty quickly after that.

It's been a helluva week. Happy Fathers Day, everybody!




* Ironically, on the same day that my father died, the wire services ran a story that the world's oldest man had died at 113 years. That's almost double the number my Dad had. I hope the guy enjoyed 'em.

09:58 pm: My father had a massive stroke on Monday and I didn't hear about it until Tuesday afternoon. (They'd transposed a couple of digits on my phone number and could reach me until they figured that out.) He's in a coma and unresponsive in the ICU. It looks like the blood vessel that caused a brain aneurysm about ten years ago ruptured, causing substantial bleeding into the brain. The prospects for recovery aren't good, but we're doing what we can to engage him. They were asking me whether I wanted a Do Not Resuscitate order put in place in case he has a heart failure. They're talking about transferring him to a long term care facility shortly.

It took me 2-1/2 hours to drive down to see him tonight. I'm not in the best of moods tonight.

So how has YOUR week been?!?!?

08:17 pm: Interesting Weekend
Had a good hike in Griffith Park today, my first in two years. The weather was cooperative, so it wasn't too hot or too windy. (The cloud cover helped.) Did a decent trek from the Greek Theater parking area up to the top of Mt. Hollywood. It also pointed out how far I have to come to be ready for Whitney in August.

Spoke on the phone with a friend who lives out in Cocoa Beach while I drove to Griffith today. Said friend puts all of my complaints about being short of time to shame:
- Full time job doing security at Cape Canaveral AFS, frequently with 12 hour shifts
- Teaches law enforcement at U. of Phoenix
- Has nearly finished her THIRD Masters degree and will start on her PhD shortly
- Raising three kids alone (was four until the oldest got married & moved out)
- Works part-time at the local P.D.
- Remodeling her kitchen after it suffered major hurricane damage
- Goes to the gym daily
- Sits on a city commission and plans to run for City Council in the fall

Yesterday I contacted my sister, with whom I haven't spoken in twenty years, and got a nice email back from her.

Did some more editing on Wife of the Bad Guy. Its looking good. Still have to resolve some "rubber lips" problems with image/sound synching.

We watched Flushed Away last night. Cute flick with some VERY funny little in-jokes. (Look for the Wolverine costume that the lead character (voiced by Hugh Jackman) is thinking of wearing.) The Aardman folks have a knack for good, fun little movies.

02:08 pm: Strangeness in the Modern World
I'd recently opened a Facebook account because several folks had sent me invites. Thru some peculiar twist of social networking, someone found me whom I hadn't seen/heard from since I was in fifth grade! This despite the fact that I hadn't listed anything about my ELEMENTARY school in my background info and that my name isn't particularly unusual.

12:54 pm: Shaun of the Dead and Zombie Walk
We went to a late night showing of Shaun of the Dead last night at a theater on 4th Street here in LB last night. The organizers had arranged for a Zombie Walk beforehand. We'd planned to dress up for it ahead of time.

Unfortunately, our dinner with betnoir's dad ran long. So we had to rush things and didn't get to the meetpoint until just a few minutes before the start of the walk. I dropped betnoir off and went looking for parking. Only there wasn't any.

I must have driven around for four miles around the neighborhood looking for a spot and couldn't find one. As I drove past the meetpoint, I saw that the walk had started. But instead of a slow shamble, they were all moving at pretty good clip.

I ended up parking six blocks away from the theater (on the OTHER side from where the walk was taking place) and doing a fast walk over to the theater. By the time I got there, the walk was done. Ah well.

We waited in line for tickets, saw some great zombie costumes, got photo'd & video'd by several folks, and went in for the movie. Needless to say, it was a VERY enthusiastic crowd, with folks doing zombie dances on the stage, shambling down the aisles, hooting, groaning, and generally having a great time. Oh, and the movie was fun, too. We'd never seen it on the big screen.

I was in such a hurry to get to the theater that I didn't have a chance to grab my camera, but here are a couple of photos of that we took afterwards. (There are lots of other photos and videos at alivetheater.net and mondocelluloid.com.)

01:31 pm: Great "Viral" Video on YouTube
A fried of ours (and one who's acted in a couple of my short films) is the lead in an awesome video on YouTube. Check it out:

01:03 pm: News of Late
Last weekend was Baycon: had a good time - good friends, good food, good whiskies, good (if windy) weather in San Jose. Even the traffic coming home wasn't bad.

Work has been busy and the group that I lead has "come to the attention of those in authority" in a not-so-good way because we're behind schedule and over cost. (Methinks this is because they had some unrealistic cost and schedule info going in and because the system is inherently set up to be as inefficient as possible - too many cooks and too easy for too many to "hit the stop button" on the effort. But I digress.) So next week we've got a group from Corporate in Connecticut coming out to "help us." (Read: Oh Boy! More Work For Me!) Loads o' fun, lemme tell ya.

[I hate to say it, but there's a part of me that wants 'em to say, "You're doing a bad job. You're fired," 'cuz then I could say, "You mean I'll no longer
a) have to get up at a godawful hour,
b) have to spend 14 hours a week on the freeway,
c) routinely have 11-12 hour days at work five days a week,
d) have my lunch hour constantly interrupted by people coming in to ask me questions or to complain,
e) be perpetually sleep deprived,
f) have no time to exercise (and so I'll stop gaining weight!)
g) feel that I'm constantly fighting a system designed to prevent you from getting the job done?
Is THAT what you're telling me?!?!? Hell, Thank You! Thank You! THANK YOU!!!!!!!]

I've also been editing my short film Wife of the Bad Guy in my not-so-abundant free time (read: after everyone has gone to bed I'm on the 'puter until 1-2 am.) The movie is coming together nicely. Some things to clean up, some scenes need tightening, a good many transitions to add in, some more foley work to do. But its not looking half bad.

07:31 pm: Wedding Enforcer Photos
The photos from several of our shoots of "The Wedding Enforcer" are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/39422055@N00/sets/72157617665065136/. I've included short titles for each one.

Enjoy

12:49 pm: Last Saturday's "Wedding Enforcer" Shoot
The shoot last Saturday went very well:
* Had a house full of people in the morning when we turned our place into "Base Camp" to get everyone ready, dressed, made up, etc. Then we shuttled over to the park, with me in the U-Haul. . . ( Read more... )* Good food, good company, good acting, and a good shoot. The only mishap was that one of our actors had a flat tire and had to get it replaced in Torrance before he could get dinner.

So there's just a little bit of incidental shooting to do:
* the Best Man actor was in Texas for a real wedding - so we'll have to do his shots as inserts
* I still need an RV for the Command Post shots
* I need a couple of small insert shots for little things we missed.

So the shooting is nearly finished!!!!

11:30 pm: This Weekend's Shoot
The big shooting day for The Wedding Enforcer is this Saturday. So if you're in the L.A. area and you've ever wanted to get involved in a (short) movie shoot, here's your opportunity. We're shooting from 10 am until 4 pm at a park near Long Beach. It doesn't pay anything but we will feed you and there's some funny stuff that you get to participate in.

If you're interested and available, email me at evrybdynos_at_aol_dot_com

Cheers

10:29 pm: Pat and Oscars Commercials
It looks like someone posted the two Pat and Oscars commercials that I did to YouTube. Here they are
The Rocket Science commercial



The Football Meal Deal

12:08 pm: Bzzzzzzz - It's Da Bees Knees!
After going for the past couple of years with seeing VERY few bees around our place, I went out into the backyard yesterday and noticed that the macadamia nut tree was flowering PROFUSELY and saw a number of bees pollinating the flowers. I thought that I heard a low level buzzing but figured that it might just be the few bees that I saw buzzing close to me.

Today I went back out to the back and noticed an almost-continuous low-level buzzing. Not really loud, but fairly steady. I'm pretty sure that we have a hive somewhere in the tree. I looked around but didn't see any direct signs of a hive. Just bees pollinating and the buzzing sound. (The branches and leaves of the mac nut tree are VERY good at obscuring things. So it could be eight feet off the ground and I might not see it.)

The bees don't seem to be aggressive toward people or the dogs, so I don't think that they're Africanized. They just seem to be doing what bees do. And considering the whole hive collapse issue, any native bee populations that are doing well are a GOOD THING (until they get obnoxious and territorial.)

Hey is it time to call up Tim Curry? ;-^)

12:28 pm: Starting Editing
I started editing the footage last night for my short film, Wife of the Bad Guy. I reviewed the first of four tapes and uploaded the pertinent shots and I reviewed about 1/4 of a second tape's worth of footage. (There are four tapes total.) It's looking pretty good.

There's a part of me that's always reluctant to start editing. For one thing, it tends to be a very time-consuming and focus-intensive activity that can take months. (The last project that I worked on was shot in a day but required three months to edit.)

For another thing, a part of my brain says, "If it stays in the raw form, it keeps the potential to be a great movie. But if I edit it, I can turn what might be a great movie into crap." Rationally, I know that's nonsense. But that thought is there nonetheless. I always get over it and the projects usually turn out to be at least entertaining. It's just getting over that block, ya know. I'll plow through a couple of more tapes tonight.

In other news, we had an organizing meeting on Friday evening for the web series that a group of us are putting together. It's a series of loosely linked comedy shorts - each one serves as the launching point for the storyline of the next. We'll be shooting the first one on May 2nd at a place about five minutes from the house. It'll be a night shoot for a restaurant scene. For the first episode, it looks like I'll be doing set design, props, and general organization of stuff. (Planning and logistics have tended to be my strong suit.)

For the April 25th shoot of The Wedding Enforcer, I'm still waiting on the insurance company. I'll call 'em back tomorrow because time's a'wastin' and we've got a movie to finish.

09:42 pm: The Latest in My Dramatic World
Lessee, what's been happening these days?

- Saturday went to a short play that some friends were putting on over at a conference on Medieval French courtliness at UCLA. The play was a rather "earthy" work called "The Five Senses": sight, hearing, taste, hands, and feet (they had a very different idea of the senses in the Middle Ages than we do today.) My friend (who's also performing in my short film "The Wedding Enforcer") translated the play from the French. Kinda fun.

- Sunday I went on an audition for a student film over at USC. I was auditioning for the part of a Jewish father. The audition went fairly well but they decided to go with someone else. Later on, I got an email from the director praising both my reading and my look. He says that he might want to use me on a later project. Its nice to be appreciated, even if I don't get the part.

- Sunday evening was the "Richard III Redux" performance (see my earlier post)

- Monday I got a call from one of my actors about a project that he and some other folks are putting together to do a web series and they're interested in having me participate in the writing/directing/producing/acting areas. It'll be a series of comedy shorts (7-10 minutes long) entitled "Allison Wonderland" about the trials and tribulations of a young woman in search of love and the various people in her circle of friends, acquaintances, and lovers. I did some brainstorming of story ideas today and came up with a bunch of stuff. We're supposed to have a get-together on Friday evening to kick things off.

- Today I had the banner for one of the "Wedding Enforcer" scenes made up. (I tried to have that done last night but the people at Kinko's can be REALLY dense at times.) I also
* Called up the City of Lakewood about the shoot on the 25th. Looks like everything is a "Go" once the insurance is taken care of
* Called up the insurance company about the shoot on the 25th. They're supposed to call me back tomorrow on it.
* Went over to Lowes to look at some of their patio and garden decor for the wedding shots. I should be able to make it work and look good without too much difficulty.

09:04 pm: Shakespeare in the Furniture Store
On Sunday evening, I went to see a friend perform in a play entitled "Richard III Redux" - It combined Shakespeare's Henry VI part III with Richard III to tell the tale of the murderous English king over the span of the War of the Roses.

The play was interesting and fairly well done. What made it unusual was the venue: the storage warehouse of a furniture store on the Miracle Mile. The producer (who also played the title character) apparently works as the manager of the tony Mortise & Tenon furniture store and arranged with the owners to have the warehouse area used as the performance space on Sunday and Monday evenings.

The play is performed in the round, with the stage being T-shaped and about 18 feet long by 14 feet wide. All of the furniture used in the play, as well as the chairs that the audience sits in, are all from the store's inventory and are for sale. (And reportedly its an effective sales tool: since they started doing these plays, the sales of items in the warehouse has increased by 30% and a lot of the patrons end up coming back to buy other items.)

The group putting on the production is the Veterans Center for the Performing Arts, a group of actors and crew who are largely current or ex-military personnel. And they bring a very different dynamic and a very different physicality to the proceedings from your usual production of Shakespeare. They're also seeking plays written by, and about, veterans. Their URL is http://www.govcpa.com/

Everything is done on a donation basis and reservations are required. (The place only seats about 25 and there was a packed house on Sunday. The recommended donation is fifteen bucks.)

Oh, my friend was playing mad Queen Margaret. And she REALLY had fun with the role!

06:10 pm: "Wedding Enforcer" Scrambling
I've been scrambling since Friday night to get another location for our next shoot of "The Wedding Enforcer." If it wasn't one thing, it was another: site not available, can't handle that many people, don't have insurance coverage.

But now I have a decent location that's pretty close to our house. But I had to delay the shoot until April 25th.

So if anyone wants to participate as wedding guests, let me know.

Thanks

04:00 pm: Location Followup
I went around the area and checked out the local parks for potential shooting locations on the 11th and it looks like I've found one nearby. It has a bridge and trees and enough flat area that I think that we can make it work. (Also, it has PARKING and RESTROOMS!!!!)



And its only about ten minutes from the house. So logistics should be pretty easy for hair/makeup/wardrobe/foot/transport/setup.

As I was driving home from the scouting expedition, my cellphone range: it was Ms. Flaky-Location to say that her husband had "strongly vetoed" our shooting at their place. BIG SURPRISE THERE!!!!!

So I think that we can make this work.