The Mythical Shoe Has Arrived

You can stick your finger up the bottom of my Chucks and touch my sock, so I decided to buy new shoes. And what shoes did I buy? Mythical shoes, of course! They come with a guitar pick--who can resist? The first 5 hours were extreme comfort, but then the back started pushing on my Archilles tendon, so I need to get one of those things that pushes your heel forward.

Week with Jenny & Melissa

Jenny and Melissa came up from SC to visit for the week. We had a ton of fun. Yeah, there was a lot of transit mishaps, but everything else was great.

They were supposed to fly into NYC and get to my place by 11:30pm on Wednesday, but because of a plane delay, the subway running really slow, and the conductor telling them the wrong train to get on, they didn't arrive to my place until 3am (1 plane, 2 taxis, 2 subways, and 2 trains later).

I had to work on Thursday and Friday while they explored the city, but Friday night, we were able to go to the open house at my work where they had a thousand people from the city looking at our new green building. There was free food, artwork, and live jazz with a 9-year-old drummer. All very suave and rich, but it was fun. Then we went out for frozen yogurt and watched Hot Fuzz.

Saturday, after checking out the farmer's market in Union Square, we went to a Broadway Musical called In the Heights with Jordin Sparks (solo clip of her in the musical) from American Idol. The story was okay, but the singing and dancing was great. Very talented people. We all really enjoyed it.

We went to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner and went downtown to the Laugh Lounge for some live comedy. The MC and the first comedian were starting out pretty rough, but Lee Camp was hilarious as always. We had to leave early to catch the 11:11 train back to NJ, but the F train was unexpectedly down, so we ended up missing the train and having to take the 1:20 train. So we got back around 2am and had to get up at 5:30am so they could catch their cab to LaGuardia. Transportation was just bad this week. But everything else we did was tons of fun.

Podcast news

I need to tell you some new things regarding the We're NOT John Stamos podcast. Lindsey and I have been chatting a lot and we're ready to make this thing bigger. We had our first three episodes, but now we're readying to increase quality by me getting better animation software and by inviting guest stars.

Software
I tried Flash and after an hour, I couldn't get the green ball to move across the screen. I tried Anime Studio and in half an hour, I got a cartoon girl to dance around my screen. I think I'm going to buy this one.

Guests
We'll try to get some guests of funny people that we know to start off with in while we're working out the kinks of our program. Then we're going to up it to YouTube stars and comedians. Maybe even other people like musical guests--who knows. I wrote a nifty press release. Lindsey and I are compiling lists of guests as we speak. Assuming Luke and Nicole are still game, it will probably be the four of us plus a guest.

Skype
The problem is that the four of us are scattered across three cities, so we'll need to use Skype. Who knows a cheap way to record Skype conversations? We also have to make sure that all of our computers have decent enough microphones or else it will sound bad. This also means that our guests will need good mics on their computers. I wonder if I should buy a cheap but decent Skype mic/headset to UPS to our guests to borrow and then ship back. These are all things we have to work out before letting any special guests on the show.

Social Media
We're on Facebook: www.facebook.com/werenotjohn
We're on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/channels/werenotjohn
We're online: http://werenotjohn.blogspot.com/

I'm trying to get it on iTunes but it seems...complicated

In the days ahead

So excited for this week which will include a Broadway play, a stand-up comedy show with my favorite comedian, an open house thing at work, and most of all Jenny!

But as I sit here, her plane's been delayed for an hour because of rain and a crazy person they had to force off the plane. I told Jenny I'd turn off my interdimentional bubble so that I could occupy the same space and time as the rest of the world to make it easier to find me, and it worked! A minute later, the storm left and they re-boarded the plane. Not kidding! Yay.

Things that made me laugh this week

1. Dad's latest YouTube creation

2. Diaolog in church:
Pastor: What are some other planets in our solar system?
Kid 1: Jupiter!
Kid 2: Mars!
Kid 3: California!

3. I feel really terrible for laughing at this. I know it's wrong. But the similarity between these two photos, especially with Ricky wearing sun glasses. I'd post a link to Ricky Gervais's blog here, but he doesn't have individual posts (someone needs a lesson in social media). He was annoyed that the media caught him and Karl out for a walk, but when he saw the picture, he couldn't believe his luck. Here's the photo they took. And here's another photo Ricky posted.

4. On a similar note, Karl Pilkington and Warwick Davis in a room together in this video.

5. Robin Ince's new blog.

6. Walter on Fringe. I haven't really gotten into Fringe yet. I'm trying. I think I'm a bit spoiled by Torchwood and all those spooky investigative kids shows I used to watch. But Walter makes me laugh.

7. The Wal-Mart Song by Rhett and Link

Podcast trailer

I made a trailer for The We're NOT John Stamos Podcast so we can get some guest stars. It's basically a few clips of episodes one and two. There's a Facebook Fan Page, website, and I'm thinking about using the Vimeo community and iTunes.

Also

This video is backward. Way to go, Rhett and Link. That is awesome.




Also, Lindsey has a new blog. Link in the doobly-doo (sidebar, for those of you who don't speak nerd).

Also, I read some excerpts of Burbank with a Baedeker at open mic night.

Also, Lindsey and I had an exec meeting about the podcast and want to invite celebrity YouTubers and other generally awesome people to guest-star on our show. But we need to look credible, so "like" us on Facebook. Also, I want to download the 30-day trial period for Flash to see if it is worth buying. This might make my animation process go faster and maybe even suck slightly less.

Also, I just booked a killer book event for October 4th at Birdland. Quiz night is going to be encorporated into Cast Party, which is a Broadway themed open mic night. If you're in New York, check it out.

Weekend with Melissa

What a super weekend! Melissa came to visit from Philadelphia and we spent most of the weekend playing in the city. We went to some markets, had goats milk ice cream, I got my own private concert of Melissa's songs when we went into Guitar Center (I will tell you all about her CD and my involvement in it when it is on sale), we got free dinner for finding a roach in the pasta (we should have told the waitress we didn't want the full New York Experience), and went to see Let's Have a Ball at the Upright Citizens Brigade. These guys were so hilarious. And one of them I recognized from TV (2 Guys and a Girl, Tenacious D, among other things). After the show, we hung out in Borders, waiting for our train. I started reading the third Hunger Games book, which I suppose I will end up buying at some point. Then I had what I can only think of as an anxiety attack for absolutely no reason, which was basically when I went to sleep, every time I started to fall asleep, I would jolt awake. That was annoying until 5am.

On Sunday, we went to the Brooklyn Book Festival. Lunch was White Castle, which I have not eaten before. Melissa was very excited because they don't have them in Philly. They don't have them in Wisconsin either. Before it started raining, we wandered the festival, browsing the tables. Jill from Archipelago did a talk on the International Stage (see photo: she's in blue on the right). And then just before leaving, we went over to the Freebird tent for Eric's book signing and said hello (see photo below).

Then it rained, so we decided to try to get Melissa on the earlier bus, which meant standing in the rain for an hour, and the guy still didn't want to let her on the bus! But thankfully another guy came along and let her on. I went back to my apartment and passed out for two hours. What an exciting weekend.

I'm leading a workshop

I've just signed up to lead a workshop for the evening of Dec. 9th. It'll be a how-to workshop on social media for authors (and un-published writers). I've been plugging away at this blog:
http://socialmediaforauthors.wordpress.com/ . My first real blog meant to be read by people I don't know. Exciting. I'll probably just keep adding to it a couple times a week until I run out of ideas, and then add things as they come, for social media is always changing.

Also, Melissa is coming over tomorrow from Philadelphia. Excited!

Idiot Abroad Episode 0

Sky 1 did a 20-minute preview episode for An Idiot Abroad (Karl Pilkington's travel show). You can watch it here until YouTube takes it down for violating copyright laws. Funny stuff.




Part 1


Part 2

The Play's The Thing

Went and saw a play tonight. Great all around from the acting to the staging to the beautifully written language. It's called Bright Images and it was just here for one night only. I think I may see that Danny Kaye play in Brooklyn that I didn't get around to seeing last year.

After the play, I went to an Itlian restaurant with the director, playwright, and their families and had lovely chat--music and art and spirituality. It was a refreshing night out. But I've had caffeine after 3:00 and may never sleep again. It's 12:30am, so happy labor day.



I didn't mention this before because I was just so annoyed, but my favorite Barnes and Noble--or at least a tie with the one in Union Square--is shutting down because they can't afford the space anymore. Hey, realtors: If the richest book store in America can't afford your space, who can? It's B&N Lincoln Triange. Yeah, this is where I met Zoe Caldwell and Spike Lee and various other people. They have such a great event space. I was envious of the guy who's in charge of organizing all their events (practically one every day some months!) because that would be a really fun job. But now they're taking it away. Boo.

Cemetery Junction

I saw Cemetery Junction today. This is the first Ricky-Gervais/Stephen-Merchant film. Boy could you tell it was theirs. From listening to their sense of humor in their podcasts to watching extras, this film oozed of their fingerprints. Not that this film is a comedy. There are quite a lot of funny moments--almost all of them inappropriate because it's a contrast between the immaturity of the youth they're trying to leave behind and the respectable adult world--but it's a drama. It's a somewhat autobiographical drama about Reading, the town where Ricky Gervais grew up. The premise is that there are these few young adults who are feeling trapped in this tiny little town and want to make it in the real world, but are somehow stuck in this rut that doesn't allow them to leave. It's interesting knowing that this is about Ricky's hometown because he did go from a very modest background to being ultra rich and successful. And yet, he's not saying that it is good or bad to leave your tiny town that you've never set foot out of, because some of the characters in the movie stay in Reading for good reasons and some leave for good reasons. You get this sense in the end that it's not about staying or leaving, but it's a personal thing--you need to do what is best for you.

It's hard to really give an in depth review of this film because it does exactly what it says on the tin. You can watch the trailer. It's not hiding anything. It doesn't make the movie look better than it is, but it also doesn't hide any surprises. It holds together. No plot holes or character inconsistencies. Little bit of drama. Little bit of mildly crude humor.

Lot of good actors. Haven't seen any of the main characters in it, but Ralph Fiennes plays the boss, Ricky Gervais plays the dad. You also get a cameo from Stephen Merchant and one shot of Karl Pilkington. The cops are Steve Speirs (Extras) and Burn Gorman (Torchwood).

Worth seeing once at least.

You can click the link above for the trailer. Here's part of the blooper reel. (This scene did not end up in the movie, by the way.)