Woman vs. Market

Dear woman from the market,

I was in the corner eating a Clif bar, watching a guy dump a bunch of change into the coinstar machine, when you came in.

You were yelling obscenities and knocking all the muffins and cookies on the ground. You shouted " If you don't be more careful, you might have an ACCIDENT!"

You pushed a shopping cart into the sliding doors and they broke.
For your finale, you yelled out "BE MORE CAREFUL!!" and threw all the newspapers onto the ground.

So ma'am, I'm writing this letter to tell you whatever you are doing... I WANT IN! If you travel from store to store performing this scene, trying to get the word out about market safety, I would love to be a part of it. 

When you came in and trashed the place, I was certain you were just a crazy lady breaking stuff, but then I saw through the obscenities and heard your message. I think we SHOULD be more careful in the grocery store. Too many times have I slipped on spilled Juicy Juice or cut my fingers on those dang tortilla packages! You are a visionary and this is me saying, I would like to be a part of your traveling safety show.

I think with some late night rehearsals we could turn your one woman show, into a one woman (you) and one man (me) show.  Here are some ideas on how I could be incorporated into the act. I could cover myself in tomato cans and pretend to be dead from a soup can avalanche. I could paint my face blue( you would have to provide the paint) and pretend I am trapped in the frozen food freezer. I could dress as the market manager and when I try and kick you out of the store, I kick myself in the eye, basically whatever you need, I can be that. I played a ten year old boy in the junior college play Marvin's Room, so I do have some acting experience. 

You can contact me here at this blog. Feel free to give me your home address so I can send you my resume and head shots. Looking forward to working with you.

Your new friend and devoted fan,

Erik

P.s.-

Guy with the jar of coins, 

How much did you end up getting? I saw that you had over $112 and still had that huge bucket of coins to dump.

Bus Weirdos

Im back from my winter break! Went back home for the holidays and rode a lot of public transportation to get there.

One thing I noticed on the California bus system is...

the shifty guy in the back of the bus. I've been on my share of buses and one thing is universal, there is always at least one shady weirdo towards the back.

Does California have a law that says every bus must at least have one bus weirdo? 

There are also lady bus weirdo's, but they are usually driving it.

Next time you're on a bus, look around to see if you can find the bus weirdo, if you can't, that means the bus weirdo is YOU!!!

SHARK SWARM

This is a promotion image for a tv movie called SHARK SWARM. 

Its about sharks eating people because there is ocean pollution everywhere. Daryl Hannah and John Schneider play scientists who use lazer tag guns from my childhood to humanely stop the sharks from eating people. 

I watched the trailer, and it really doesn't live up to the awesomeness of the poster. That image inspires me to finally sit down and write my ocean opera about a team of shark assassins. Im pretty sure if I found my trapper keeper from middle school, I would have a bunch of concept sketches for this project.

In Be Tween

Alameda is a hot spot for tween couples. If you are in between the ages of twelve and fourteen and are in a serious relationship, Alameda is your hub. Every weekend I see at least thirty to forty prepubescent boys and girls, hanging onto one another for dear life.

Tween P.D.A. examples:

1.

2.

3.

4.

Sometimes it looks really uncomfortable, but I guess thats what being a teen is all about.

I DIDN'T KNOW I WAS PREGNANT

I saw an advertisement on TLC for this new show called I DIDN'T KNOW I WAS PREGNANT, no this is not a new Charlie Sheen sitcom, this is a serious show about real life problems. A problem that has taken over America!

The advertisement said, "Coming up on I DIDN'T KNOW I WAS PREGNANT" and they cut to a women screaming on the toilet. I didn't see the episode, but I put two and #2 together and I think I know how it played out. The image of that women has stayed with me, now every time I go to the bathroom, I think, could I be pregnant? Turns out Im not, but here are some questions to ask yourself, so you can figure out whether or not you are preggers.

1. Is there a child in your belly? 

This might seem like a no brainer, but go ahead and feel around. Babies are small, so it might just be hiding under a kidney.

 

2. Are you a woman? 

Women are 72% more likely to have babies then men.

3. Do storks like to hang around you?

If the science is correct, storks have been known to give people babies.

4. Do you wear mom jeans?

Only mom's wear mom jeans.

5. Does your boyfriend/husband/one night stand look like this...

No need to check with a doctor,  you're pregnant.

I hope this helps. I was once a baby in a belly myself, so I think I know a little bit about being pregnant.

Halloween

In the spirit of the holiday I thought I would post some of the awesome costumes my Mom made over the years.


Im Batman in this one. I was much scarier than the Christian Bale version. I struck fear in the hearts of all criminals.
Im Spiderman and my bro is the hobo clown. We are showing off the disguises we won at a halloween party. That isn't padding in my costume, I was a ripped 8 year old.
We went for the horror genre that year. And yes, that is real blood on my face. I bit my sister just before the picture.


And of course this awesome Michelangelo costume. It was ten times better than the Kmart plastic mask version. I am trying to slim down so I can wear this again. Those nunchucks were no joke, my dad made them out of pvc pipe connected by a metal chain. I put eight kids in the hospital that night...three of them are still in critical condition.
My Mom went to town that year. She transformed my brother into Frankenstein, my older sister into the card from Alice In Wonderland, and my little sister into a vicious bat.


I remember every year my brother and I used to take down the box of all the halloween costumes my Mom made, and we would mix and match the costumes. We would have Frankenstein pants, Marvin Martian shoes, and a Batman mask and run out to the street to scare the passing cars. It was great fun!


Thanks Mom for all the awesome costumes.


Happy Halloween everyone!

Spider MAN!

Lindsay and I went to the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles because we wanted to see the Dino Lab! When we purchased the tickets they said for three dollars more we could see the Spider Pavilion! Feeling the halloween spirit we both enthusiastically said yes. 

The Spider Pavilion is just outside the museum in a greenhouse type tent. We walked through a plastic curtain and inside we did not find a spider pavilion but a SPIDER KILL ZONE! 

 

Huge spiders on webs and in the bushes. My first thought was this is how they feed the spiders. They get two healthy unsuspecting people, trick them into thinking they are going to see cool spiders behind three inches of plexi glass, and then watch as the spiders feast on them. 

Even though our lives were clearly in danger, I wanted to get my three dollars worth, so we walked through the maze of arachnids, keeping our limbs very close to our bodies.

Every time we'd turn around there would be another eight legged beast setting up to jump on our face.

After a bit, Lindsay turned to me and asked:

"Can we go now?"

And I said:

"Are you not enjoying this?"

We got out of the Spider Pavilion with our lives intact, but even as I type this I still feel their poisonous legs tickling my skin...that may never go away.

The Dino Lab was super cool!

These BITE!

It started at work. My ankle was itching like crazy.

Wednesday

I woke up the next morning and to my surprise I had mosquito bites all over. My ankle in particular was itchy, red, and a wee bit swollen. 

Thursday

I remembered when I stayed down in southern California over the weekend, the window was open and it was so warm I didn't need a blanket. Mosquitoes must have come in and feasted on an old mountain biking wound from the week before. I would think fresh soars are like a Vegas buffet to mosquitoes.

Saturday it had doubled in size. Most my wounds I like to look at closely and in different lighting. I like to poke at them to gauge the amount of pain I am in or might be in later on.

Saturday

It got pretty bad.

Okay maybe not that bad. But still pretty bad.

But with all my wounds, I figure its best to just...

walk it off.

The next morning I was greeted with a much less swollen leg.

Sunday

This may not work for everyone, but it works for me, and one day I will pass this technique on to my children. 

Future

Memories

In your life there are little things you can do to create long lasting memories in the lives of strangers. It could be a story they can remember and tell their children and grandchildren if you would just remember to take a moment and do some of these simple things...

Small talk with the person in the stall next to yours.

"How bout that 49ers game? I think Gore is shaping up to be an excellent running back."

"Think fast soda jerk!"

This next one will require a realistic looking animal limb. 

"Prep the O.R.! I have to cut this arm off before the transformation is complete!"

I guarantee these little drops of your time will expand into oceans of stories  that strangers can tell for years to come.

Blood Tryst:Emotions

I think the animation industry should cash in on the teenage vampire genre that is all the rage. I am working on a screenplay called Blood Tryst: Emotions. It is the first in a series about a vampire bat in high school. 

Here are the beat boards:

A cg motion capture epic with a visionary director. Think Beowulf meets She's All That meets 300 meets The Notebook meets the scene in Spiderman 3 where Tobey Macguire does a sexy jazz dance.

FACT:

Saturday around four a.m. I woke up to an awesome lightning storm. This digital painting is an exact representation of the event. 

Okay maybe the lightning wasn't that close. Everything else... EXACT!

RUN IN

One of my favorite things is the awkward run in. It is when the walking trajectory of two people match up, they notice it, try to advert the collision, and wind up doing a spastic dance to go around.

I've done it many times and have seen it happen to other people many times. In school me and a friend enjoyed this so much we tried to manufacture them with varying results.

Last week I saw one of the best run ins you could find. An F-5 run in. The rating system is like tornadoes, F-1 being weak and F-5 being incredible. Shion, I submit this run in into the run in hall of fame.

Here's is how it went down:

I was stopped in traffic on the bridge. There was bicycle guy.

And walking guy.

Bicycle guy was coming up to walking guy.

Walking guy noticed bicycle guy and tried to get out of the way.

It turned into a spastic dance.

I saw this next part in slow motion.

The contact was long and awkward. Bicycle guy's face was almost swallowed by walking guys back. Walking guy was so stunned by the run in he couldn't move.

I couldn't hear walking guy but I read his lips and his lips said "sorry".