A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That...

Eye of the storm. Thought I'd take a few minutes here, while the Holiday Whirlwind pauses, to hop on here and connect with you all (aka The Ghosts of Christmas Present, lol), and let you know all is well.

Had the Christmas play today... the drama about the three wisemen. It went better than I expected... and I expected it to go well. Basically, we nailed it. Which is doubly amazing to me, since D. Garvin and M. Ortiz (the other two actors in the play with me) had a ton of lines to memorize, and they were newbies. In fact, I don't think D. had been in any sort of play before... and this was 30 minutes of pure dialog.

Anyways, it went off flawlessly, and was really well received. Yes, I was nervous beforehand, even though we've been doing plays since 1996, and they always go off well. Still, the nerves are always there, and today was no different. I justified the nerves by saying we'd never done a play like this before, which is a cop-out, of course.

But, yeah, success. Once I check the video out, if it's presentable enough, I'll upload it to YouTube and you can check it out if you'd like...

I dig this photo, for some reason.

So I finished reading the two Infinity Blade books by Brandon Sanderson since last we spoke. The first volume was a re-read, and then I followed it up with the recently-released sequel. Actually, the word "volume" is a bit misleading... the books are so short (about 150 pages each) that it almost qualifies as one book. In fact, when the third (and I presume, final?) volume comes out, they could all be considered one, as far as I see it.

Lol, look at me, going off on a tangent again. How unlike me!

Bottom line, I enjoy anything Sanderson writes, but wasn't quite sure I liked the way the second volume unfolded. I won't spoil it for you, in case you want to read them (which you should!), but he used a trope that's been better-used by others (especially Mark Lawrence). Still, if you like Fantasy with a healthy dose of sci-fi mixed in, you can't go wrong with the Infinity Blade series.

Currently reading The Red Knight, by Miles Cameron. Enjoying it greatly. Expect a full review, hopefully before the year's end.

How it will factor into my Best Reads List for 2013, I'm not sure yet... I have a lot of pages left! But here's how the Top 5 is shaping up so far...

1. Heroes Die by Matthew Stover
2. Emperor of Thorns, by Mark Lawrence
3. Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole
4. The Spirit Thief, by Rachel Aaron
5. Colours in Steel, by K.J. Parker

If I take out re-reads, then remove Confederacy of Dunces, bump Aaron and Parker up a spot each, and tack on Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson to the 5 spot... with Year Zero a close 6.

I wonder if Logan will put out his annual Reading List? That's always fun...

The bottom 3 for me would be Knights of Dark Renown by David Gemmell, Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, and Terms of Enlistment by Marco Kloos... but really, they weren't terrible books... I finished them all, so they had to be good enough to carry me through a complete reading... there were a couple titles that I abandoned without finishing... those would be the true bottom, but I don't want to list them.

I didn't keep track of all the movies/TV/etc I watched this year, so I can't make an accurate Top Ten List, but ones that stand out for me include...

TV: Justified and Suits.
Movies: Iron Man 3, Mud and Gravity
Music: Five Finger Death Punch
Games: Borderlands 2, Minecraft, and Torchlight 2

OK, enough nonsense...

OK, this photo counts as nonsense....

NOW, enough nonsense...

So I'm officially on the writing team for the Web Series I'm involved with, called Beyond the Impact. I'll be writing some of the scripts! Hopefully, I'll have some news about the project I'm free to relate to you soon.

A couple days to Christmas, as I write this. Hopefully it will be a nice, relaxing time. My brother John is coming a couple days after Christmas... it will be good to see him. He's a good egg.

Gonna wind this post down. Hope you're all doing well. I'll sneak another post in before the year's end, I'm sure. Lucky you!

Dave the Languid

Don't Read This Post! Vacuous Nonsense Abounds!

A waterfall photo! How cliche! How gauche! How uncouth!

Actually, it's kinda pretty. Must be why I chose to use it, eh! See? There's a methane to my madness!

I think that's how the saying goes...

So, look.... yes, I did some "acting stuff" since last we spoke... the ridiculously short version is, class on Thursday (yay!), Cast meeting for web series Sunday (Yay!), Christmas play rehearsal Sunday (Yay!), film shoot for student film Sunday (meh...) and that's that...

But enough about that! My mom always said, if I don't have anything nice and interesting to say, move on to another blog topic!

Care for a swim?

So I saw four films recently that I want to mention by name to you! I don't want you to see any of them! Two were truly awful, and two were terrific! But I don't want you to see them either! Gee, I'm so edgy!

The remake of the old eighties flick Red Dawn was the first of the Awful Offerings... wow, what an absolutely abysmal effort. Thor was the only saving grace of this film... the rest of it was a trainwreck of near-biblical proportions... so what do you do when you watch an awful film? What else!? I immediately followed it with a viewing of a movie approximately 3 orders of magnitude worse. It was called Killing Season, featuring Robert DeNiro, John Travolta, and a bizarre combination of the worst beard and worst attempt at an accent ever foisted upon an unsuspecting public (thanks JT!). I will NOT subject you to a clip of either... all I can say is that I watched both films to their end credits, and endured the accompanying stomach pains, marveling as the moments trickled past that dozens of people GOT PAID big money to generate such unbelievable dreck! How DeNiro ever got roped into contributing to such a turd, I'll never know... maybe he owed the producer a big favor or some such...

Those were the turds. Avoid both of them at all cost, under the threat of grueling intestinal pain.

The two terrific movies I watched the following evening. The first is called Killing Them Softly, starring Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta and other actors you may not have heard of... this film is my definition of an "Actor's Dream"... so many roles that were so ridiculously well-crafted, I couldn't decide which role I would have loved to act myself... HOWEVER! It is a gritty, ugly movie, with offensive elements making appearances at regular intervals. But the dialog was so juicy (from a craft perspective) and the character creation so textured, it was a joy to watch...

Film two was the most recent, infamous Tarantino effort Django Unchained. Again, typical Tarantino dialog, for the most part, wonderful. Let me say, first off, if you haven't seen this movie by this time, you probably won't ever watch it, so I'm not going to try and dissuade you of that. If you were going to see this movie, you would have by now. So, that having been said, I watched it with some level of trepidation, but that trepidation was unneeded. Great film making, Christoph Waltz was amazing, all the cameos were fun, DiCaprio and Sam Jackson and Jamie Foxx were top notch... but not all was sunshine and roses... Taratino's music choice was a little too hipster and self-satisfied for my tastes.

So, yeah, Red Dawn and Killing Season were turds of the first order. Killing Them Softly and Django Unchained were awesome. Don't watch any of them.

And now, here is this year's effort at the Black Friday Prank, well done.



On a completely unrelated note, there's no one on earth like Russell Brand. The man's mind is staggering. And I've mentioned before, as much as I marvel at the man's mind, I would not like to meet the man in real life... honestly, I wonder if there's something biologically different about his brain. How... does... he... do... that...?

OK, enough of that...

So, what else?

Finished reading The Darwin Elevator by James Hough. 3.75 stars. A good sci-fi yarn. Good characters, nice dialog, good story construction... but stretches of dullness threatened to derail my interest on occasion... and it just unceremoniously ended midstream, sort of mid-story... not sure if I'll continue on to the next book or not...

Currently reading the Infinity Blade novellas by Brandon Sanderson quickly before tucking into The Red Knight later in the week.

Gee, fascinating, eh?

I bought a few "Complete Collections" this week for a buck each... got the complete Anne of Green Gables collection (99 cents!), the complete William Shakespeare collection (99 cents!), the complete Sherlock Holmes collection (99 cents!), and the complete Jane Austin collection (99 cents!)... dollars well spent! I already have more digital books than I could read in three year's time! Why not add more!?!?!?!

On a completely unrelated note, I hope I can somehow channel on screen one-tenth of the coolness that Benedict Cumberbatch carries with him on a daily basis. Man, is that the coolest cat on the face of the earth, or what?

The only way Benedict could somehow be cooler is if he was a jet pilot, too...

OK, whatever. I have no idea why I'm rambling on so.... I realize it is tedious to wade through... I applaud your efforts...

I hope to have some actual interesting content to impart unto you the next time we meet (virtually, of course, in this bizarre forum), so you can perhaps feel a bit of satisfaction in visiting this virtual rumpus room...

What the heck am I talking about? I know not...

Gonna go to bed and regroup. Adios for now.

Dave the Addled
aka Dave the Needlessly Long-Winded
aka Dave the Going the Heck To Bed

Apparently, I Have the Right to Remain Silent....

HELLO! (*hello*...... *hello*........ *hello*)

Sorry, that opening photo looks like it would generate an echo if I shouted loudly enough...

Greetings all! It is I, Dave the Goof, with another blast of hot blogging air... and it's been building for a week... so lean back a bit further from your monitor... I don't want to mess up your hair...

SOOOO I just got back from my first official paying gig as a "professional actor" (if you'll pardon how elitist that sounds), and I enjoyed it so much, there might be laws against such things... Honestly, being my first experience on a real "set", with a few dozen people I didn't know, camera-folk, light and sound guys, various make-up people and crew, and the other actors, etc., I wasn't sure if I'd freak out at all or what... but I was so at home, it surprised me. It's like I was home or something... I know that sounds corny, but it really resonated with me.

At the risk of boring you, I'll give a little play-by-play. I was in the driver's seat of a sedan, parked in an industrial park, behind a building. In the passenger seat was an actress portraying an under-aged "lady of the evening" that my character had just picked up. A police cruiser pulls around the corner, spots our car, and decides to investigate. They pull near my car, flood lights on, light-bar twirling. They approach the car, I do my "deer in a headlight" nervous routine, trying to explain away what we were doing there. They get me out of the car, and I walk back toward the police cruiser with one of the cops, we have more dialog. In the mean while, the other policeman is questioning the female, who is still in the car. The policemen compare stories and notes and decide to arrest me. I get cuffed and put into the police car.

I don't know how that sounds to you, but it was so much fun, it's impossible to explain. We had a script, but we improvised a lot of stuff. The two cops were actual policemen, too, not actors. But everyone was so comfortable and natural, we got through all the scenes in 2 to 3 takes each, and ended up finishing 90 minutes early. They were even able to get some extra filler shots and transition shots.

Picture a back area with monitors set up, and about twenty chairs, with all manner of crew and consultants, etc, wearing headphones, all listening to the dialog (since the actors were all miked) and watching it all unfold, sharing jokes and comments about everything. They can hear everything we say, even between takes... that meant I always had an audience to entertain! So I was making lots of funny comments to keep people entertained between takes. Hello captive audience! Got a lot of great feedback from everyone. The police-woman I acted my scenes with said I played a perfect "nervous/creepy" perp type. She said I'm just the type of guy that she runs into in those same situations, in "real life". Apparently I nailed the fidgety creep character! Not sure if I should put that on the ol' resume..

So, yeah, great crew, no nerves whatsoever, lines + improv, great cast, finished early, and I got some $$$ coming for my trouble. Talk about a dream job...

The only drawback is that I won't be able to get a copy of the finished product, either to post here or to add to a demo "reel"... sorry, it has to stay in house (meaning, property of the police department). But they did say I could stop by the studio and watch it once it's done. I'll do that for sure.

I've found my calling.

This is me, typing this post...

So what else? I film this weekend. Sunday afternoon/evening, I get to play a man in pajamas, who has been woken up in the middle of the night by two hitmen in his bedroom, discussing how -- and if -- to kill me. I get to portray someone terrified... my acting coach says laughter and tears are easy.... genuine fear is difficult. Challenge accepted!

I think if I keep this video in mind, I should get the fear aspect down fine...



Sorry, I shouldn't have sprung that video on you like that. That's some real life terror right there... can you imagine that? Having your house shredded by a tornado right over you? Coming out and seeing your neighborhood in shambles?

Um... wow...

Well, that was a heavy segue...

Let's see, let's get things upbeat again... Here are a few of my favorite photos from my extensive archive...

There, that should have perked things up a bit again...

Still reading The Darwin Elevator, which is a good read. Ah, I picked up a copy of The Red Knight by Miles Cameron today on sale at Amazon for a cool $2.99... I'll read that one next. That's at the suggestion of my friend Rebecca...

Been watching tons of movies and documentaries lately as well... but nothing really worth mentioning... sorry.

Well, that, and I'm quite tired at the moment. I think I'm going to end this post here and go the heck to sleep.

Hope you enjoyed reading the re-cap of tonight's shoot. Why do I hope that? Well, there will be more where that came from in the next couple months, lol...

Adios for now,

Dave the Found