Who's This "Phil Ming" I Keep Hearing About?

Wow... that is one huge mountain of shaving cream... Run, beards! RUNNN!

Wait... is that..? It is! Vanilla ice cream!

OK, fine, clouds, whatever... a guy tries to be silly around here and you get all wierd about it... and then when a guy spells "weird" incorrectly, you get all wierd about that, too... haven't you heard? Weird is good nowadays! All the rest of the bloggers in the local "Weird Male Bloggers in Their Mid-Forties" Meet-Up Group I go to on Friday nights are the same way! All of us! We're all odd... you should hear our Group Song...



OK, fine, those are semi-inebriated English football fans... but it's very similar... very... similar...

So, when last we spoke, I promised you I'd run a mile wearing your red stiletto heels... well, forget it... I can't even stand up in those things. So, instead, I will post a comic about space vampires...

There... happy now? Sheesh! You're impossible to please!

So we had a day of filming for the web series I've been bludgeoning you with for the past year... once again, I loved it... possibly too much. We drove out to the middle of wonderfully-picturesque "nowhere" and filmed a pair of scenes for the pilot episode. The following are photos that made it past the censor, being cleared for public consumption...

Cuff Him!: Chris and Lisa W. fixing Travis' shirt. Yes, that is the Famous Travis Osland: Future Oscar Winner...

Selfie Time #1: Travis and Me!

Our scene took place inside a big black SUV (a GMC Yukon), with cameras/lighting attached to the outside of the vehicle. Man, those lights are like the sun! Gave me a headache - the only partial-downer for the day. There was a generator attached to the back of the SUV, and inside the vehicle with us (as we drove along, doing our lines) were Jeff (director), Mario (our Direct of Photography) and Peter (the sound guy). It was so fun...

Selfie Time #2: Travis and Me Again!

Monitor Lizard: That's what Jeff and Mario were looking at, in the back seat. You can see Travis in the driver's seat at the top of the photo there...

Purple Heart: Here is Peter (and Leah) wiring me for sound. Peter is of a sound mind (BUAHAHAHA!!)

Can I Take Your Order, Please?: Me and Travis, with what looks like a miniature Peter the Sound Guy sitting on my lap, lol...

This was actually the second scene that was filmed. The first one was with Travis and Andrew Ian (also Future Oscar Winner), and was very well done (I thought). Sorry, no photos from that scene were cleared by the Powers That Be for publication yet, so you'll just have to take my word for it! We had planned on filming a third scene downtown that night, after ours, but the two scenes took longer than expected to shoot, and after having cooked under the sun out in the middle of nowhere all day, Jeff decided we were done, and called it a day. I don't blame him - it was a draining (but rewarding) day.

Plus, I got to punch Travis! OK, fine, I didn't get to punch him... or shoot him... I didn't even get to smile at him!

Needless to say, I can't wait for our next day of filming!

That, my friends, is an expertly-colorized photo of Joan Crawford from a movie set (Letty Lynton) in 1932. I'm not, exactly, a Joan Crawford fan, per se... but I am a big fan of great colorization... man, that's so well done it makes my eyes hurt! Click it and look at it big!

So Tuesday night I have my Scene Study class up in LA - I'm doing a scene from the play Lone Star (James McLure), which is amusing. Then on Wednesday, I get to be in another Police Training video - this time as a jogger, in a video series for policemen about dealing with homeless folks. I don't have any lines... I get to just jog around the park for a while... hey, I'm gettin' paid to jog! I'll take it!

A friend of mine called me out on Facebook last week, regarding the possible link between my increasing apathy towards most things religious, and my increasing interest in "all this acting BS". In case you saw that exchange and were curious, I certainly don't fault her observations or her intentions. It's not like I haven't pondered (and prayed about) the same issues, at length (in tedious detail, as is my custom). Whether she's right or not is rather moot, since I can't really seem to control it - at least the first part of the equation.

I can't even put it into words... I feel like I've clung to nebulous things and kept myself living under a rock for way too long... dreading the future and ignoring the past, as the present slides by... this "acting BS" makes me feel alive... I love doing it, and I think I'm good at it, and I'm more likely to end the day each day feeling like I've accomplished something -- like I'm living... that has to be a gift from God... "Every good and perfect gift is from above" (James 1:17)

I know that God exists - that's unshakable. But churchy stuff I have little patience for any more... so where does that leave me? Is this a phase, or a shift? I don't know. Is it a pendulum swinging? Or is it walking down a jungle path, slipping, sliding down a slope, plummeting off a cliff and into the river, finally reaching shore a few miles down river, trying to get my bearings and find the path again?

So her admonition didn't anger me, really. If she didn't care about me, she wouldn't have taken the time to blast me, knowing she would get some blowback. It's all good.

Hey, what better way to end the post than with a kid and his (her?) pet bear?

Adios for now,

Dave the Amblin' On...