I made these scripts available on the free for anyone to make. These scripts, they’re like the government cheese of short screenplays, I guess, except much tastier. Since putting them up on the old internet-webs I’ve had around a hundred people write me for permission to use one and never ever has anyone followed through on it. At least they haven’t told me if they have.
Until now!
Of the people who asked to make movies out of my scripts about ninety percent have asked to do Zero, which is fine of course, but I’ve always been partial to Breaking the Rules. It’s so absurd that I find it hilarious and I’m really glad someone went on and made it.
These guys did an awesome job, especially considering it was directed by a sophomore in frickin’ high school. And other than editing out the vulgarity if favour of more benign euphemisms and replacing “beer” with the more age appropriate “chips” they were remarkably faithful to the original script. More so than even I am when I direct my own shizz. Which I appreciate because while I can’t actually remember the process of writing this thing, I feel certain I spent upwards of 15 minutes on it.
You may also recognize the music, it’s some of Mr. Grant “Stemage” Henry’s excellent work from the score for For Catherine.
So anyway, the flick can be found here. I lolled several times watching it. If you dig it let these guys know, because they deserve mad props.
Get a beverage of your choice and remember that rules were made to be…something. I dunno,
Folks, you’ve probably seen more than your fair share of parkour or freerunning videos on youtube, but I can promise that you’ve never seen any that are nearly as awesome as this one. Check out my very own parkour channel on youtube and have your life forever changed.
Hey Folks,
Hard to believe that it’s been almost a year since I ranted about the inherent good-ideaness of the future. Click here to review. It’s still there, you know? The future, I mean. And it’s got just as much potential as ever. More even. You see, some may say that the world is more fucked now than it was a year ago; I say, that just means there’s more potential to do good.
In that post from a year ago, I talked about global warming and my own culpability. In case you were too forgetful to remember my last post and too lazy to relook at it, I’ll recap: I’m the cause of global warming because I just keep getting hotter as evidenced in these three photos from the last three years.
But it gets worse (and better). In the last year a number of things have happened. Obama became the first African-American democratic nominee for president. I got engaged to the most awesome woman in all the world (the beautiful creature next to me in that last photograph. North Carolina became a battle state in a presidential election. After a lifetime of aggravation, I became friends with my biological brother (the not so beautiful creature next to me in the above photos). Summer blockbusters became cool again. I ran a marathon. Y: The Last Man finished admirably. I saw Counting Crows play in Charlotte with mi hombre, E. Mac McPheely released a hilarious song on youtube that attracted 4,000 hits in the last month or two. I got buff. Seriously. Here’s a picture of me at the beach from this summer:
Not only that, but I’ve figured out a mathematical equation to estimate how I’m going to look when I turn sixty. It should be something like this:
What’s my point in all this? I don’t know. I guess all I’m saying is the future is still a good idea. And life is still worth laughing at.
Wherine everyone’s favorite deliveryman sits in for the whole cast as they talk at great length about the Mini Me sex tape, Brangelina’s newest spawn, take some quizes and discuss good vs. evil…sorta.
As always it can be found right over here, or on iTunes for cheap as free.
Get a beverage of your choice and ponder miniature scootie with me,
There are certain songs, certain artists that can take a body back to a time and a place in a way more visceral than is probably reasonable.It’s a time warp of chords and keys, of bridges and bass lines that I’ve always feared would forever remain more powerful than any movie I’ll ever see or create.
For me there is no more substantial way-back machine than Mr. Butch Walker.Every single time I hear his voice it’s summer in Atlanta.And I’m 18.Days at six flags, evenings on the patio of the three-dollar café playing trivia games under the Nokia billboards, nights at The Roxy swept away in a symphony of dopamine conducted by an arena-rocker who could never quite play arenas.Not for lack of talent but for lack of, I don’t know what.The zeitgeist has never seemed to be with Mr. Walker.He came to us a decade too late, or maybe two decades too early.
Not that he hasn’t found success, he has to be sure, but the fact that Def Leopard and Clay Aiken have far outsold him is a tragedy of irreducible proportions.The kind of crisis that, in a just world, should have UN/NATO joint taskforces out en masse handing CD’s and Vinyl’s to the public at large like the artistically bereft refugees they are; afloat in a sea of mediocrity, pandering and country-western.
But damn that man brings me back to a time when, maybe, I was the most free I will ever be.Flush with the particular brand of disposable income one finds only at a time when bills are just something your parents complain about.The summer before college, the year before I let somebody get her fingers into me, 48 months before I would decide to spend my life trying to make people laugh.Steering my boy Edwin’s jeep from the passenger seat, doing 85 down the ATL freeway as he climbed into the back to fix the canopy which was perpetually loose.Before the words, “revenue corridors” and “lawyer” were even in my vocabulary.(Edwin is now a lawyer, by the way, though not one of mine.)
Hands in the air, feet on the sloped ground of the one-time-cinema-turned-concert-hall only long enough to bounce back up again, ready, along with a few hundred others, to flip a bird according to tradition, according to the lyrics.
I’ve seen hundreds of bands live and hundreds more on video and Butch remains the most captivating frontman I’ve ever laid eyes on.If the Devil does exist, he’s probably a little something like Butch Walker.A little cleverer, a little smoother than seems terrestrial, with a glint in his eye that suggests he knows something you don’t, and you’d follow him just about anywhere if only to see what happens next.
But if The Devil does exist, and he does go down to Georgia, no way he out-shreds Mr. Walker. Though Satan’s probably got a much better haircut.
The first time I saw Marvelous 3 (Butch’s old band) it was by accident and, hand to God, I can’t even remember who we paid to see.
I bought my first M3 record that night from the hands of the man himself. A little small talk as the money goes from my pocket to a six-dollar lockbox, the transaction sealed with a handshake and the understanding my soxors had been ineffably roxored.And maybe that’s the way records should be sold.
I bought my second M3 record just the same way a few months later.And in the days before CD burners were household objects I would make tapes for my friends.For Edwin I believe I made a ‘Mini-CD.”Anyone remember those things?
I’m 28 now and I’m in The ATL less than once a year.I haven’t seen Butch live in seven or eight years and I buy my records on iTunes and Amazon.But I still know every word to every M3/Butch record, and I still sing them very loudly and very off-key whenever I’m in need of either some good old fashioned cock-rock, or just some music that doesn’t suck.Or when I want to remember.
Hey, everybody. Just wanted to drop a quick note to let you all know that I can now be found wasting time over at twitter. So far it’s been a blast…for the two people who follow me there.
Hey kids. Mac McPheely here. You may know me from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, or Stoopcast, or most famously For Catherine. Or–chances are–I’m your dad. Ethan said it was all right for me to post on this blog, so here I am.
Let’s talk about Speedy Delivery. It’s more than my motto. It’s my credo. It’s my philosophy. It’s my Raison D’etre. That’s right, I bring the speedy when it comes to delivering packages, delivering love, or delivering lines (i.e. rapping). It’s what I do. I imagine many of you have already heard my little ditty that I did with Elmo and Stemage, Growing Up Hard In Imagination Land. It’s been pretty successful. We get about 100 views a day. The funniest part is, of course, my furry little freaky friend Elmo. He’s so much funnier than the rest of it that I’ve actually posted just his section which you can pimp to your friends by hitting them with this link to The Finest Elmo Rap Ever.
And if that’s not cool enough for you, I’m now releasing the video to my first original hit Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Stemage helped me out with that one too.
And you know what, kids? You can help me out too. Just watch the videos and spread the love. Show it to your friends, post this thing on the boards, email it to people, and tell your mom I said I’ll call her soon. Laters.
I first met Josephine Kahless (the destroyer) Wilton in Paris in the winter of ‘82.We were both barely two years old, but trying our best to pass for three and after our rival gangs had their final battle in the street-war for control of the “lolly” market in Les Halles we formed an unlikely bond, much like Romeo and Juliet except without the sex or the *spoiler alert* dying.Or really any other facets of that play.
I guess, really, it was more like Titanic, if I can use only Leonardo Dicaprio movies as points of reference, except in this metaphor he and I are both Billy Zane, because Billy Zane is a cool guy.Kate Winslet would be the hoofed prostitute who sublet our apartment during our tenure as pirates which, trust me, you would understand if you were there.
The gang-war cost Joey three testicles, but he was born with five, so he quickly came to terms with his injuries and learned how to walk like a human male.I was a sniper in the war, personally responsible for taking out two of the three balls, but I didn’t tell him that until a drunken night on my fifth birthday that damn-near ended our friendship.Not because he was still angry over the damage I had done, he understood the risks involved in lolly-trafficking after all, but because I blacked out and woke up in bed with “Murial” his stuffed lamb.
But I digress.
I spoke only Russian at that point, and only “drunk-Russian” at that, as the people who raised me were not only fierce alcoholics but, as I would later learn, giraffes.
Joey spoke only in beeps and hisses, having taught himself to speak by watching a mostly shattered bootleg copy of Star Wars: A New Hope on BETA, of which only R2 D2 and the Tusken Raidersand people were audible.
But we overcame our differences.
After that last battle, he and I had had enough of bloodshed and corn-syrup, so Joey began scratching out a living singing Led Zeplin and Carpenters songs up and down the Champs-Élysées and I, of course, was pioneering microprocessor technology and earning money as a ski-ball shark, but that’s a whole other bag of cats that I won’t open just now.
Anyway, the war of 1812 broke out, and once again we found ourselves at opposite ends of a conflict, largely because, at this point, it was 1986 and I thought the whole thing was ridiculous, while Josie, with his obvious ties to Upper Canada, felt he couldn’t abstain with a clear conscience.Also he was promised a case of Labatts and a position as “left wing” of the Toronto Maple Leaves at the conclusion of the conflict.
But, of course, Clark Gable got involved and the rest is history.
Anyway, most of you can probably see where I’m going with this: He’s recently gone back to his roots, and recorded covers of several songs, most of which I would never listen to in their original form but which I endorse in their current form.
His brand new myspace music page can be located by clicking here, and from there I trust you to navigate your way to listening to his songs and, of course, becoming is interweb friend if you so desire.
?
My relationship with my brother, Ryan, is of course, much simpler.We have the same mother, the same father (I’m told) and, together, we assassinated Castro in December of 1980 and replaced him with John Lenin, who isn’t actually dead, but just wanted to get the fuck away from Yoko and was longing for an excuse to grow what he called, “A truly ridiculous beard.”Spend twenty minutes playing Mario Kart with Yoko and you’ll understand why he needed a break, trust me.
Anyway, my Brother and I didn’t speak much for about twenty years due to my stint in Europe and the fact that he was hypnotized into believing he was Betty White for most of the nineties and, as such, had severe obligations to the television show “The Golden Girls.” But we’re pretty close these days and he’s recently begun making cartoons with paper dolls.
These cartoons are extremely crude, which I see as part of their substantial charm. The ‘toons may be viewed in convenient “youtube” form by clicking here and here.
If you love these songs and/or cartoons, please let their creators know because like all artists, they’re really just one bad cup of Nyquil away from ending it all.
If you hate them, please do me a personal favor and shut the fuck up.Seriously.Not only because ever since Mark Lisanti left Defamer I find myself with no tolerance for anonymous negativity, but also because the internet is already a phenomenal tool for hate, and I’d like to see things move the other way, at least in my little corner of the webs. And, yes, as always, the internet is square.
If you think you may not be able to bite your tongue, just walk away.No one will think less of you.
I hope you’ve all enjoyed this little history lesson.
Get a beverage of your choice and believe every word I write,
As most of you have probably read on CNN or in the NY Times, Travis Barkley has been oversees recently, as he was asked to arbitrate a settlement in the Freedonia Civil War. With him gone, I asked a friend to help me to produce:
Stoopcast 19: Ex Marks the Spot
Wherein one of our heroes is absent, so a special guest sits in to bring a feminine touch to the stoop as she and E discuss Sharon Stone being batshit crazy, video store late fees, wills and testaments, R Kelly’s trial, how pretty much everyone in the original Predator movie became governors and help some more lovers find one another with another installment of Craigslist missed connections.
As always, get it here or on iTunes or wherever fine podcasts are sold.
Get a beverage of your choice and treat your ears like houseguests you actually really like.
What do you get the cat who has everything? I don’t know, but apparently what you get the guy who has a few things is a fucked up Gangsta Rap Video that traumatizes all the children of the 80’s and virtually (and literally in the case of My Little Pony) violently rapes our childhood.
I’ll be in therapy for years thanks to this, but at least I’ll be laughing.
And because Awesome Day is a day for us all, my gift becomes your gift as well.
Growing Up Hard in Imagination Land is the brainchild of Mr. Grant “Stemage” Henry and the lovable delivery guy, Mr. Mcpheely, whom many of you may know either from For Catherine or from Stoopcast.
Anyway, it’s a funny video which I now share with you all. As I said before, if you haven’t heard Stem rap as Elmo, well, you’re life is a shame. But we can fix that.
Hope you dig it and if you don’t, well, i didn’t anything to do with it
In other news, there’s a new Stoopcast on the way, with a very special guest filling in for T while he was away fixing the Hubble Telescope at NASA’s request. That’ll be up shortly-ish.
Get a beverage of your choice and try not to spit it on your keyboard…
E Wasted time running scared, when all a love needs is to be believed in
