Rubber Bullet

My First Film Role

I acted in a short film yesterday (untitled as yet) and am both excited and nervous to see my performance, as I don’t have the confidence I once had when doing stage work. It was a blast and hope to do more, if the opportunity presents itself. The people I worked with are awesome and laid back, and their scripts are clever, funny and edgy. My role was a robber who kills a woman at a bar. It’s kind of a horror comedy—a quirky mix of Final Desination and Scary Movie, but with a cultural commentary mixed in.

The only other screenwork I’ve done was a commercial for a bank in Alexandria when I was a kid, and have made some live televised appearances, most of which were on morning shows for my previous employer. I also assisted with the production of a film produced and directed by a friend, for which I also composed music and provided advice and assistance.

I’m hoping that I can compose some music for the film, but I will have to see if the producers like my limited music scoring.

Windshield Rites

Okay. What is this new phenomenon of people eulogizing their loved ones on their vehicle windshields?

 “R.I.P. Tammy 7/16/81–6/10/09. We love you, babe!” written next to a quaint jagged (ripped?) broken heart.

Somehow, I don’t think Tammy would appreciate being memorialized on a Ford F-150 windshield after she and the two tons of metal she was using as a cell phone booth was wrapped around a cement light post somewhere near Jigger, La.

Russell Campisi: Steps to Recovery

The following is a short montage of photographs I took in October 2007 of an injured truck driver, Russell Campisi, whose employer is a policyholder of my employer, a workers' compensation insurance company. Along with Campisi's strong-willed determination, his remarkable recovery, both physical and psychological, was facilitated by then-Claims Specialist Barbara Gilchrist.

 Download Russell Campisi: Steps to Recovery (.mov)

Ore City Christmas, 1989: A Chilling Memory

It was the latter days of a two-year stint working as an actor in a traveling children’s theater troupe on weekdays in remote schools in east Texas, southern Arkansas and north Louisiana. On weekend evenings, I was part of an ensemble of both locals and expatriates entertaining tourists with dinner theater fare at the Haywood House, the renovated remains of a Civil War era hotel, claimed to be haunted. On weekend days, I drove an open air, motorized trolley car working as a tour guide, telling the colorful history of Jefferson, Texas, a small town settled by New Orleanians that sprung up in cotton-rich east Texas and that just as quickly became a ghost town after the Army Corps of Engineers TNT'd the Great Red River Raft of logs that clogged the waterway. At the time, I was living out of the back of my 1982 Ford Mustang hatchback that stank of mildew from leaking seals, cigarette smoke, stale beer and body odor. My life was on the cusp of a major change.

How It's Going

How’s it going? Well, this particular morning I feel like the entire Prussian Army practiced the Watusi in hob-nail boots on my skull's temporal bone. I don’t think I’ve slept more than three consecutive hours since Spanish Town Mardi Gras in February when Jim acquired our Jack Russell terrier, Atticus, better known as Sir Chewsalot.

My Muse Has Left the Building

The last time I actually got inspired to write was about a month ago, driving on a business trip from Baton Rouge to Lake Charles. My muse not only left the building, it took a vacation.

Jimwise Fleetfoot and the Arrest of Gollum

Yesterday Jim had the day off and was working out in the yard, tilling the garden bed, planting seeds, etc. When he works out there, he often leaves the garage doors open because we’ve put so many damned locks on it—in response to the numerous prior break-ins and thefts—that it’s a pain in the ass to lock up if you go inside for five minutes. He went into the kitchen to start preparing chicken, sausage and okra gumbo for supper, and he saw through the mildewed kitchen windows a figure walking down the driveway, but didn’t get a good look. He thought it was Liza coming over. (Liza moved into the house next door. It’s been great because she has been looking in mid-morning on our new puppy, Atticus, a Jack Russell terrier, that she is helping us kennel train.) So Jim went out the back door, walked down the steps to see what was up, but Liza wasn’t there.

The Less/Fewer Police Strike Again

The following is a rant/letter written to an executive of Merck & Co., Inc. regarding their abhorant new campaign for Gardasil, a cervical cancer vaccination.

Color Me Unfulfilled

When I was a junior in high school, I wrote an essay on the effects of color on personality and behavior. I purchased a book by Dr. Max Luscher who developed a test following years of research mainly for use, if I recall, by therapists working with inmates. I still have the book, The Color Test, with the color chips and a little piece of paper that documents my results dating back to December 18, 1980. I used to repeat the test every year or so to see how things had changed, if at all, and wrote the results down. The test is now available online. I might have to look back and compare them to January 12, 2007. Here they are, and they pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Camp Calamity

I’ve never been what one would call the “outdoorsy” type. While it is true that I love nature and have taken to photographing plants and flowers from my garden to fashion into calendars as Christmas presents, I do not own a pup tent or a Coleman stove. I have a sleeping bag in a plastic bag in the attic that was purchased for me when I went to Camp Mondamin in North Carolina the summer after fifth grade where I and all of my Bat’s Cave cabinmates were forced to line up for our counselor’s nightly butt check. He claimed there was an outbreak of a rash among the campers, that mysteriously jumped from ass to ass. I asked my newfound friend, Leon the Lanyard Weaver, who resided in a neighboring cabin, if he and his troupe were subjected to the same drop-your-drawers-and-bend-over anus inspection routine. He looked at me with the expression of someone lost in the woods who has just encountered a child-hungry bear.