Key West Adventure!

I hit the Key's for my first time last week and I loved it! My pal Anthony Vizzari is getting married in a few weeks and instead of one "best man" he has three best men. David Quinn of El Paso Texas, Jay Paulson of Los Angeles & Moi. Anthony flew in from Chicago and the two of us drove down to Miami where we picked up David and Jay and then it was on to the Keys - a magnificent drive - right up there with the highway 1 run in California for sheer beauty. The weather was perfect. We roamed Papa Hemingway's & Tennessee Williams tropical streets of the fabled Conch Republic - a sort of American Tangiers for sheer "what the fuck" weirdness . We fished for shark - caught three - in the Gulf of Mexico - ate tons of food and just plain enjoyed ourselves. T'was a great trip and one I intend to make again.

The best men (L to R)- Rob, David & Jay with the groom Anthony Vizzari (seated)


At Hemingway's House


With a Goliath Grouper on the line!


Jay Paulson boats the first Goliath Grouper (we released all the fish except for the bait fish - these guys are protected)


My first shark!

he's small but he's a bad ass!

forwarded by my pal josh - a connoisseur of the absurd

pulp: help the aged

love this song

Blood, Sweat & Gears: recent article I wrote for the South magazine june/july '07 issue

I have been meaning to link to this though I forgot. Sadly, you can only read the first two paragraphs of my piece "Blood, Sweat & Gears" here which is about the hickory smoked world of dirt track stock car racing down here in coastal Georgia. I wish they'd put the whole thing online but its not my mag - so not my call. I will eventually put it on my own website - which I have yet to build - so you may be waiting a while.

I have a piece coming out on Southern neo-confederate nationalists coming out in the August/September issue of South magazine - maybe, just maybe, they'll put the whole thing online - i hope so. I interviewed Pulitzer prize winning author Tony Horwitz (Confederates in the Attic) for this piece and it's solid.

These were cool to work on

Joe Pytka directed these spots for Nike - this was '93 or '94, not sure - it was just a very simple gig shot in a barbershop in the outer Mission in San Francisco. I remember Pytka as just this huge, long haired (think: old Thor) crazy ass freak who liked to yell at people a lot. Some of the biggest guys in the NBA were in these spots though. Barkley, Hardaway, Sprewell, Gervin, Rodman, Webber and a bunch more. They cut a ton of spots out this shoot. Pytka had a crack navy seal team of Los Angeles based PA's who traveled with him and some actually got put in his commercials (thus making residual money but they were not put in these). The camera loader was famous amongst the crew for apparently getting with Madonna when Pytka did her famous Pepsi spot (aired only once).

MC Hammer: pumps in a bump 1 & 2!!!

this is the "dirty" version (MTV would not play it)- it was directed by the dude named Scott Kalvert who would go make The Basketball Diaries with Leo Dicaprio. Needless to say, these were two weird ass videos to work on (they just cut two videos out and did a reshoot at a stage for the clean version). We shot this at Hammer's 20 million dollar house in Fremont California; think "black Graceland" - the daytime stuff around the pool with the ladies was insane. I met Evander Holyfield on this shoot. Hammer's career was going into the shitter and he was trying to "refashion" his image as a bad-ass (dig the obvious Dr. Dre ripoff riff in the background of the song). Needless to say, this did not help Hammer's career and he soon filed for bankruptcy and lost the house. This was another Terry Power's gig and there were just a zillion "pimps and hos" getting their groove on.


clean version:

More music video's - Deion Sanders: My life has been friggin' weird

I spent a many days dropping boxes of fake "money" on Neon Deion "primetime" Sanders when he fashioned himself a "rapper" (this was during my tenure doing a ton of jobs for MC Hammer who owned the label "Bust It" that Deion recorded on and I'm pretty sure was in 1994). We called Deion "Colonel Sanders" because of all the fried chicken his big ass useless posse kept ordering. We had a poor PA kid that drove all over San Francisco looking for fried chicken at all hours of the night - they just could not get enough of that dirty bird.
This was, hands down, one of the more absurd videos I worked on. He probably "did" every girl in this video in his trailer (I guess this was before he his religious convergence). The producer was this balding, party hound named Terry Powers - who I liked - and he kept me working and the checks always cleared.

stuff i worked on - del tha funky homosapien video

in 1993 i had just moved back to San Francisco from LA and was picking up work as a PA on a bunch of music videos (and moving on up into the art department) and this del tha funky homosapien is one of the first videos i worked on there. i just found it - i have never seen it until now - but looking at it, i remember every shot and what was going on (for instance there is a scene of a bunch of middle aged uniformed gay dudes. I pulled them out a mission district gay bar called the Eagle - asked if they'd like to be in a music video and they were thrilled with the idea - we were shooting next door to the Paradise Lounge which is down the street from the Eagle).

We also shot at the funky ass Albion (bar scenes) on the then still rather crusty 16th street (not so crusty anymore) and also up the street in the Castro district in front of the classic Castro theater. All I remember was that Del tha funky homosapien was so stoned during most of the shoot that he would literally fall asleep on the sidewalk after each camera set-up (at one point one of the production's uniformed cops tried to shoo him down the road him until he was informed that the "sleeping dude" was not some wasted bum but was in fact the star of the video - and Del was tripping on acid one day). Anyhow, the tune is the soundtrack to some dumb ass Whoopy Goldberg movie, but it brought back a lot of fun memories. It's funny that how I never saw so many of the videos/commercials I worked on - they just slipped away - I was just happy that the checks cleared - but thanks to all this whizbang gimcrackery now at our itchy fingertips, that is remedied forever. I'll try to find more of the videos I worked on and post them.

the ones who love us least are the ones we'll die to please

perhaps the best "music video" ever?

Enjoy Every Sandwich

I just finished reading I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon. Zevon telling David Letterman, when he was asked if he knew any more about life and death than other people since his diagnosis said, "enjoy every sandwich."

Good advice (and that taps into my earlier 'close call with the ferryman' post below).

It's a nice trip through Zevon's wild career which I only knew a small bit. My pal Roger Smith toured with Zevon when he was playing bass in Phil Cody's band. They opened for Zevon on many nights and it was Roger that got me thinking about him (he was telling me some Zevon story's at Bonnaroo) and so I went and got the book - which was written by Crystal Zevon - Warren's only ex-wife - to learn some more - and I am glad I did.

Zevon died of cancer in 2003.

interesting conversation about Iraq & private contractors

I met a gentleman last night, who appears to be in his early 50's, and who is missing his nose (it's covered with a bandage and he is preparing for re-constructive surgery). His nose was blown off his face north of Basra, Iraq when an IED tore through his vehicle as he was driving in a convoy toward the Baghdad airport last year. He is former military, with 20 years service, and was over there working as a private contractor training Iraqi medical personnel (he holds a masters degree and is working on a PhD in International Relations with his focus on U.S./Japan relations). He was working for what he says was "very good money" but in retrospect - it's "bottom money" compared to the amount of money being bandied about by contractors and whomever else has their hands out over there. He says it was a huge mistake to go there. He took a shit load of shrapnel in his body and two men in his vehicle were killed. He said he was conscious the entire time and that the British were "Johnny on the spot" when they came in to extract him and the other wounded men in the convoy.

What struck me was his take that the situation in Iraq is so absolutely hopeless - a churning sea sectarian hopeless chaos. He said he realized that soon after he got there he was not part of any real solution but part of a very real problem, and that as a private contractor, his being there was one of the reasons for the very real animosity felt by the Iraqi people. "If you want to see what I am talking about concerning our problems there with contractors you have got to look first at Blackwater (our "private army") - the ex-military, special forces/special ops types, arrogant, un-checked, and who follow no rules of engagement and who strut around Iraq caring not a lick for the local population."

One of the things he said he witnessed was that he personally helped escort large amounts of cash money - suitcases full of U.S. dollars - taken from Iraq and flown down to Dubai and deposited in Dubai banks - with no paper trails, no receipts. Where did this money come from and where was it going - a mystery - but he said it was routine.

Anyway, here are some clips about Blackwater.

one second and everything changes

Something big happened (or didn't happen) to me the other day.

It was one of those "sliding door" moments that I have tried not to think about to much, lest it twist and tweak my fragile psyche. In fact I consciously put IT in my mental outbox immediately after IT happened (or, as I said, almost happened) so as not to confront the big heavy questions IT conjures up - but then IT keeps popping back to my inbox like unwanted spam.

So, I just thought I would write it down and chew on it here.

What happened?

Well, I came within an inch, maybe less, of being seriously pummeled by a moving car while I was running the other day. And yes it was my fault - I did something stupid.

The car in question was a fast moving BMW. I have no recollection of seeing the driver's face. I do recall seeing a woman sitting in the passenger seat and she reacted to me - she saw me - she got all bug-eyed behind the silent glass. The visual connection was instant and strong but I can't say what she looked like - no recollection - only saw the whites of her eyes. The driver of the BMW pounded the brakes hard - SCREECH!! as I stupidly darted across one of the busiest streets of my city and directly into his path.

Why did I do this?

Well, I thought I had judged (mis-judged is the operative word here) a slight break in the traffic pattern. I was moving at a nice clip - deep in the pocket - grooving to the runner's rhythm where you don't want to stop to long for traffic lights; eyes darting & deciphering the stimuli - picking out my line. I believed I could squeeze/weave through this particular traffic pattern - ala the old video game FROGGER - with no problem. I do it all the time: I was "in the zone" of my run.

Though this particular BMW was "hidden" to me behind another moving car - the one I believed was the last car passing (the BMW was truly in my blind spot) and as soon as the other car passed me by I went for it and leaped right into the BMW's oncoming path. SHIT! It's the one you don't see that kills you.

But I saw it, oh fuck yeah did I see it, about a fast millisecond after making my move, and I knew I had badly miscalculated this maneuver. So, in mid-air, my survival instincts kicked in and I re-calibrated the move: my adrenaline pump fired into action pumping life juice through my fast beating heart and the deep primordial instinct to LIVE kicked into gear.

I twisted my body, throwing my shoulder sideways and swivelled my hip, just as a quick thinking football player might do when avoiding a hard tackle; my left foot came down sideways, acting as a sort of brake and I heard the rubber on my soles actually make that squeaky rubber-meets-the-asphalt sound and I could FEEL the steel of the driver side door whoosh past my bare leg. I pushed off my left foot and danced back to my right foot and by this time I had cleared the mass of the BMW. Though the equation had changed since I started a few seconds before: new traffic registered across my neural pathway, coming at me fast - in fact the entire traffic picture had changed as the BMW's added presence created a million new mathematical dimensions to this Fischer/Spassky chess problem - a problem that I had to work out FAST or else (I was in the middle of a four lane). So, like a dumb ass deer or a scared dog, I just continued to react to the FEAR - much like a darting squirrel might do and bolted for the other side of the street and hoped like hell no one hit me.

I made it. I jumped the curb and I just kept running - fast - without looking back (mostly out of embarrassment for being so fucking stupid).

My heart was POUNDING from the insta-power-surge-jolt of pure adrenaline that had literally just saved my life (or kept me from being seriously injured: I remembered I had just that very day changed my health insurance plan to a lower rate with a higher deductible - so I am quite glad that I did not have to test out the new plan). I was also quite literally pumped from the close shave, and I ran harder and faster until I just had to stop and take a breath.

All I know is that this was the closest personal near death experience I have experienced for a very long time.

What does it mean? Was I spared for a reason? Was I just damn lucky? Or was I just quick on the draw? All of the above? Who knows? All I do know is that I am still here: breathing and healthy.

But as I was running yesterday - I just thought - "wow, I might be DEAD now or paralyzed or on life support in some ICU - these last two days would have been two days where I no longer even exist!" And life - the rhythm of the world - would still go on without skipping a beat - just a tiny grain of sand flicked unceremoniously out of the cosmatomic sandbox. Then, I thought - there really is no escaping it - we're all fucked - it's going to come and it might just come in a dumb ass millisecond - on a nice sunny day - while running.

the moral? Am I who I wish to be when it comes? Not yet. Not by a long shot.

great song - cool vid