I'm still not feeling 100%, actually I had a wierd night. I woke up about 4am and felt like utter crap. I wasn't getting any better then went into this crazy sick deliusion about having a super bad illness and almost rushed myself to the emergency room and all this shit, but I woke up--late--realizing that I shut off my alarm in the midst of the craze during the night. But anyways, I feel some-what better. I'm just not where I'd like to be. Which is: not sick.

I now know what you're wondering and it's been bugging you for a long time. "Brad if your going to Canne, what's going to happen with your acting class you signed up for at IO west?" Damn, straight, I need to cancel it. Starting this weekend I would be taking two improv classes at once, but luckily, IO West has a nice policy where I can use the money I gave them as credit towards another class. Don't fear friends, I will resume my improvisational acting career after france.

I'm wish I could be more interesting, but I haven't done much in the past few days but suck it up and be sick. Hey, Irv and I have been jamming a bit here and there and we might pick up a drummer, who wants to play with us and that's super cool. It's something I've alway said to myself "Hey, a drummer would add so much more depth and professionalism to your musical career." And hey it would. But now that I have one, damn, where are we going to practice? We can't do it in a livingroom anymore. And who's got a garage in hollywood? These are the problems that plague me...

Other than that, I'm like "this close" to getting an ipod. Like, screw it. I really can get one, so what if you can't afford it, you're going to be spending money like crazy over the next month, DO IT. But part of me want to figure it out, wait and see how vegas treats me... but then I know I won't get an ipod if I wait until after vegas because vegas will no doubt screw me...

Ugh. I hope I feel back to normal tomorrow.

I'm sick dudes.

It's official. I left work early yesterday to sleep. I'm feeling better, but my throat hurts still. I missed Quasi. Boo. I'm sad about that. But I was in no shape to even try to go. Sleep hopefully helped and I'm hoping after lunch everything will be peachy. Stay postive right?

Anyways I'm just listening to Built to Spill's Perfect from Now On and that's all....

Drama be damned, finally it's all set and done. I'm going to Canne. I talked to everyone at work and will have my last day in two and a half weeks. I have a plane ticket on hold and will probably purchase it tonight. And poof. Off to france I go.

I'm feeling under the weather today. It sucks. I felt fine yesterday. Last night I woke up and had a terrible sore thoat. I thought "Damn, I'm going to be real sick!" I then woke up later with a stomach ache. I donno what's going on. I feel better than I did, say at 3am, so hopefully it was something I ate and tomorrow I'll be fine. It sucks though. Quasi's playing tonight and I really want to go. I hope I feel better after lunch or something.

So the month of May is going to be insane. I'm going to Vegas 12-14 and then leave on the 16th to the festival. I was going to cancel the vegas trip, but everyone I talked to is real excited about going and I reserved the hotel room in my name so... so why not? I'm going to be spending money like crazy I think. I'm going to need to get an ipod. There is no way I think I could manage 17+ hours of travel (each way) without one.

Anyways, I'm too tired to think about these things right now. We'll talk more tomorrow.

So it looks like it's going to happen. I'm going to Cannes. Then the "mc" in me is going to kick it around Ireland for a week or so and that will be that. Sweet. I'll be broke, but worldly. Let me apologize in advance if all I talk about it this trip for the next three weeks.

Last night I went to the Newport Beach Film Fest and it was exactly what I expected. Unspectacular.

I can't believe I failed to talk about the My Barbarian plays. It was great. So much fun. Word on the street is that it's their last preformance of the year (!?!?!), which is really dissapointing, but I'm glad I got my fix.

Mariners won last night. It's been tough on Mariner fans this year. I hope things turn around. All I want is to be a near .500 club. Is that too much to ask?

Oui, I just got a call from Derek the guy from school who's booking this whole Canne Film Festival trip and I get the jist that the whole thing might fall through. God Damn would that dissapoint me. Shit. I guess we'll see. BREAKING NEWS: Trip in limbo. Shit. That would hella suck, even if then I wouldn't be broke, I wouldn't be worldly either. Shit.

Ugh...

The weekend flew by. It was fun and busy. I picked up all the filmmaker stuff from the Newport Film Fest and have to (sigh) drive in rush hour traffic this evening and down to the fest. It will be fun though. It always is. I just hope that Timothy is as good as I remember it.

I went and saw 3 shows at the UCB this weekend and for the first time actually saw the members of the Upright Citizens Brigade preform and it was pretty sweet. Very inspirational. While on the subject, I had class saturday and it was very not good. The energy wasn't there and collectivily we were sucking as a group. So, there you go.

I finally got Stone Cold starring Brian Bosworth on dvd. Review forthcoming this week. I was quite happy that Amy Pohler and Matt Besser went on and on about "The Boz" at one of the shows. Is there anything better than The Boz? No.

I haven't heard anything about the dramatic life-changing event which I mentioned on friday, I guess there's not use in keeping you in suspense, but anyways, there's a damn good chance, I'm going to the Canne's Film Festival in France next month. It was an offer through Chapman, I made the arrangements (aka almost quit my job) and then "apperently" it needs to be approved by someone before I can go. So we'll see. I would be freakin' awesome because I need to get the heck out of here. The school would pick up most of the expenses if I fly over there. Since I haven't heard anything in 3 days I'm getting kind of antsy... We'll see, we'll see.

I got the original star wars trillogy on bootleg DVD. The quality is very good, it's from the laserdisc. I watch half of the first of the first one and it feels awesome. I'm in the "screw the special addition" catigory. I want the original versions on dvd. Now I have them...

Quasi's playing this wednesday. Cool.

I might have some huge announcements in the comming days. Really. I'm having a soul searching moment right now--but not one of those "he's @*$&%*$ crazy" ones. A sane, "why the @#*$ not?" moment.

Confused? You should be.

Did any of you see the mariner's game last night? I missed it, except I turned on the MLB radio and caught the last play of the game. Damn straight. A nice comeback win. Just what the team needed.

I was walking down the street and some guy was blasting "Police & Theives" from the Clash, which instantly reminded me of the movie Dave's working on, and it brought a smile to my face. I love that song.

Then I came into work and the AE was blasting Dark Side of the Moon and was saying it's a good up late, midnight album. I organized a bunch of my cds (in my office yesterday) and happen to have that CD and decided to put it on too. Our Editor came in and then told us this weird story about one of our producers being pretty drunk and forcing the Editor to listen to two hours of Pink Floyd blasting really loud.

That's what musically going on in my life this morning.

In other news, promised I'd take one of our friends out to dinner last night. She did me a big favor and this was payment in return. There was nothing romantic about it at all--bascially it was excatly as I expected, it was fun as it could be with this person (not a knock... Really!). But he's the thing: God Dammit! If I'm buying a nice dinner for you, I expect a hug. I don't care if you're male or female, I hug! This did not happen and, I'm sorry, I can't let it go. That night will always live in infamy!!! I'm overdoing it abit, because this Pink Floyd song has really mellowed me out. Anyways, I don't get to go out to nice dinners ever, so that was a treat, even if it cost an arm and a leg and I got no hug. I'm sure it wasn't intentional there was drama a flowing last night so, yeah, I can't really blame her.

I went kareoking last night afterwards and it felt good to sing my signature song. It's been over a month since I've sang it. I'm trying to expand my kareoke catologue--but why? There's one good song in it and it just keeps getting better, so I shouldn't be trying to learn Jay-Z's "99 Problems". But I am...

My Barbarian tonight. I'm super excited. I really hope that there's no snafu regarding the free tickets, because I could really use a break. I can't wait though.

So yesterday I won a pair of tickets to the My Barbarian show! Yeah, that's good because that's like $40 saved and to be honest, I am a devoted fan that surely deserves them. I've been to all their productions since Purple Eyes which was spring break 2004. That's a while now. Anyways, like I mentioned yesterday this is long overdue because Pagan Rights was really the last time they played and that was almost a year ago. I'm pretty excited if you haven't gathered.

In other news dispite all the people that have thus far made fun at me for joining myspace, an old good friend, Aaron Goodson has contacted me through there and that makes it all worthwhile. I miss Aaron am glad to be talking to him now. Every starving artist in NYC needs friends.

I've been wearing a new pair of glasses for 4 days now and nobody has said anything. I am taking it as a great compliment.

I did indeed sign up for another improv class yesterday, this time at IO West. I start at the end of the month and it will go through the end of june. Look at me, huh?

Hey so my first real film festival was The Florida Film Festival which played Claustrophobia in March 2004 (jesus, that was a long time ago). Anyways one of the guys there Brian emailed me yesterday and wants to play the film as part of this new showing short films in cafe thing. So Claustrophobia is playing in Flordia on monday and Timothy is playing in the OC the same day. Look at me, huh? Even better is I guess they are going to pay me $4 everytime they screen it. It's not much, but I'll take it.

That's about it for today, I'm going to have to take it easy with Baction Reviews because the producers are hanging out and I can't excatly watch movies during work with them here... I might update old review with screen caps and repost them on the new site this week.

Happy Patriots Day!

Howdy. The Mariners are playing right now. They started at 8am. That's crazy, but it gives me something to listen to. They're beating the Red Sox 2-1 early on.

I'm in a damn good mood. This was a wonderful 3-day weekend. I didn't do too much. But it's what I needed. On saturday I hung out and did some improv with classmates. One of the guys, writes for the adult swim show robot chicken and he's really cool and has this nice place. Chick magnet pad. Not a bad place for improv either. So that was fun. I cleaned the house. Then--oh god--I saw the movie Hard Candy, the thriller-horror-explotation film. It is effective I guess. I didn't really like it, not because of the subject matter (well, I can't lie, I didn't love the subject matter), but because I didn't know what it was trying to say. I'm sorry. It was one of those, which character do you hate more type of movies and that's not good. There's a scene in the film that actually made me really, woozie though. So yeah, it's crazy because it's getting to the point to where I'm starting to know people that worked on a lot of the movies coming out. 2 Friends credited in Scary Movie 4, 2 in Hard Candy. That's my gradual progression to proffessionalism in the industry.

Last night I saw a noir double-feature at the Egyptian and it was awesome. The Man Who Cheated Himself and The Night Editor. Neither are available on video but I recommend them. I think seeing old movies in the theatre is the way to go. The audience is fun.

I'm going to be really busy this week. Socially that is. Good stuff. I'm happy. I'm actually of thinking of signing up for another improv class at IO West AND level 2 at UCB. Why? Well, my life is looking up and I really think that in the improv. I'm crazy like that.

My Barbarian are doing a 2 different orginal musical plays this weekend and I can't wait. It's been so long. So, so long since MB played a show. It's a bit pricey ($20) but it's 2 plays, so it's worth it.

Take care.

Branchin' Out

I've branched out and created a new blog specificly for Baction Reviews. Check it out here. That's what's new in my life. I have another review that I should post today. I'm really tired today. I was up late hanging out with "classmates" and seeing a show at the UCB. It was fun. I'm listening to the new Kimya Dawson album, but it's a little much for this slow morning. I'm a man of action! I just switched to listening to Moby's Play. Whadda think about that?

It just hit me as I was walking into work: I don't have any plans this weekend. Here I am sitting on a three-day weekend--a mere 8 hours away--and don't have much, if anything, on my plate. I'm thinking of going to ikea or something tomorrow to look for a bed. I casually looked at an ikea catalogue and saw that they had like a 5 peice bedroom set on sale. Maybe. That seems a bit excessive, but hey, if I'm going to re-do the bedroom, it might as well be in full force. So I will possibly do that. I might also go to the OC and give my cousin Kevin my old Xbox. His is dead and I came to the conclusion that I should've just given him my old xbox a long time ago. Sound exciting? That's my life baby!

I think a medium coffee is the perfect size for me. Large is too much. Too much. The bagel wasn't up to the starbucks standard. Hey, that's not bad.... Maybe there should be a Starbucks Standard. I could see that being an ad campaign.

Gosh I'm sore. I've spent half the week paying the price for working out the other half. It's a good thing right?

For those keeping track of the music, I switched to The Go Team! I scrolled through some stuff, but none of it fit. This is quite fine.

Actually if you're still reading this I'm impressed. Have a good extended weekend.

Yo yo yo. Hey folks, what's up? I've just been hanging out, waiting for the 3-day weekend. Last night I watched a Hitchcock double-feature at the New Beverly of Notorious & Spellbound. Both B&W movies starring the lovely Ingrid Bergman. The first of which is an absolutly wonderful movie. The couple sitting next to me didn't care for it, but I did and that's what matters. I highly recommend seeing it, though I'm not sure what it's DVD status is. Spellbound was enjoyable, but not too great and a little dated. I have another pair of Baction Reviews to give you. I'll definately have one up by the end of today. I haven't got a chance to write because this week has been marginally busy at work. Oh shoot! I forgot, I got the awesome package of Bootleg movies!! The quality is pretty good, the actually movies themselves.... we'll see. I've watched 2.5 of them and am slightly unimpressed--except for Terminator II aka The Alienators, which I think I mentioned earlier, but damn, it's amazing. I'll probably have a review for that up in a few days because I didn't fully take notes when watching it. Whoooo. Track that film down. The Blacksplotation film is sort of a bust, it's a crazy movie but it's supposed to be a comedy, so it's not as cool as an action movie.... I need to finish watching it. In other Baction News, I tracked down a widescreen copy of the Brian Bozworth actioner Stone Cold, which should arrive next week. I'm very anxious to watch that. I've been keeping busy, which is cool. So there you go. Keep reading, good things are on the way.

Hello, I'm sitting here on this bright and shining morning feeling pretty darn good. I've been listening to this CD from a band called Ansty Pants. It's pretty childish, but a lot of fun. It's done by Kimya Dawson from the Moldy Peaches and (I think) a french kid, as in child. They sing a bunch of silly but fun songs. Check out their myspace page if you want. The CD is super short, that's the main problem I have with it--it's $5 for 11 songs, so you can't really complain. I am hooked on the Starbuck's plain bagels. I started toasting them at work--and by God--they are amazing. Perfect even. They have this nice buttery quailty and, well, try it for yourself sometime. Maybe part of it is actually toasting it yourself and activly becoming a part of the perfectness. It's really good. I just ate one. Improv class this saturday was the best one yet. It's all starting to click and on top of that I think a core friendship and trust is starting to form. After class about 6 of us and the teacher went out to lunch. Very cool. I'm sad that in like 4 weeks the class will be over. I watched a few VHS bad movies this weekend. One of them, Lady Terminator is definatly a bad action movie, but I wasn't really feeling it, so I don't know if I'm going to review it. I'm very excited to tell you though, that I'm finally going to get a package of DVD from a super seceret source. Basically there is this high quailty bootlegger that has real good stuff--so good that it takes two months for them to get together your order. It's pretty pricey but hopefully worth it. I've got a couple really good bad action movies on the way--one of them called Terminator 2, done by the director of Rats:A Night of Terror and apperently it's a scene for scene rip-off of Aliens with a terminator character sometimes roaming about. I'm very excited about that. Oh, I also got a Blacksplotation film on the way which features a 3-girl afro-biker ganger taking on a Colonel Sanders look-a-like who has invented a negro making machine to pump out people to work at his chicken restuarants and vote for white people. It's supposed to be one of the most insane movies ever. If you can't tell, I've been waiting a long time for this and it better be worth it. Review will definately be forthcoming. This weekend also marked the return to the gym for me. I have gone very sparingly the past month, now I'm trying to get back on track and go 3-4 times a week. I only mention this because I'm freakin sore. I must assume that is a good thing. Also, I didn't realize this until late last friday, but this is a four day week. Three-day weekend baby! To show my excitement here is a bonus picture of a cheerleader doing a goosestep from the obscure movie Wolfpack:

Oui, I can't really explain it, but I've had a weird couple of days. Kind of topped off by my caffine overload last night. My heart's still beating man. I don't know why I do the things I do. I watched the Mariners and drank coffee last night. They seem to be off to a good start. I feel like an anchor that doesn't have a place land. Screw it. I have ADD. I'm drinking water and my minds flying like crazy. Maybe that's good? Hope so. Dude, I'm listening to Bungle in the Jungle by Jethro Tull. Whoa man. Whoa man. I have nothing to do at work. I'm a monkey in a cage, bouncing off the walls if cages had walls. I'm not content watching bad action movies--I'm still going to do the reviews, things things take time, but I want more out of work. I need to be sedated so something. I have pretty good credit. Did I tell you that? That's pretty cool. I've definately become more of an adult I think. Good credit. Yeah, that's me alright. I just got a new visa platnum card because I have a card right now with a high percentage interets thing and the new card is a lot lower. BUT I think they want to charge me to transfer the balance. What? Shoot, I guess I'll just pay it off. That's one of this year's goals anyways. It shouldn't really be a problem.

BACTION: RATS: A Night of Terror

RATS: A NIGHT OF TERROR
1983 / 93min / Italy

"If it weren't for a flamethrower, I probably wouldn't of reviewed it."
-Me

The Plot & Lowdown:
The surface of earth has been unlivable since "the insensitivity of man finally triumphs". The year is 225 A.B. (after the bomb) and humans have lived underground ever since but a small fraction have the desire to live on the surface of earth and so our story centers around a traveling biker gang and their "night of terror" staying in an abandoned town. The Gang which features the stupidest humans on earth--with the coolest names, i.e. Lucifer, Torres, Video & Chocolate (the black girl), find a haven of food and fun in the town only to be outsmarted, terrorized and killed by mutated rats.

I'm going to have to stop there, because that is the idealized version of the plot. The reality is: the Bikers constantly talk of intelligent rats, which is never actually shown. This can be frustrated at times, entertaining at other. This is probably one of those "3B movies", a term given by a bad movie website, meaning after 3 Beers it's the greatest thing ever. I can see how this could be a great find for a group of friends killing time, because Rats is a terrible movie with awesome-bad dialogue & dubbing. The people in this movie are so stupid, it has to entertain. There's a point where a biker monologues about a "pack of rats" attacking his mother's "cave" and I could've wet myself. There could also be some essays on the film talking about Rats being film symbolizing a "world of fear." Because you never see the rats to anything other than crawl on things. In fact, the Biker gang is so terrified of rats, they don't even try to fend rats off, or run away--even though the leader carries a fucking Flamethrower!!! They come to the intelligent rat conclusion so fast, they don't even question it, just freak out (in terror). If you're looking for a typical bad action film this will disappoint. There is very little, if any action. In truth this review wouldn't be here except I took notes as I was watching it at work and I'm relaying it to you. There is very little here. At times, near the end, the movie drags, as I find there is a thin line between frustrating & funny. There is a twist at the end, that amazes and almost makes everything worth watching. Director Bruno Mattei is known for making terrible, terrible movies (like Troll 2) and this is no, no, no different.

Things to Watch For:
0:04 - Hey, that's Chuck Norris!
0:09 - Way to waste that precious flour and offend the hell out of me.
0:17 - This girl should change careers, acting-no, prostitution-maybe.
0:21 - Flamethrower Alert!
0:24 - She copulating, much better at it than acting.
0:25 - Chuck Norris Fact: Only he can open zippers.
0:26 - Gratuidous PENIS Nudity Alert! Ruins anything else....
0:28 - Gratuidous Full Frontal Female Nudity Alert--
0:28 - Ahhh!!! Gratuidous PENIS Alert #2!!
0:35 - Where's Chuck Norris, Zipper Opener???
0:37 - Gratuidous Nudity Alert: Dead Breasts. Jesus folks, get it right.
0:38 - Flamethrower Alert!! P.S. That's not a stuntman....
0:42 - Flamethrower Alert!!!
0:48 - Hilarious Dialouge in 3... 2... 1...
0:55 - "I'm going to warm their wiskers."
0:58 - Is that a rotating wheel of fake rats? What is that?
1:11 - Chuck Norris Fact: If filled with rats, he will explode.
1:13 - Explosion Alert!
1:29 - I don't think rats would cause a door to crumble...
1:35 - AHAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!! Oh, amazing.

NOTES:

• Not a Baction Film.
• Bruno Mattei also directed a movie called Shattered Dark or Terminator 2, which is supposedly a scene for scene rip off of Aliens. I'm in the works of obtaining a copy.
  

Yesterday was a lot better after I went home for lunch, grab and oversized sweatshirt and The Wizard of Oz and proceeded to warmly watch it in my office. Ah. And then go home and watch the Mariners win thier first game of the season. It rained all day. All day. I was really in a funk, there was a couple moments where I felt like quitting this job. I just need to be patient. I talked with the guys for my upcoming job a few days ago and I really got excited. It's going to happen. The next goal/step of my life will be accomplished. I just need to wait. It's soo hard though. I hate not being utilized.

Today, LA's screwing with my mind by showing sunshine. At like 1am the rain was crashing against the window and I was betting myself that it would still be doing the same thing in the morning. No. Not the case. Screw you weather.

So I'm going to keep this short in hopes to directly start working on a BAction review.

Could today be more depressing? It's pouring down rain. I just want to stay in bed and watch cartoons. I just got the first season of Batman Beyond and should have brought it in. I should've brought a blanket too. I'm listening to Red House Painters.

JJ and I are reminising about Built to Spill and how amazing they are. I believe in like 40 years, during WWIII or the second US civil war, young kids fighting, will listening to Perfect from Now On and be like "this shit is amazing--totally trancends me to a different time. One where we didn't fight in concrete rubble for what we believe in, a time where you just got lost in electric melodies. Those must have been the days. If only I didn't have to fight." It's a bittersweet thought. Because I'm living in this time, where there is this amazing music happening, but the majority of the population doesn't even realize or care. I'm free though, and I can get lost in that music. I mean, I firmly believe that in the far future, BTS will be the Hendrix or Greatful Dead of our time and our children will just hear crazy stories, like the time Dug's guitar solo cured some man's throat cancer and then the truth--that sad reality--won't matter, because it's the thing our kids will dream about: Being alive during our easier, simpler times. The times we are living right now.

If that doesn't cheer you up, I don't know what the fuck will. Sure it's raining, but someday there will be a day where that rain can kill you and you can't go out doors rain or shine, because the ozone has depleted and the sun can kill you a hundred thousand times quicker than now. So, sing in that fucking rain while you have the chance, because our kids might not. I don't know how I got to this point. I was going to talk about acting class, but screw it. I'm not in the mood. Someday there probably won't be bananas, so eat some now, try that chocolate cake because that recipe will be lost. And go see built to spill, because in the bleak future they will have been looked upon as great men that walked this earth.

Good Morning Baseball. Welcome back to my life.

Hello, good morning. I've got a nice smile across my face and a marniers logo across my chest. Damn, it's a sunny day out. Perfect for baseball. I tried soy milk in my coffee and I don't really love it, but I'll tough it out. It's kinda dissapointing that the mariner game (against the angeles) is on at 2pm this afternoon. If it was earlier, I could run out during lunch; later, leave work early. Oh well. I'm rocking out to the Pixies' Doolittle right now. It's doing the job.
[EDIT: Today is not sunny. I don't know why I thought that... It's rainy and annoying out. Not a baseball day. Shit.]

This weekend was quite crazy and yet not. Boy, did I suck it up in improv class saturday morning. I really felt... I donno. I didn't feel up to par, that's for sure. I'm getting a little scared because we are halfway through so in about 5 weeks, we have a nighttime preformance and if it were today, man it would it be painful. Oh well, go out in a bang, that's what I'll say.

Dave and Alex had their 4th annual birthday Booze Bash and it was pretty cool. A lot of people I haven't seen in a long, long time. I got a lot of "lookin' good" comments which was weird because I was wearing the most god awful shirt I could find. Maileen said last night that there was a lot of drama--which I didn't really think. I mean Goob was acting creepy and she was making out with some dude. But what else is new? And in truth, Maileen is becoming "that girl" at parties--which, whatever you know, it makes her human I guess.

I jammed with Irv on saturday for a little bit and it felt okay. I don't think it sounded amazing, but, that's not the full-fledged point. It could be promising.

Yesterday I watched 3+ hours of Cowboy Bebop and boy I loved every minute of it. I wanna watch all episodes in a row sometime soon.

I have another BAction Review coming. I took notes and everything, so soon my friends, soon. Probably tomorrow, because I'm not in the mood right now.