So the "Johnson Family Reunion" fallout is beginning to happen, and there are many confused old ladies out there insisting they got a letter from some long lost relative named Brenda. There are interesting comments starting to appear on people's blogs who wrote about it.
Steve's "Feed" post
another guy's blog post
a chick's
my own

Sorry for the lack of posting. I went back to work this week, started my new ACME Scandal! Show on Friday nights, and Carolyn had her baby on Wed, so we went up to Santa Barbara to visit. A busy week.

For the next month or two I'm at a stop motion animation joint called Bix Pix working on a Christmas special called Holidaze, making little clothes for the figures. I got to hire Simone and Carol Binion, my pals from Crank Yankers, and they start tomorrow. It should be a fun project, though the schedule is really tight, and perhaps unrealistic for getting out the door for this holiday season.

The ACME show Scandal! runs every Friday night at 10pm, through September 15th. This time, we are a 12 day cruise on the Little Valley Queen and I am playing a Red Hat Lady named Frannie Stonington. Comedy ensues. The first episode went great. ACME has a large following for Scandal! and it was nice to step on stage to a full house who cheer along with the theme music. I've hit the comedy big time! Come check out the show if you can.

Claire Alena Gamble was born on June 21, and she is just a little peach of a baby. Weighing in at just under 7 pounds, she doesn't even fit into her little 0-3 clothes. Nana Betty and I ran around this morning trying to find a couple of "preemie" sized sleepers so she won't be naked for the next 2 weeks.

Saturday night Uncle Steve and Aunt Robyn took Finn to see "Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties." This was not our first choice, but he'd already seen Cars and Over the Hedge, and Nacho Libre would inspire too much jumping off the picnic table, so Garfield it was.

I expected to hate it so much I would want to stab my eyes out half way through, but I was pleasantly surprised. I actually enjoyed it. I laughed. It had very cute moments. Of course, I'm a sucker for talking animals, and this had plenty. Garfield is the only animated one in the bunch, and he even looked better than I expected. The bland, handsome young man who plays Jon is likable, and if you are a fan of Jennifer Love Hewitt's tender bosoms, you get to look right down her dress for minutes at a time. It was as if they knew Dads everywhere were going to need it right about then in the plot. You know that Bill Murray showed up and recorded all the dialogue once through in half a morning, goofing around and phoning it in, but still being as funny as it needed to be for 3 hours worth of work. The Villian was Scottish stand up, Billy Connolly, being very dastardly and over the top. Early on, Finn leaned over and whispered, "He's the Bad Guy." Right you are, my boy! He also asked at precisely the moment between Act Two and Act Three, "This is almost over, right?" An A+ in Intro to Film for him.

I give "Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties" a solid B. We could have done worse with an evening out with our 5 year old nephew. BTW, Finn was incredibly well behaved. He paid attention the entire time, stayed in his seat, and knew to whisper in the theater. His favorite moments were when Garfield pretends to lean against Big Ben while Odie takes the picture, the lasagna making montage, and when Garfield knocks over all the statues.

The Countess' blog is now up and running. I have been working on her website recently, and I just fond out this morning that I will be performing the character at this year's Out of Bounds Improv Fest in Austin over Labor Day weekend. The Countess will be hosting of the stages on one of the nights, still TBD, but I will let you know as I know more.

The Countess' new blog

Since I have finally figured out how to properly upload photos to my blog (how 2003 of me) I will now catch up on some back entries, first of which is the first Project Runway Party. A bunch of us got together to watch the final episode, and Lisa organized our own Barbie Challenge with the theme of Red Carpet. She even provided a runway for the dolls to strut on, a screen to pose behind techo music. The party was a huge success, and watching the actual show was an afterthought. We had another party in April (bathing beauty) and will have another in July (patriotic.)

Here are some photos!

Bad Taste by Robin Walsh


Britney Bride by Carla Rudy


Jungle by Rebecca "Beckers" McCabe


Poof by Lisa Davis


Sharon Stone by Rebecca Herron


Sherbert Bow by Robyn Simms

We got an interesting and annoying piece of junk mail this morning. From the "Johnson Reunion Committee" in a little invitation style cream colored envelope with a real stamp. The dead giveaway was the ********AUTO**3-DIGIT 900 over our address. The new address, BTW, not forwarded.

I open it and it is a folksy styled family newsletter from Brenda Leigh Johnson. Even though I should have just tossed it, I'm nosy and keep on reading. The style of prose is so stilted, like menu copy in a corporate Southern family theme restaurant with "a lot of y'all" in the first sentence. What the hell is this?

I realize it is a viral marketing campaign for the TNT show, The Closer, which I've never heard of. TNT must have sent this out to every Johnson in the country. On one hand, it pisses me off. Fuck you. On the other hand, I have to admire the cleverness of it all. They finally got me. I had NO IDEA this show existed. I don't watch commercials because of tivo. I very rarely watch TNT if at all. I must not be the target market, because I have never seen a magazine ad or billboard. It was even nominated for some SAG awards. I'm not SAG, so I don't pay attention to them either.

But TNT sends me some crap, and I google the info, go to the TNT website, read all about it, and spend half the morning trying to hook up the scanner and create a blog entry about it. If the tone of the letter wasn't so saccharine and fake folksy, I might even watch once. Well, their evil plan worked. I know about their damn show.

i'm going to try and attach the whole letter for your enjoyment, but get a load of this closer. Don't throw up! "Hope you eat a big helping of Momo's banana pudding and Aunt Valerie's pecan pie for me. I miss y'all to death."

I get it! I get it! SHE'S SOUTHERN! The only things they missed in this missive were a moonshine still and a Klu Klux Klan cross burning.

Steve has also posted about this on G4, so try this link, if you can't read the document here.

Fake Reunion Letter

Sometimes I get all crazy over a new product. Most of the time, I don't pass it on, but sometimes it's just that good.

I got my first Space Bag Storage Pack yesterday at The Container Store. I went and did a return for my landlady/neighbor Helen, and there it was. Storage space is tight at this new apartment, and I'm even more inspired to keep organized by the Elfa Closet System (more on that later) Helen had installed.

I'm usually skeptical about things "As Seen On TV," but Carla can't get enough of the bareMinerals Makeup System, so I thought I'd try the bags.

It's basically a big ziplock bag with a valve. Put your stuff in, zip it shut, and suck out the air with a vacuum cleaner. Now I have a thin and much easier to store pack. As we watched the in-store demo, another customer told me that there ends up being some leakage and expansion over time, but as long as I can stuff it into it's allotted space, it can expand as much as space will allow. That's not going to be much!

The Elfa Closet System is also quite remarkable. Instead of mounting the whole thing up and down the back wall, one sturdy bar is bolted along the top edge of the wall and everything hangs off of that. I'm sure there is some physics principles about load bearing and triangles for why this works, but I'm most impressed with the ability to slide the vertical supports around. You can move things as your need for closet space changes. Genius.

I just got off the phone with Unemployment, and I want to give props to the nice lady I spoke to. Usually, they person on the other end is a snarling beast at worst, or english as a second language at best. This woman was pleasant, spoke english and even knew about the entertainment industry enough to know that I wouldn't necessarily know every single payroll company off the top of my head. She even gave me hints. (answer? Entertainment Partners!) She made what is usually a nerve-wracking experience almost pleasant. When I complimented her at the end of the call, she said she used to be unemployed and that's how she got the job. She has a lot of empathy for everyone calling in.

Thank you, Lady.

Update on ads in Rome. Ads are forbidden in the center city (and I bet they have the same rule in Paris) but of course, there is a loophole.

I got to play "Chase the Check" this morning. The favorite sport of freelancers, it boils down to becoming your own heavy. I should have known when there were two small but unexpected checks waiting in the pile of mail when we returned that there would be problems with the "real" check. I have been around the block. I wrote "PLEASE MAIL THIS CHECK" on the top of the time card. I confirmed the correct address. I verbally spoke with Rena and Roger about it. I watched Rena make herself a post-it note about it. Who is the only phone message from the ten days we are gone? Rena on May 26th. 'What do you want me to do with your check?" I called in bright and early this morning, 6/5, to have her tell me that she "thinks she mailed it Friday." Great. If Chiodo's had 50 people working there right now, I'd be a little more understanding. But there were 6 of us on the Stargate job. And she made herself a note. Guess who's going to get extra zesty reminders next time?


Italy was great. We had a wonderful time and pictures should start showing up here.

I have now cooled down a bit to write about the trip. My sister asked for a report on the status of advertising. It was much more in the Paris vein than the NYC/Tokyo/London visual onslaught. We were mostly in the "older" sections of the cities we visited, and there was very little billboard action. A few big tarp style billboards hanging from construction scaffolding in Rome, but the most were along the road into San Ginmangino. Like you were heading into Palm Springs or something.We did see a few ads on the train in and out of Florence, but so subtle. The only ones I saw were 8 1/2" x 11" laminated posters zip-tied to the hooks between the windows where you might hang your overcoat. And they weren't even on every hook.

I was more of the tourist than Steve. I was determined to see The Art. Steve was more into sitting at cafes and people watching. I wish I had been able to do more of that, but David and the Sistine Chapel were too much to pass up. Next time I go to Italy, I will feel no great pressure to see Art, as I really did a thorough job this time around. And boy, were those tourist places crowded! Angela and I kept remarking that it wasn't even the height of the season. Everywhere we went was like Disneyland, and that kind of sucked. Crushing crowds are not my favorite.

More later...check the photo link. Dave has uploaded the first of it. Rome, i believe.