A "Death Knocks" alumnus makes a splash!

Tonight I was snooping around the internet for vintage porn and old friends, and found out that one of our favorite actors (and amateur stuntman) Michael Buckley has a talk show on Wallingford (CT) public access cable.

Michael shares the spotlight with Kristin Baltramaitis. They appear live Mondays at 7PM on whatever the cable system is up there in Wallingford. I don't know what it is, 'cause I have Cablevision, and they don't...whatever.

Check out their blog at Table For Two. It looks great! Maybe I'll have to drop in and watch the show live.

World Premiere of "Grandma's Kitchen", and stuff

Last night Ant and me helped out Lori ("Grandma's Kitchen") tape an intro to her DVD. We taped Lori in front of the studio's green screen. Lori is pitching the DVD on Monday, so we had to throw this together in a big hurry.

This was the first time I used the studio light board; it was fun aiming the lights and adjusting the intensity of each for best effect. Plus, we tried using my new wireless mic set, but a 60-cycle buzz messed up all our takes, so finally in desperation we used the on-camera mic. I think we need to use better shielded cables, rather than the cheap Radio Shack crap I have. Especially since there's loads of lighting and sound cables running all over the studio. I'll look into it.

After I got home I loaded the footage into Pinnacle. Then I color-corrected, overlayed a bunch of cool pictures behind Lori, and transferred it back to tape. Lori stopped by today and picked up the tape, then she's going to include it as an intro to the sample DVD she's pitching to an association that may buy hundreds (maybe thousands) of copies. Which is cool, but she's got to get it put together real soon. Like, by Monday. Busy frickin' week!

And Monday is also the WORLD PREMIERE of "Grandma's Kitchen"! Watch it on Cablevision channel 77, Monday 7:00PM, starting October 3rd. We're going to have a premiere party at my house, since Lori and many of her guest chefs don't live in the local Cablevision broadcast area (you need to live in Milford, Orange, Woodbridge, Bridgeport, Stratford, or Fairfield to see it).

We're really rolling out the red carpet for the debut. I'll tape the arrival of the stars, and Joyce will work the red carpet and comment on our guests' evening wear. And maybe, just maybe...we'll serve those cute lil' cocktail weenies! Wow, what a soiree!!! (did I spell that right?)

Tune in, and bring your appetite!

David Lynch speaking at Yale

This Friday I'm going to see another one of my personal heroes speak in person. David Lynch, director of "The Elephant Man", "Blue Velvet", "Wild at Heart", "Mulholland Dr.", "Lost Highway", and more will speak about his films and about The David Lynch Foundation, which is a new organization dedicated to spreading consciousness-based education and world peace.

After he completes those tasks, he's going to shoot a movie about a dancing midget and people talking backwards during a hallucinatory dream sequence.

Weekend this talk the on thoughts my post I'll.

Audio News; and we hit 2,000!

Wow, 2,000 hits! Now there might actually be THREE people reading this blog! As I mentioned in the post about the 1,000-hit milestone (9 May 2005), most of the hits are me checking the blog and posting new entries. But hey, at least SOMEBODY is reading this shite!

(that was for Gazza27, who has a funny/odd blog over in England called Seftontaxis; check it out!)

Yesterday I finally received my wireless microphone kit. It's cool. It's cheap, too, but for my purposes it'll have to do, because I can't afford a pro-quality system yet. It'll be fine, I'm sure.

For some reason my blog has decided to refrain from showing a picture of Bill Cullen, legendary announcer from the 50's through the 80's. I don't know why it's doing this, but I've deleted the code for the image and text relating to Bill Cullen. Sorry if you're wondering why I was talking about Bill Cullen, but it's not important right now. Or ever, for that matter.

The new mic kit works amazingly well. I had the camera with the input from the receiver upstairs in the den, and walked all over the house wearing the lav body pack, with the mic clipped on my shirt. There was no interference or audio drop-outs, and I'd be surprised if it didn't continue to work well anywhere within the specified 250-foot operating radius.

There are some drawbacks. The frequency range is a bit narrow. And the mics tend to pick up background noise a bit. But I can experiement with the sensativity settings to reduce that. Overall, it's pretty good, considering it cost under $160, shipping included.

And it arrived less than 24 hours after I ordered it online. That's the second item I've ordered in the last month that was shipped via ground DHL, and it got here in record time.

Schweeet!

My Favorite Uncle

Whenever I run into a writer's block, all I need to do is expose myself to my family for a while, and suddenly the material seems to write itself. I gotta learn to carry a notepad with me every time I go to a family gathering. In the short time we were there, I witnessed a half-dozen funny little scenes that I recorded as soon as I got home.

This is a picture of me and my cousin Matt. We look like the muscle for a small-time bookie, right? People say we look alike. In fact, Matt's dad (my uncle), who was celebrating his 75th birthday this day, yelled at me. Well, it wasn't really me he was yelling at...it was Matt. Or someone whom he thought resembled the wayward lad (me).

Joyce and I are at the party, a nice outdoor affair on a perfect late-Summer day. I'm casually standing there talking to my cousin Dave, and my uncle walks up and says to me, "Matt, bring that cooler over here please." Of course, it doesn't register in my mind. I ignore him.

Okay, I have to let you in on something here. You do not ignore anyone in my family. It's simply not done; at least, not without major consequences. He pauses for a moment in shock, and then yells, "Matthew Richard!" (Oh Christ, when a parent uses your first AND middle name, it's serious!) I looked around for Matt, anticipating what I guessed would be a serious ass-whuppin' from his dad.

All I saw was my uncle staring daggers at me. Suddenly it hit me! "Uh, I'm not Matt, Uncle Rich...I'm Robert!" I say. (My family INSISTS on calling me "Robert" rather than "Bob", which gives me acid reflux, but I've accepted the fact that I have to indulge them)

He performs a perfect double-take, then starts laughing like Joe Pesci in "Goodfellas" just before he's about to whack someone.

Yup, that's my favorite uncle.