Pre-Production Journal 2 Nov. 30th, 2005 - Cube truck! Cube Truck! Cube Truck!

I think for the fourth time in my life today, I became a man. (For those keeping track- the first was my bris; the second my Bar Mitzvah; the third was in my bedroom with Anne) and today, I drove a huge truck from Hollywood to Burbank and back. This is usually the time that I describe "an exhilarating ride" full of "new experiences and wonderment." In reality, i nearly peed my pants(not a new experience), grew some gray hairs, and probably gave myself an ulcer. It was without a doubt the most terrifying thing I have ever done, because the stakes were so high. I rolled into Burbank, loaded the truck by myself with about fourteen cases of equipment for our HD camera, and rolled back into Hollywood proper. Don't get me wrong- as scared as I was, it was a gratifying, amazing experience I will not soon forget, nor am afraid to do again. In fact, most of the best experiences I've had are either when I am backed into a corner, do-or-die style, or when I remember that that's when I have the best experiences. This list is very long, and while truck driving has the attributes for this type of experience, the whole almost peeing in my pants is keeping it from getting on the list. When i got back to the office, I asked if I could have a co-pilot next time(reading a map in the dark while rolling down the freeway is a lot to do when inexperience with driving a truck). I was promptly denied any help. Great. This is going to be a long three weeks. In the meantime, What should I name my ulcer? (No offense to people in the future that have had ulcers, it was merely used as a comedic device and by no means a jab at any set designers that have or will have ulcers. An ulcer is no laughing matter and should be take in fun, whereas me driving a truck is quite hilarious.)

Pre-Production Journal 1 - Big Meeting

We had the big production meeting/pageturner today. The crew came in and met with the director, went over the script and dealt with any issues that may arise in each department. One of the producers asked me to shoot some BTS footage of the meeting which I did, but as soon as I turned the camera on, I felt awkward having a camera at a meeting I was supposed to be paying attention to, so the camera went off fairly quickly. I've got a lot to do on this show because my full time in the office will quickly be transferred to full time on-set. We've got three locations two of which are going to be larger in scale than the third. The third is just a house in Hancock Park, where we'll generally be having between one and three cast members on set at a time. It's going to be an interesting three weeks, and at the very least, an exhausting three weeks, but I'm kind of looking forward to making a movie right before everyone breaks for the holidays. I'm going up north for...I think this will be the fourth year in a row working my girlfriend's mom's comedy show. Even though i work, it still feels very vacation-like being in Palo Alto(a quiet mountain town). I also love going into San Francisco. The Exploratorium, drinking at Vesuvio's, City Lights, The Buccaneer(pirate bar), and 826 Valencia. whoa. I'm really excited now. But first, i need to make a movie. T-2 days.

I'M IN A PLAY TOMORROW!!!

It's called:   Go Fuck Yourself, Jury Duty!

File Under: You have GOT to be kidding

Via Yahoo News: "It is the adults who should be afraid this Halloween. Not of ghouls and goblins, but of permanently scarring their children. In a recent study of six- and seven-year-olds in the Philadelphia area, Penn State psychologist Cindy Dell Clark found that most parents underestimate just how terrifying the holiday can be for young kids." This is a joke, right? The article continues, "Halloween has been scaring the heck out of kids of all ages for centuries....Child psychologists generally caution parents that the fright of some aspects of Halloween can be too much for the very young, and advise adults to keep a close eye on children and remind them of what is real and what is not." Here's my reasoning: When you know of ONE DAY out of the ENTIRE year that you are going to go DOOR TO DOOR to collect CANDY, perhaps at the expense of someone in a rubber mask jumping out at you, perhaps startling you, how could ANYONE NOT BE PREPARED?! We know as society that there is one day every year a fat old man, crawls down our chimney and into our living room to leave presents under a pagan symbol of worship decorated with ecclesiastical glass orbs and angels, while we celebrate someone dying the most painful death imaginable and suffering the pain of every human in the history of time. We know that there is one day every year an enormous mutated anthropomorph hides colored eggs(which it cannot lay) that you search your backyard to find. WE ARE CREATING A SOCIETY OF PUSSIES. Here's the rebuttal to any argument that entails a kid getting scared at young age: My girlfriend HATES being startled. When she gets startled it could very likely bring her to tears. Or she'll start throwing punches. Eitehr way, it's not a pretty sight. I would love to go to the haunted houses at Knott's Scary Farm, The Queen Mary, or anywhere else, but she will NEVER want to go. You may say that this puts a damper on Halloween for her, but the reality is that Halloween is her favorite holiday in the history of the human species. She loves it more than anyone else I know. So regardless of her being scared as a little kid, she still LOVES Halloween. It's not Halloween that's the problem, it's not even the people that startle her, because she knows to stay away from those things, in this case, we are telling children that it's OK to be wimps. I can't think of anything more assinine, thick-headed, retarded, or irresponsible. Besides, there is nothing to change about Halloween to make it more kid-friendly. It's already a kid's holiday! You dress up like a hobo, run around your neighborhood and collect candy. If someone doesn't like Halloween, that's fine. It's OK to NOT LIKE something, but I am giving you the permission to do so on your own. You don't need a study or parents or doctors to tell you that putting a Ronald Reagon mask on and carrying around a pillowcase full of chocolate is a bad thing. I am giving kids all over permission to decide on Halloween by themselves.

The Neon Cruise

I lucked out. Saturday night, my girlfriend and her two best friends were going out together to celebrate one of the girls' birthdays, but when one of them couldn't make it, I got to tag along. We ended up on the Neon Cruise through Los Angeles. They run it every Saturday night through the summer, June until the beginning of October and it always sells out. My girlfriend had made reservations but it was previously sold out so they ended up on the waiting list. The day before the cruise, Friday, they found out they had seats so it was a bummer that their friend couldn't go with them. You meet down at the Museum of Neon, which I had been to before, but had never been on the famed cruise. There is a wine and cheese reception beforehand, so you can mill around the museum, enjoying illuminated impressions of days past, or glowing glass of colored gas. The wine is an important element for the three hour journey. You'll be on the top level of a double decker convertible bus, so while you can dress your outside as warm as possible, you'll definitely need something to warm the insides as well. You may want to invest in a hip flask if you're going on the neon cruise. But the cruise, the cruise itself is like a journey through an LA that you can only wish existed to this day. It really shows us the history of this city from a different perspective; one of promise and entrepeneurship, something that has, in my opinion, been lacking in this city, in this country for the last decade. It feels like there was a desire for technology and excitement and entertainment to collide and create, above all, a better life for all. When the Packard dealership on Wilshire first introduced neon to America, the buzz it created was not only important to signage for years to come, but it obviously changed the way Americans were mesmerized. Eric, the smarmy, sarcastic, and incredibly funny, tour guide lead us through an intriguing history. When we reached Hollywood, he began to lament the introduction of "backlit plastic," the signage that effectively eliminated the need for neon signs. Cheap and economical, you can much more with a backlit plastic sign than you can with blown glass neon tubes, I understand what happened. But it made me think that it also changed the way we dealt with that blend of technology and entertainment. We added business. Now it wasn't about making people excited about something new any more. It was about getting them into a store, selling them something, and getting the next guy in the store. That's it. That's where we've come to and what is driving our country the argument of art versus business and whether the two are individuals or influencing to each other. Does one have to breed the other? Are the two allowed to live harmoniously? Or are we slashing our cities' wrists by making our advertisements bigger, louder, and brighter, and letting our distilled artistic impulses languish in smaller venues, collecting dust, decomposing, and running out of power? The neon cruise is something of wonder and excitement that helps us realize what things were and how things can be when people work together and appreciate ingenuity and experimentation, while requiring boundries. Like a delicate glass tube of exploding gas, a dedicated column on the periodic table of elements, sharp lines of brightly colored light that we can form in any way and to acheive any message, so long as the gas doesn't escape or the switch isn't turned off.

University of the Apprentice

I'm totally a junkie for The Apprentice. Donald Trump's business world cred may be spotty, but his bat-shit crazy cred is as high as you can get. Through his reality-show-job-interview-competition, he teaches important business lessons, yet we end up learning important communication skills that are necessary for any successful endeavor, not just big business. And while I was unsure if Martha Stewart would be able to come close to the eccentricity of Donald Trump's version, she has definitely won me over with her deliberate style and unmerciful demeanor. But this past week I came to a realization: The Apprentice is Sesame Street for adults. At the end of every episode you learn a lesson or moral or skills or how to use the letter 'E'. Granted, nine times out of ten the lesson is "don't be an a-hole," but there are plenty of important morals that are presented each week for us to learn. Generally we learn about proper interpersonal communication, being nice to people, sharing, managing money, how to interact with different age groups, etc. However, A lot of times, the lessons are learned not through the task that Donald Trump gives each team, but through the team dynamic. The teams are generally divided in a way that complements the competitive nature of the show. Last season, it was street smarts(high school degree) versus book smarts(college and grad school degrees), and this season it's guys versus girls. Each week, teams go head to head and compete, the loser has to talk to Donald Trump, who promptly fires the whiniest, bitchiest, saddest train wreck of a contestant. But not before they learn that they need to contribute more to the team. Or that they need to share their thoughts in a more thoughtful manner. Whether we, the vieing audience likes it or not, we subconsciously learn an important lesson of what we would NEVER do in any business sense. But it generally doesn't end with business. This also applies to the Amazing Race- For instance, last week, a team of all strong able-bodied men was bested by a single mother and her three teenage children. The men got cocky and angry and made it a point to beat the single mom team. In the end, they let their anger and frustration get in the way the goal of the game: don't come in last place. This lesson is taught nearly ever season of almost every reality based competition show, because there will always be a team that is too competitive for their own good and will blow the competition focusing on trying to beat a single team. The Apprentice Martha Stewart is awesome because, while Donald Trump is totally nuts(read: awesome), Martha Stewart is fucking dead serious all the time. Any time a contestant tries to take her on, she shoots them down with something that resembles: I've been to jail, have you? Case in point, two weeks ago, Shaun(female) told Martha's right hand business guy that they would win the task or he could personally fire her. They don't show that stuff for a reason, and sure enough, Shaun got the pink, lacy, steel-toed boot from Martha Stewart. But luckily for us, she didn't go without a totally inane defense. In response to questioning about her totally misplaced confidence, she said, "I work in TV where we say, 'fake it, 'til you make it!'" And Martha shoots back with, "I've been on TV for ten years and I've never heard that." Ouch. Good for Martha Stewart. There's nothing like coming back from prison and reinventing yourself as a ruthless, stone-cold bee-atch! Ultimately, the lesson we will all learn from the Donald Trumps, Martha Stewarts, Big Brothers, Survivors, Fifth Wheels, Amazing Racers, and everyone else who will be on a reality show at some point in their lives is: Don't be an A-hole.

Stories I hear in the alley behind my house

I went to a movie alone tonight, which I like to do from time to time. Partly because I like going to see movies and partly because I can't find anyone else to go with me to the movies I like to see. I went to see "Lord of War" starring Nicholas Cage as an arms dealer. It was a pretty good movie that reminded me a lot of "Goodfellas" with West African nations and Ian Holm, instead of the Mob and Paul Sorvino. When I got home, everything was really quiet, including the myriad buzzing insects that normally make base camp on my front step. I swatted a few tiny moths away while I groped for my keys, which conveniently go spelunking into the dark nether regions of my jeans. I unlocked the front door and instead of the usual vinyl darkness that covers my eyes, there was light flooding through my kitchen window, which only means one thing- something is happening in the alley behind my house. If something is happening behind my house it is cause for immediate celebration, because this has ranged from a hobo creating a cardboard mansion, to two teenagers fucking like there is no tomorrow in the back of a mustang convertible. Often times it's the neighborhood boys listening to hip-hop and lifting weights. Another time, at about 3 AM there were a bunch of guys standing in a circle- I swear this is true- having a "fight club" until my neighbor called the cops. Tonight I come home and two men are having a loud conversation about, well, paint I guess. That's what they started talking about. Painting metal surfaces and grinding down metallic surfaces and sucking the paint off, I don't know, it was hard to understand since I came in right in the middle of their conversation. The man in the white sweatshirt, with the squeaky southern drawl reserved for MadTV stereotypes, was patting himself on the back for a great job of grinding paint off of something. "Just about halfway through," he squeaked, "The heat from the motor started melting the paint cause of the metal surface heating up, and we had to stop and let the sumbitch cool down. But goddamn if we didn't get the whole job done in a day!" Hi partner, who I could never decipher a word or a face, mumbled a question. And this is where things took a slight downward turn. "Oh yeah," Squeaky continued, "Did I ever tell you about the time I was working at Southwest?" Mumbles responds with an affirmative, but thank god that didn't stop White Sweatshirt from telling the story anyways: "You know you're down there on the tarmac and you're looking up at this HUGE white plane going, 'mutherfucker!' Well, I was down there working the blocks and these Southwest airline pilots have their heads so far up there asses they aint payin' attention to any goddamn one of us on the ground. This plane here is goin' in to be cleaned up for the weekend and we're already behind schedule, and I'm down there waiting for the plane to stop rolling so I can get these huge wooden blocks under the wheels. The guy at the front of the plane is giving me the signal to be ready, and I'm waiting there ready with the blocks and as soon's the plane stops we get those blocks under the wheels and I start yelling to the guy up front we're good. But the guy up front is motioning to the pilots to stop right there and they feel as though they need another two goddamn feet! So they start rolling forward and I can HEAR the wood cracking on these blocks. So I grab my partner and we are just screaming at them to stop, and those idiots are up there wondering what's holding up the wheels, so I guess they give it a little more gas, and KABOOM! Those blocks shatter, giving the plane and ALL IT'S PASSENGERS a nice little jump! And I'm like, JESUS! Where'd you get these guys!" And they both laugh.

Was Rodney King right?

My friend Matt is an aficionado of the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Matt and his friends can often be found getting stoned and tuning in to the TBN and getting a good hearty laugh at the expense of many god-fearing citizens. One thing that Matt has observed through his years of watching Benny Hinn and Jim Bakker and company, is that these fundamentalist Christians live comfortably in a world that is approximately twenty years in the past. If you were to tune in to TBN at this exact instant, you would see side pony-tails, fluorescent parachute pants, and slap-wraps. Women would have on oversized sweaters and have a perm, while men are sporting pastel sweaters and neatly parted hair. Matt's stoned thesis doesn't need much research to prove(just the resolve), but my point is that I came across a brilliant piece of evidence to support is theory. On my way home, I passed a church advertising Sunday's sermon as: "Was Rodney King right?" I swear that is not a joke. Seriously- "Was Rodney King right?" It's one thing to get high and laugh at someone's shitty TV graphics and silly outdated fashion and hairstyles, but these people are living THIRTEEN YEARS in the past! FOR REAL. Has the Catholic Church been debating Rodney King's infamous "Can't we all just get along" for thirteen years? Did I miss some recent revelation in the Rodney King trial last week? Did God grant them a time-machine after all that praying? I can only imagine what the future holds for this congregation. Some highlights are bound to include: 1993- David Koresh's Waco, Texas Branch-Davidians compound is raided by the federal government; next year, in 2006, Christians will applaud the federal government's treatment of this "filthy liberal godless cult" and help raise funds for (ironically) President Bush's re-election. Chrisitans will also suddenly realize what the jokes about Janet reno on Saturday Night Live reruns are all about. 1995- Oklahoma City Bombing; in 2008 there will be many candlelight vigils in honor of the victims of this horrifying domestic terrorist action. 1997- Scientists clone sheep; in 2010, while the rest of us send our cloned doppelgangers to war with aliens, the fundamentalist christians will be appalled that science would disgrace the will of god and the desecration of the human soul. 1999- Columbine School attack; In April of 2012, Christians will be witness to a horrifying act of youth terrorism and raise hundreds of dollars for the victim's families and surviving alumni of Columbine high school. The recipients of these funds will be momentairly confused by this gracious donation to an old incident, but then shrug it off and buy another flying car. As you can see, there are going to be future repercussions(if you'll pardon the pun), for the Trinity Broadcast Network and other fundamentalist christian organizations. Their lack of timely coverage on current events will help them gather awkward stares and whispered sarcasm for decades, until they fall so far behind the rest of the world's nature they have to move into the BioDome. Luckily for them, no one has cared about the BioDome since 1993, so they will be right at home.

Eight Minutes, Fourteen Days

My girlfriend called me at 8 AM today, as I was on my way to work. It was a nice surprise as I normally don't here from her until after lunch. Even though she was just calling to say hi, it was a nice way to break up the monotony of the morning commute in rush hour traffic. After hanging up my cell phone, I thought it would be a good idea to check my cell phone minutes seeing as I had two more weeks before my billing cycle reset. The plan I "pay" for is 400 minutes a month. Free nights and weekends. Free Verizon to Verizon calling. It's a good deal and I share it with my mom for a good price. Since she really only has the phone for emergencies, we split the minutes 350 for myself and 50 for her. If we go over, I think it's something like 45cents a minute, which can add up quick. I've gone over my minutes a couple times, with no ill effects, because my mom didn't go over hers. Last month, which was pretty busy at work, I knew that I was going to go over mine and it turned out that it wasn't as bad as a I thought it was going to be. But when I checked my minutes this morning, I saw that I had 8 minutes left for this billing cycle. Which ends on August 15th. I rarely use my phone during "nights(after 9 PM)," though I like to abuse the free weekend minutes. So now I have eight minutes to spread out over 14 days. Three hundred and thirty six hours! Twenty thousand one hundred and sixty minutes! I have to chose which of those 8 minutes I deem most important over the next two weeks. Furthermore, I have to determine whether those minutes should be Calls or Answers. If I'm out on an errand for work and they call, are they wondering what I want for lunch? Or should I not drive out to Santa Monica to pick up tapes? Or do they need urgent blackjack advice? If my girlfriend is calling me, can I call her back from a land line? What about that restricted number? What about that unknown number? My sister? The Long Beach Police Department? My old job? Steve Agee? A young man can't be given such important choices at such young an age! It's unfair and is causing me stress and my hair is going to fall out and I'll be impotent and bipolar. A million different things will happen to me because I can't decide which 8 minutes out of the next 20160 are the most important in the next three hundred and thirty six hours of my life. You can't put a cellular gun to my head like this and expect me to pull the trigger. The next 14 days will reveal which 8 minutes are the most important. In my heart I will know for sure what is important at what time. The Bard once said, "To thine own self, be true!" Confuscious said, "Only man without time, truly understands how valuable it is." and the Buddha said, "Just Do It." Such wise, almost supernatural men genuinely understand the nature of mankind- a species without understanding. And that, Mom, is why I went over my cell phone minutes.

Open Letter to the A-Hole Who Stole My Pen Last Night

Dear A-Hole Who Stole My Pen Last Night, Congratulations on acquiring your new, used, white, black-ink, Bic "round stic" pen. I hope you are as excited by stealing it as I am about hunting you down and kicking the tar out of you. Regardless of the fact that it is just like any other, plain, Bic pen; besides the fact it costs a tenth of a cent; even though you asked "to borrow" it, you still walked away holding my pen with me sitting there, watching you. You couldn't have stolen from someone who takes pens MORE seriously than I do. I am very protective of my pens, mostly because EVERYONE steals them from me. (I don't want this to sound TOO selfish, and I want to acknowledge that everyone steals pens from everyone and that I clearly wasn't singled out for pen theft.) It boils down to me always having a plain white, black-ink, Bic "round stic" with me at ALL times, so that I always am able to write things down. You have removed this joy from my life, because you have taken my pen without my permission. To be honest with you, jackass, if I lose a pen (on my own accord) it RUINS my day, and now that you have walked away from me, holding my pen, you have become the target of my scorn for YEARS to come. You have become the face of my mortal enemy. You have ignited my jihad and become my Osama Bin Laden. After the events that occured last night, I will hunt you for years, following you through underground bunkers and hide-outs; across Iranian borders and through volatile minefields; into enemy territory, the West Bank, or the Korean de-militarized zone. Yet I know that I will never find you, that I have decided to fight a tragic, losing battle, against you, with your emo-sweep haircut, tight-fitting band t-shirt and wallet with a chain. You are the face to my faceless enemy. I will never again make the same mistake of letting my guard down and loaning my pen to you. I will remember. Regards, Jeffrey Alan Crocker

ur - the future of language

When I was 17, my girlfriend at the time had me get a pager. I was keen to the idea because it was better than a cell phone. You can stay "in touch" while not being obligated to talk to somebody. When I signed up for the service, she gave me a piece of notebook paper of pager speak, a "numeric alphabet" where numbers represented letters in both cases as well as certain phrases. This was the precursor to text messaging, because you could digitally message someone without cell phones or anything. Around this time, the bronze age of digital communication, people started to truncate most of their writing (and stop capitalizing) via e-mail as well. For example: Original message: wassup bro? i just want u 2 know that im always here 4 u. y don't we go 2 the movies l8r? KIT. Translation: Dear Brett, As your brother, I would like you to understand that I am happy to be your shoulder to cry on. Our friendship means more than words to me and I want to make sure that you are happy. Perhaps you are preoccupied with your current relationship? I suggest we go to the cinema tonight. Keep in touch, my friend. A few years l8r, with the inception of DSL and Cable modems, online gaming became a large hobby for men and boys alike. You could blast your friends into chunky, meaty, globules and you never had to get out of your pajamas! I think that this is where 1337 or "LEET-speak" comes in(someone correct me if I'm wrong, please) I seriously know nothing about 1337, except that it is next to impossible to decipher. It's fucking computer chinese. I may be wrong but I think []D[][]V[][]D = PIMP. The most perplexing thing about 1337 is that it's the opposite of text messaging speak (replacing you with U, etc.). Instead of shortening the time it takes to write a message, in fact, it takes longer and involves more complicated key strokes. Shakespeare it's not. But the very interesting pop culture aspect of 1337 is that of "pwn3d." As near as I can tell, "pwn3d" was an accident that caught on like wildfire, like herpes. The combination of the slang term, OWNED, leet speak, and a typo, most regular internet nerds know exactly how to pronounce "pwn3d." The point of me explaining all of this is because it is clear to me, that while I don't understand, use, or care for the use of U for YOU and 4 for FOR, this is clearly the future of our language. It is progress. As our world transfers tons of paper to terrabytes, and books to CD-ROMs, our written communication is bound to change with it. I'm not trying to say that writing will change, because I don't think it will. Grammar and spelling will certainly take a significant hit, as everyone has spellcheck now, yet grammar and spelling will undoubtedly become MORE important as this digital communication revolution takes place. Yes! This will be a REVOLUTION! It will represent progress into a bright new future of new ways to communicate. Everyone will have their own website soon, their own personal font created by a certified font-smith, their own personal newsfeed giving them only the headlines, box office takes, and sports information they desire, we will go to school online, we will work online, we will order food online etc etc and so on. Think about it! We buy our music online, we rent movies online, and we link to our friends information through websites and personal e-mail accounts. It is obvious 2 me, that things R changing. R U going 2 change 2?

Shattered

I have never really been one to make New Years Resolutions, yet for some reason, 2005 is the year I set a few resolutions and wanted to do my best to keep them. This last week, I totally and completely SHATTERED my Alpha New Years resolution, which was- "I will not buy any more books until I have finished the ones I haven't read yet." Let me illustrate how easy it was for me to fall off the wagon, by stating how long I was on it(6 months) and expressing how amazing it is that I was able to keep it up for that long. I go into bookstores with empty hands and I leave with an empty wallet. I am totally addicted to buying books. It's obscene. Most of the time I'm not buying books for myself, either. Presents, favors, urges, and a desire for everyone to enjoy the books that I have enjoyed, are usually the reasons I buy books for people. What I used to do was buy books based on recommendations knowing that I wasn't going to get to them right away, but would be reading them soon. And yes, this pile grew larger and larger and larger with neglect, but I was still buying books knowing that I would be reading them someday. While I still believe that I will read all the books I have purchased one of these days, at the end of last year I decided enough was enough. My bank account had suffered sufficiently and I wasn't getting to these books fast enough. No more book-buying until I did some book-reading. The days got shorter and my life got busier. To this end I still hadn't gotten to any of the books in the large, literate, landfill on my desk. And then one day last week, I opened the LA Times and saw a review for a book titled "Chuck Dugan is AWOL." It was written by Eric Anderson(the brother of Wes Anderson) and was a narrative fictional tale, but with tons of pictures and diagrams, the author having been a cartographer as a previous career. The review was glowing with praise and I thought, "Well, I'll get this book because it got a great review and I think buying one book is hardly going to hurt me." It's hard to think of a time when I have been more wrong that this. So I go to the bookstore later that afternoon and search for "Chuck Dugan is AWOL." Along the way, before I even find the book I'm looking for, I stop at the true crime section to see if they have "In Cold Blood" which is the last book I read. It was loaned to me and I like having copies of books that I read in case I need to reference them later. Sadly, they don't have "In Cold Blood," and I walk away from the section with "To Catch a Jewel Thief" and "The Scam Handbook." I head downstairs to the fiction section where I've determined Chuck Dugan is, but on my way, I pass the trashy paperback kiosk and like any good reading junky I love trashy paperback thrillers. So I pick up a copy of "Prey" by Michael Crichton. At this point, with 20/20 hindsight, having picked up three other books other than the one I was looking for, I should have realized just how far immersed into my addiction I was. I finally reached the new fiction release shelf and grabbed the book I was looking for and ran up the escalator to check out. I think it cost something like $50. That's a lot of good smack that I didn't buy. That's a nice steak dinner for my girlfriend. That's a videogame. It's new pants and new socks; four DVDs; my cell phone and utility bills; Forty cups of coffee; or Fifty soccer-themed plates from the 99cent store. But I blew it all on fucking BOOKS. Epilogue: Since that day in the bookstore, it has been an uphill battle that I have been tragically losing. These are the books that I have bought since then: Cadillac Desert Trawler Everything Bad is Good for You The Best American Non-Required Reading 2004 Anthology of Pirate Short Stories The Da Vinci Code Raid on the Sun A Series of Unfortunate Events: Book ..1 Pulp Ask the Dust

I just got some Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles

No blog. Just bragging.

No one is safe from me.

I don't watch too much TV, but I try not to miss an episode of the Amazing Race. If you aren't watching this show, you have no idea what you're missing out on.

For those that just watched the finale to Season 7, you know as I do how awesome this show can be. Finger-biting, hair-ripping, edge-of-your-seat frustration. Some of the choices people make are just baffling.

I've always thought about what would happen if I was to go on The Amazing Race. First of all, I would have to have a team member. Would I want to take my girlfriend? My mom or dad? My sister? My best friend? You never know if traveling with that person is going to help or hurt a pre-existing relationship. There is usually at least one relationship that crumbles during the course of the race. Most of them are "strengthened," supposedly, but I have my doubts about that. Personally, I would want to bring the strongest mother-fucker that I know, because the odds that you are going to be doing something physically demanding are greater than something more brainy.

And what about the language barrier? I would need to brush up on my Turkish probably, and Chinese, and maybe Japanese. They also inevitably give you a task that involves eating gross or spicy food, so i would need to eat a lot of feces in preparation. I validate eating poop because, obviously, if you can eat poop, you can eat anything else. right? RIGHT?!

Then there is going to be the inevitable task where you ride a horse/camel/llama, drive a column-shift transmission, or a double-decker bus. I'll need to brush up on my motor vehicle knowledge and local traffic laws in every country.

In fact, maybe I'll just hire a ridiculously strong butler to carry me everywhere on the race. And he will only wear a tuxedo the entire length of the race. And he will never talk because I cut out his tongue when I rescued him from cannibals. He owes his life to me and he  will never forget because I have seared my brand into his skin.

If anyone tries to beat us during the race, I will have my faithful servant break their legs, or pluck out their eyes, or cut off their hands. If that kiwi Phil Koegan tries to tell us we are not allowed to do that, he will find that his kids are being held hostage by my specially trianed SWAT team back in the states. NO ONE IS SAFE.

They will have no choice but to immediately award me the one million dollar prize, or I will tear the world apart one city at a time! You cannot defeat me! I tower above you all! Bow to me you peons and grunts! You are not worthy of my god-like presence!

NYAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

Totally Awesome Videogame!

I feel compelled to post this for the world and I need to add that if it wasn't for Rob Schrab, I would not have this and neither would you. Thank you, Rob, for your selfless, thankless efforts to make the world a better place. You cannot fathom this amazement. Your mind may be destroyed! BEWARE! http://www.macmame.net/joymusic/joystick.mp3

Get Rich Quick Scheme .397: The Bicycle Solution

I lived alone, off campus, the last two years of college. For most of that time I didn't have a car and the only way to get to school was a janky old bike that I amorously named "Rickets," because it was old and rickety and because it seemed like it had a bad case of rickets.

You don't know what rickets is? You should get an encyclopedia and learn something today. Rickets is really quite fascinating.

I rode Rickets to school for about a year, and when I wasn't going to school, I would ride to my on-campus job, the grocery store, or San Diego. While I was riding Rickets, I did not own a helmet, and I unfortunately learned a lot of lessons about biking that I would have rather learned while wearing a helmet. It was after a few of these lessons, Rickets decided to make some changes. Specifically, his wheel was bent into an inconvenient oval shape; there were only two gears that fucntioned properly; and the frame (already rusted) bent in two places.

I still needed to get to school and I hated walking, so I continued to ride Rickets, janky, oval wheel and all, to and from school.

It should also be noted that I was constantly trying to save money to buy a new bike. I knew that it was way past time to get a new set of wheels. I had looked into many many solutions to my transportation problems.

I went to the tiny bike shop and asked them to fix Rickets.
"They don't make that kind of bike anymore. We don't have the parts."

I went to the giant, bicycle mega-store.
"There's no use riding that bike. Buy a new one- our 2005 models just came in!"

I went to the medium sized bike store (oddly, NEXT DOOR to the giant place).
Them: "I won't touch that bike."
Me: "What? Why not?"
Them: "I'm liable for any injury you sustain while riding that bike if I touch it."
Me: "But can you fix it? I promise I won't sue you for my own stupidity."
Them: "You need to leave, right now."

Needless to say, Rickets wasn't going to be getting fixed up anytime soon. My only other option was to get a new bike. But a new road bike would cost me upwards of $1000 and I didn't have that kind of money. I could barely buy groceries.

So I devised a foolproof scheme to both my bicycle problems and my money problems: I would get hit by a car.

Genius, isn't it? I would get hit by a car and then, after recovering, I would calmly walk over to the driver, who, of course, would be sitting in his seat, stunned, and ask the person to write me a check for $5000 and I wouldn't press charges.

I was going to college when I thought of this. It might even have been grounds to legally commit me to the psychiatric wing in the hospital. I needed severe supervision.

What kind of person solves things by planning on getting hit by a car?! What's more, I only wanted $5000?! Who was I kidding? What the fuck was wrong with me that I thought it would be a good idea to be hit by a car? A college student.

Jesus Christ- I would be lucky to be ALIVE after being hit by a car. People do some pretty fucked up stuff in college- jump off bridges, get alcohol poisoning, study Political Science, but NOBODY wants to be hit by a car.

I only wish that I had thought about my get rich quick scheme enough to realize that one day, I would sit at my computer, dumbfounded by my own stupidity. If there is ONE thing that I take away from college—one thing that I attribute my degree to—it's that I am a complete retard.

If I Ever Become a Super-Villian...

One day, when the system has gotten the best of me for the last time, and I slam my fist down on a giant, plastic resin desk, and scream into the heavens, "NEVER AGAIN!" I will know that the world will crumble under my iron fist of a superior rule. There will be the necessary steps taken to create a latex suit with a utility belt; a secret volcano lair(does it get any MORE secret?); and a grand scheme of schizophrenic, meglomaniacal proportions.

Without any magical gem, or alien superpowers, I will need some sort of super-villian power that will make the populace sink to their knees and cry like babies. It's very obvious that without eye beams, or super strength, or psychokinesis, or razor sharp fingernails, I must turn to something that is SUPREMELY powerful: The SAT analogy.

Think about it- there is nothing more min-numbingly, emotionaly, crippling than those stupid analogies. EVERYBODY hates them. Granted, there are people that have excellent vocabulary skills and scored 1600s on their SATs, but they will fall easily to my well-trained StormTroopers.

On top of that, they have just removed analogies from every SAT from here on out, meaning there won't be anyone training with the skills needed to defeat me. I'll be unstoppable.

This does lead me to the question, "Are you allowed to take the SAT if you're not in high school anymore?" Of course, I'm sure this leads all you people to the question, "WHY?!"

Well, remember all those times that you were studying for the SAT and your parents were absolutely no help to you whatsoever? "I don't remember this stuff..." "It's been so long since i did long division." "When you take over the family cement pouring business, you won't need 'reading comprehension,' kid!" Maybe we need a leader to start making people keep up their "skills," as Napolean Dynamite would say. And it doesn't matter who you are or what you do. Shouldn't everyone need at least a little basic knowledge?

They've taken analogies off the SAT's, replaced them with more "comprehensive" questions, and added an essay. The highest score you can get is 2400. Does that mean if I ever want to go back to college, does my lame 1220 (75turn into a totally bummer 50€I guess that's incentive not to go back to college.

Personally, when I flip out and take over the world, I'm going to be making some changes of my own to the SAT. First, it'll be 2 multi-part questions. You will have to write an essay about a pre-determined topic, using all of a list of vocabulary words provided in a word bank. The second part will be a really really long, complicated math problem, pertaining to concepts that adolescent kids care about. For instance:

Jillian has 1,644 mp3s in her iPod which holds 60 gigabytes. Each song is exactly 40KB of memory. She recieves a Napster gift card for $15 to buy more songs. Songs cost $1 each on Napster. If she buys 14 new songs and deletes 38 from her iPod, how many Megabytes are left for her on her iPod?

You get the idea. Something relevant. Maybe even fun. I don't know how it will work, but I will definitely be threatening some people to make it more exciting.

Feel free to leave comments in praise of my beautiful, utopian society of intelligensia, and you will not be the first ones against the wall.

Pedophile Island

I went to bed early last night so that I could get up and take a walk. My morning constitutional, if you will. Right before I went to sleep I was listening to LoveLine on the radio and Adam Carolla was talking about his "idea" for a Lost type of TV show called "Pedophile Island." The basic premise was that in the future(2020) all the world's pedophiles were forced to live on an island in the middle of nowhere. Then one day, a plane full of Boy Scouts, on their way to the Fun Time Jamboree, goes down on pedophile island. Pretty funny.

Speaking of pedophiles, I had a conflicting moral dilemma today. I took a walk this morning and stopped in Rite Aid to pick up two items. The first item I bought was on of those cheap molded plastic toy boats that you give to kids to play in the pool. I bought it because I wanted to build onto it to make a realistic looking miniature. I was only planning on getting the boat, but then I realized that I didn't have any condoms, so back to the pharmacy area and bought a package of condoms. Done. Time to check out.

On my way back home, I walked past an elementary school. Kids were starting to arrive and walk into school, waving goodbye to their parents, running around on the blacktop. Almost past the elementary school, I see a young girl, no older than 8 or 9 years, LIMPING down the sidewalk, having obvious trouble walking to school. I start to think that maybe she was beat up by her deadbeat dad. Or maybe a bully beat her up and took her money. Or maybe she was bit by a wolverine. Who knows? I wanted to do the right thing and ask if she was OK, but then, I realized that I was carrying a plastic bag with a child's toy and a package of condoms. There is no other recipe that I know of that spells "child molester" than a childs toy and a contraceptive.

Principal: "Thank you for helping little Lupe!"
Me: "No problem. I just like to help my community."
(as I say goodbye, I drop my plastic bag)
Principal: "Oh Mr Crocker, you dropped your- what in God's name?!"
Me: "oh! ha ha! Um...you see.."
Principal: "Guards! Seize him!"
Me: "guards? what?"
(two Stormtroopers appear and grab me by the arms)
Principal: "This man is obviously a child molester. Take him away! TO PEDOPHILE ISLAND!"
Me: "Wait! I'm not a pedophile! NOOOOOOO!!!!!"

So I let this little, poor, gimpy girl, limp past me and into school where she probably got detention because she can't get to class fast enough. Then when her parents find out she got detention, her dad will beat her legs even more.

I am a horrible person.

An Open Letter to Daylight Savings Time

Dear Daylight Savings Time, I'm just a big fan writing to say Hi! How are you? You have been really busy apparently, "screwing people up," making them late for work, having alarms go off an hour early or late, and even making people change their clocks(or not). To be completely honest with you, Daylight Savings Time, I don't care what you do, and I find it mostly appalling that a large number of people blame you for their inability to get to work on time when they don't get to work on time anyway. I wanted to let you know that I don't blame you for anything. You do your job when you're supposed to and that's it. I respect that. I mean, you even do your job on the weekend so you aren't really getting in the way. Has anyone thanked you for your tireless efforts? You SAVE our Daylight through the fall and winter, eventually giving it back by showering us with beautiful sunsets at 6:30 instead of 5:30. When I was a child, I remember looking up to you as a signal that Spring and Summer were blooming and soon my nights and evenings would be full of backyard BBQs and playing hide and go seek across the neighborhood with my friends. Then when I was older, in high school, I knew that you were going to let me take girls to the beach and watch the sunset right around dinner time, so after we stopped talking about important things, we could go to a diner and keep talking. Thanks DST, because of you I've created a lot of memories that would have been kept in the dark if you hadn't done your thang. Now, as a young adult, I look to you to bring me out of my crippling, mind-numbing, winter, depression state and lift me into the months of happiness and motivated work. It's been three days and already I've done more than I ever thought I would do this year! Fuckin' A! Like I said, I'm just a fan writing a letter to you to let you know how much I appreciate the work that you are doing for all of us. Some people may badger you and use you as a scapegoat, but those people aren't aware of your true talents or the way you keep Pacific Standard Time fun and exciting and full of late evenings and refreshing mornings. Thank you, Daylight Savings Time. Thank you very much! Sincerely, J. Alan Crocker

High Score!

I love video games. The fun of playing video games for me, comes from the frenetic activity of mashing buttons and collecting apples and coins and mushrooms and birds and breaking bricks with your head or shooting a mafia crimelord or pretending you're a panda. Seriously, in the world of video games, there is nothing to far-fetched. Today, I got the highest score on Pacman that I have ever acheived and I am smiling from ear to ear about it. It's a very modest score, but I played really well and my strategy paid off. My high score stands at 46,200 on Level 7. I was reading a book about the history of arcade games and it said that Pacman is the most successful video game of all time. That's pretty hardcore. The book also went on to state that on level 49 or 456 or something, half the screen is a display of gibberish, so you can't literally beat the game. So the highest score possible is something like 3,300,000 points if you eat everything possible, and since there are so many Pacman masters in the world, they stopped measuring who was the best player in the world by the number of points since there is a finite number, and now they measure it by how fast you beat the game. Pacman is my game of choice at work because it doesn't take too much concentration or time to play and it's not too frustrating to start and stop over again. There are a few different online Pacman games out there, but here is the one that I play. Also, for the office gamers out there, the most original videogame website on the entire planet is: Orisinal.com There is a game where you are an egg adn you jump into baskets. There is another game where you are a bunch of gerbil/muskratty things that collecting red circles and avoid bees. And there is a game where you are a panda. Fucking sweet. A co-worker recommended to me EveryVideoGame.com to me yesterday when he saw me playing Pacman. He said there were tons of old Atari games on there, and with a name like every video game- well! I hustled over there right away! And I'm sad to report, they certainly don't have every video game- but there selection is quite large, consisting of Atari, 8-bit NES, and Sega games. All digitally transcribed from the cartridge system to online Java versions. Pretty cool. Another recommendation I found yesterday while searching for other old Atari games was PLAY.vg a site filled with links to old all sorts of old games, as well as, updated or remodeled versions of a lot of the older games. For the Frogger addicts out there, check out Sheepish!. Actually, Sheepish is from another website that has tons of online games called MINIclip. Miniclip actually as TOO MANY games for their own good. What they offer that no one else has are interesting versions of hangman(Hang a Roo) and Battleship(BattleShips) I would love, maybe as a present from someone, one of those new Plug and Play joysticks that they sell. There is an Acclaim joystick with like, Warheads, GrandPrix, Pitfall, etc. and a Pacman one with Pacman, Ms Pacman and Centipede. Some of them come with like 30 games and you just plug them into the front of your television and flip a switch, and it's like having a console system in the palm of your hand! $15 bucks! Huzzah! So- go waste some time, try and beat my Pacman high score, be a panda and rock out! And if your boss catches you- we don't know each other.

Haute Dog! Here I come!

I receive an e-newsletter from the Cal State Long Beach English Department every couple of days. Most of the time it has to do with on campus events or classes being offered. Sometimes it deals with readings and other off campus events, like the one i got today. I don't know if it's kosher to reproduce any of it, but i had to post this section:

Saturday, April 2: Haute Dog Poetry. As everyone in the area must know by now, Haute Dog means Justin Rudd, the impresario who promotes beach clean-ups, dog Easter parades and other community events. You are invited to read your favorite dog-themed works. Rudd will present prizes for the best entries.

Haute Dog Poetry begins at 1 p.m. on Ocean Boulevard, east of the Belmont Pier between Roycroft and Argonne Avenues, close to the water.

Directions: go to http://www.dogzone.com

For those that don't live here in Long Beach, Haute Dog is a canine boutique on 2nd St., in Belmont Shores, a very trendy part of town.

Three things immediately popped into my mind when I read this: 1.) I don't really like dogs. 2.) i don't really like poetry, nor do i ever write it and 3.) i really really really want to go do this.

Basically, to all you girls wearing dark eye make up and all you guys wearing dark eye make up, i am looking for some good poetry pointers to get my poetry up to snuff to compete in the Haute Dog! poetry competition! I know that there are PLENTY of people on MySpace with poetry experience so let's hear it! I've got a week and a half to get ready!

Does anyone else have any ideas on what I should write about?

K-DAY 93.5 FM

This one's for all you LA radio people- I love lots of different music, but the two things that I've never gotten into are 1.) contemporary country and 2.)rap/hip-hop. As for country, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton, they're pretty good. I like Johnny Cash. But the Garth Brooks, Dixie Chicks is just petty, tear-jerking, frustratingly hackneyed music. My dislike for country isn't hatred, nor does it have anything to do with exposure, so for all of you country heads out there that want to say, "You just haven't been exposed to the GOOD country music." I'm not a fan of country, so stop trying. Ok, as for rap and hip-hop, that is a case of not being exposed to the right stuff because, as I come to the point of this post, my eyes have been opened. On my commute to Hollywood, I always would see signs for "KDAY- hip hop today and back in the day!" 93.5 FM. So i finally, switched over from Indie 103.1, one evening on my way home and HOLY SHIT- KDAY is astoundigly amazing. They play the best of old school hip hop and not so much of the newer, thuggy stuff. It's the stuff you can dance to and jump around and enjoy, without all the 40s and bitches and gun cocking sound effects and screaming about "deese streets!" They played a Slam! by Onyx, which was number one on MTVs video countdown when i was in 6th grade. They play Digital Underground, Young MC, old DJ Quik(which anyone can tell you is his best stuff), Skee Lo(I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller...), and newer Missy Elliot which I seem to like. All they need is to throw in some MC Hammer, Kriss Kross, and Bone Thugs and Harmony and I will be soooooo happy. So if it's six o clock and you don't want to listen to the re-broadcast of Jonesy's Jukebox or you're sick of 98.7 playing nothing but Maroon 5 and Jack Johnson and, for some reason, old Alanis Morrisette, tune your dial to KDAY, 93.5 FM. That shit is fucking awesome. In related radio news, it's St Patricks day here in Los Angeles and I'm sure, because sooooooooooo many people have been marching in the streets demanding LA radio stations take note of this very important holiday- Arrow 93.1, The Best Classic Rock, is playing ONLY U2 today. It's been about four hours, and they're reeeeeaaaaalllllyyy scraping the bottom of the U2 barrel. I think i'm going to throw up.

The Concept of Monday

"Looks like somebody's got a case of the Mondays!" I'm sure most of you recognize this turn of phrase from the cult movie, Office Space, and while I don't attribute the coining of the term to Mike Judge, he certainly is the reason it became such a prevalent comedic phrase in the last few years. We have decided as a society to hate Mondays, because it signifies [spoilers!]the end of the weekend and the beginning of another long week of boring old work. Could this happen with Tuesdays? Wednesdays? or Thursdays? What about people that only work on weekends? I bet the LOVE Mondays! Unfortunately, the problem doesn't fall on us as individuals that just don't appreciate Mondays, it of course relates to whoever the jackass or jackassette was that named the "real" first day of the week Sunday and the second day of the week, Monday(the opposite of Sun, being Moon). So we already subconciously are thinking of the opposite of whatever we were doing the day before, which either had to do with the couch and Arrested Development or Church. And who is the douchebag that still make calendars that start with SUNDAY as the first day of the week. I don't know ANYBODY that considers Sunday the first day of the week. Everyone in the world calls it the weekend collectively, so why do we consider Sunday to still be the first day of the week. The stock market isn't open on the first day of the week. The banks are ONLY closed the first day of the week. The mail doesn't come on the first day of the week. If I'm correct, it was on the FINAL day of creation that God rested, not the fucking FIRST. I buy those small day planners from my college campus. It's about the size of a piece of letter paper folded in half, a spiral notebook, and it's got the entire week written on the two pages when the book is open. And the first day on the left page is MONDAY! Because as a college student, that's where you start to think about things, that's where the week starts for everyone. Will someone please explain to me the reason that printers still make Sunday the first day of the week when no one considers it to be that way? I hate that whenever I go away fro the weekend, I have to draw a line through Friday and Saturday and then, go to the next row and draw a line through Sunday. There has to be a reason I don't know about! Please someone help me with this.

My dominatrix

There comes a time in everyone's life they must submit to the dominating leathered hand of the mistress known as MySpace. And here I am, the pasty, bootlicking submissive that I am, kneeling, with ball gag in place, at the foot of my mistress. But like all good sexual fetishes, not only is it one of fierce, intense love followed by self-hatred and uncomfortable underwear adjusting, but one that is nothing like a "normal" experience for it will last even less than a regular endeavor. You know what they say, right? The candle that burns twice as hot, lasts half as long. I could easily add people as my friends by clicking the appropriate gender-neutral icon or pressing the inoffensive gray button. Or I could call you. Or I could send you an e-mail because i actually have your e-mail address. Or I will see you at a bar later in the evening or at a movie. But NO! I am choosing to use this...this...this...this TOOL of modern technology that we call "MY SPACE." To be totally honest, this feels less like Space than say, a giant, disgusting, dangerous skyscraper that teeters and shudders back and forth with the wind. Each day, more and more people are just stapling their tacky cubicles (built with Thomas' MySpace Editor V.2.345.43) onto the top heavy pinnacle of everything that has been built before us. What no one realizes, is that this entire monstrosity was built ON TOP of the building known as Friendster, which happens to be a hollowed out shell, with everyone having evacuated for the shiny, glossy, future that is MySpace. See, MySpace is capitalizing on the Popeil brand of COMBINATION. MySpace is a photo album, it's a bulletin board for you and your friends. It's a Blog! It's a dating service! It's research for high school reunions! It's hip! It's cool! It's customizable! It's everything you want and need from the internet in one cool, sleek, whizzy package! To put it quite simply, MySpace has driven me completely insane. That's right- I've completely lost touch with reality and answer only to Harvey the Rabbit(Or a less obscure Jimmy Stewart reference). I'm totally batty cakes, because if there is one thing that I've learned from the three days i've been using this "service" it's that human beings are intent on describing themselves according to likes and dislikes and Zodiac symbols and bands and movies and blurbs and slogans and captions. Why have we reduced our human experiences to camera phone pictures and captions?! what are we thinking?! Does anyone miss human interaction? and buying each other drinks during happy hour? have we forsaken a firm handshake and a hearty hug? what has the internet done to love letters and fan clubs? But don't mistake this essay as hatred! It's not. It's totally and completely obsessive, fetish adoration for MySpace. I am hopelessly addicted to this beautiful, intoxicating vixen of wasting time. I love MySpace because of the pain that she gives to me. And then I take a deep breath and ask for more. And more. I want her to hurt me to the point that I will cry and suffer and cower. But I know, within my wonderful agony, is the longing for more attention and humiliation from my mistress. Please. Please. Give me more. If anything, this is written purely out of fear; fear of submitting completely to MySpace, to her dominating grip of power and control. Killing me softly... Either way, Mistress MySpace, I'll see you soon. Your willing slave, Jeffrey Crocker

Pirates! and merchandise!

So, I love pirates. But not, like, the real kind that scuttle your ship, rape the women and children, and plunder your booty(if you know what i mean). I like the concept of the rum-swilling, swash-buckling, tap-dancing, shark-battling pirate. The kind that sings and dances and hasn't done his pirate-liguistic research so all he can do is say AARRR!!! a lot. Now, if you've ever been to my house, you can't help but notice the pirate themed bathroom that is, to say the least, pretty awesome. I've made a lot of modifications to the original bathroom as well as custom made pirate paraphanalia to decorate. And as inspired by other artists I have met and my dear dear friend Andy, I have decided to start selling these custom made pirate wares. I usually make written stuff, or tattoo maps made on fake skin, but if anyone has anything they would like, let me know, i will tell you how long it will take and how much it will cost and hopefully we can work something out. i probably can't sculpt anything or make ships in bottles or build you a model pirate ship or anything, so don't ask for something complicated. Maybe this is a bad idea, but i think that someone needs to provide this service. right? RIGHT?!

What an awful picture of me

i need a better representation of myself than a picture of me in a Czech prison.