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| Rant #4: My Busy, Busy Week Alright kids, time to tell you a little something about me you may not have known: I own another business... Ever go into a bathroom at an upscale restaurant or strip club and see a guy handing out towels?That's right, it's me... Or one of my guys. It's a cool job, actually. We sit around, watching television and working on comics, and people hand us money for it! It's insane! Can anyone guess the name of the company? Right again. It's Aberrant Attendants (So I guess I'm not all that creative after all). The one drawback is that I don't have enough clubs/restaurants to make enough money to not go out and work most of the week in said bathrooms. That means my time gets split between the two companies and now that we're moving full force around here at Aberrant Press, I have led one busy, busy week. The Balance was pretty good. We were working on some comics half the week, and the other half was spent paying the bills. So I got a little cocky. I figured, "Hey, why not pile a whole bunch more work on?" So we decided to get our first feature film out of the way. Still, things were going good... The Super Bowl fixed my wagon but good... The big game is even bigger in Vegas. A veritable shitload of people come pouring into my fair valley to put up money on the big game and party like animals. It's the mother-load for those of us who work in the tipping industry. Profits for the week double, as does the work. Friday-Sunday were just insane days. I don't remember half of them because I was so worn by day two. The entire weekend became a a blur of guys who were in either high or low spirits (tipping well either way), strippers who wanted my attentions (never a bad thing), and business bleeding over (I had people coming into the club to have artwork done!). All in all, I handled it pretty well and was ready by the end of Sunday night to take a nice, long nap and wake to the first day of filming on this movie (Tales Form the Android's Dungeon). Then Sarah called... Let's face it, being a comic geek means I'm basically a chump with the ladies... I'm the nice guy... So when Sarah called me at two a.m. to tell me a cop was having her car towed, I came runnin'. This is where my plans for the evening spiral out of control. I close up shop at the strip club and pick her up just as the tow truck driver is hooking up her car. Then we have to go back to the club so that I can finish up some business. A wrestling promoter and personal friend was in need of a ride home... And believe me, when a drunk, belligerent, 350 pound wrestler asks, you listen. But with fortune, he happens to live not two blocks from where Sarah hangs her hat. At the same time, my boy Onion Shows up and wants to go grab a bite to eat... Then locks his keys in his trunk... What choice do I have? I've got the stripper and the wrestler crammed into my tiny little muscle car, and my homeboy stuck in a strip club parking lot, waiting for a locksmith while wearing his kevlar and pistol (he's armed security)! So... I ditch my boy! Can you blame me? He'll be alright, he's got a gun! The rest went as follows: drop off the wrestler, go to her apartment to obtain paperwork necessary to get the car released, have breakfast at her behest, gamble (we ate at a casino), get the car out of impound, eat again (man, this girl can eat!), go to the DMV so they can tell us we need more paperwork or cash to clear up the registration problem that got the car towed in the first place, a visit to an insurance company and a tax preperation firm, and finally back to the DMV to just give them cash and be done with it! All said, I didn't leave her side until 1:30 in the afternoon. Damn near twelve hours! And what did I do after that? I went to pick up Gilbert... We had a movie to film. |
| Rant #5: My Busy, Busy Week Ended Up Being Twins! How dumb does one have to be to spend twelve hours running around with a girl, only to have to spend the next twelve shooting a film and running a comic company? Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce myself, Mister Dumb. How ridiculous to think I could handle this crap! My sleep schedule was completely wrecked, filming became that much harder and I swear I saw little pixie people with wings flying around the room and flinging racial slurs at me (I'm just kidding about that last part)! BUT... I got through day one. Days two and three were no better. For whatever reason, none of us got any sleep those days, so we were all out of it again. The workflow was slow going and not alot was done. We ended up falling short of our shot goal for the first three days. Most of the interior for the first scene was out of the way, but none of the porch shots were done. At the same time, I was reviewing color submissions for Super and pricing out printing companies to find someone to print my new business cards. Again though, we made it without anyone having too much of a heart attack. We decided that there was no way we were getting off schedule and figured that even if we had to shoot every day for the whole week, we were finishing this damn scene. And that's how it went. With the exception of Saturday, we shot every single day. On Thursday, Gramm couldn't show up because someone was coming to his house for computer help. Friday was just Gilbert arriving to grab some quick pick-up shots around the house. Saturday, we rested... And it was good (Oh, except the fact that I was working nights). Sunday, we finally got Gramm over but now Jeff couldn't be there! Screw it! We'll shoot Gramm's close-ups and get them out of the way! Finally, on Monday, we all gathered and got the wide shots out of the way... Phew! That was fun, huh? Well, on the plus side, during all this, we got the following accomplished: The first scene is shot and we have a rough cut done. We chose a colorist for Super and the guy is the shiz-nit as far as professionalism and desire go. I found a company that printed my cards at one helluva price and they look fan-friggin'-tastic (go to their site!). I got some commission work out of the way, which means I may actually be able to drag myself back on a comic. Heck, I even got some space freed up on my computer! Now if I can just keep it from crashing... Anyway, this story may seem shorter than last week's, but trust me, the grind was even harder... Oh well, whatcha gonna do? Me? I'm going back to my office now, to take in some lunch. |