Yes, We Still Love our Work

Though I’m sure you’re sick to death of hearing about it already, a few more points on I Love Your Work:

ï While it’s already been playing in theaters for a few weeks, the trailer for ILYW is now online.

ï If you live in Los Angeles, or somewhere nearby, the film opens there this Friday. Attendance that first weekend is crucial to the future life of the film, so please, please, go check it out. And bring friends. Or enemies. Or homeless people you find loitering outside. Whatever.

ï If you live in New York, the film opens here on December 2nd. It got pushed back both to secure better screens and to run more squarely in the middle of the ‘winter push’. It’s a great vote of confidence from THINK, and we’re hoping to prove the choice right by showing up, en masse, that weekend ourselves. The night of 12/2, we’ll also be holding some sort of release party, mostly so, like Gilbert and Sullivan, we can be drunk enough to enjoy the opening night ourselves.

ï If you live anywhere else, add ILYW to your Netflix queue. It won’t cost you anything, but it will help demonstrate interest in the film. Plus, no matter where you live, you’ll get to actually watch the movie.

That’s that.

Also, spookiest of Halloween wishes. This evening, like in years past, I’ll be playing 1940’s jazz with an all-lesbian (or, rather, all but me) big band at a benefit concert for The Theater for a New City. Life in New York is never dull.

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Suiting Up

Challenge: Find costume in less than three hours for a “90’s Scandals” costume party.

Solution: One old pair of ice skates from under the bed, one curly blond wig and ballerina costume from Ricky’s Costume Shop around the corner, one junior-size Louisville Slugger baseball bat borrowed from the kids who live next door.

Voila, Tonya Harding.

[Pictures, if possible, to follow.]

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Things Fall Apart

In the past few days, my physical belongings have been self-destructing at an alarming pace. The right earbud on my Shure E4c’s stopped playing. The screen on my Treo 600 suddenly developed rainbow stripes, and ceased responding to touch. And then, this morning, with an alarming thud, the keyboard drawer fell clean off of my desk.

Which, in short, has left me more than a bit paranoid: avoiding walking under light fixture or sitting too close to my heavy bookshelf. I may not have a clue what’s about to come down next, but I’ll be damned if it takes me with it.

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Smooth

When we were growing up, my brother and I used to joke that, if my father were to die, we would have him made into a fireplace-front rug.

Which is to say, he’s fairly hairy. Apparently, however, that fact eluded him for some time. Famously, shortly after he and my mother were married in their early twenties, when he was already verging on gorilla, the two of them went to Jones Beach with my mother’s sister. As a middle-aged man walked by, my father commented, ‘you know what I think is really gross? Back hair.’ Which led the two ladies to share concerned glances, implying the question, “which one of us has to tell him?”

This seminal story stuck with me for at least two reasons: first, it explicated the dangers of unnoticed back hair, and second, it indicated that, genetically, if I was at risk of looking like Teen Wolf myself, it would likely already have kicked in.

By now, having made it all the way to 26, I think I may finally be in the clear. But, heeding the other lesson of that family story, about once a week, I adjust the mirrored doors of my bathroom cabinets so that one faces the other, allowing me to double-check.

And, if I ever were to find a villous matting, I know my younger brother would come through. Still in his perilous early twenties, he keeps an electrolysist on speed-dial. Just in case.

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They Also Love Our Work

Yesterday, shortly after blogging about ILYW’s imminent release, I downloaded the podcast of KCRW’s The Business, a great and highly popular weekly radio show about the film industry.

Without looking at the title, I fired up the episode, and went about my work.

Five minutes later, I froze. There was I Love Your Work‘s director, Adam Goldberg, talking about the film, about the protracted two-year mess of actually getting it released.

And while, at first, I was mainly concerned about the potential for public embarrassment at the ears of all of Hollywood, though Adam talked extended smack about the other two companies involved, we received only passing, positive mention.

As the segment ended, however, the surreality of it all started to sink in. I walked through the rest of the afternoon, reeling at the strangeness of NPR dropping a personally-tailored episode of This is Your Life onto my hard drive.

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I (Finally) Love Your Work

ilyw_poster.jpg

Though it’s taken two years (and slogging through a slew of sordid misadventures), I Love Your Work is finally hitting theaters: Los Angeles on November 4th, New York on November 11th.

As the film’s success in those two cities will determine how much further things expand, I will love forever any readers who take time out of their busy schedules to go check it out. More details on specific theaters, etc., as they emerge.

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Guy Get-Ups

With Halloween just around the corner, my brother helpfully shared three costume ideas for creatively challenged yet lecherous and politically incorrect male youths (i.e. his Fraternity brothers); I present them for anyone who doesn’t similarly live in Denver, and can therefore shamelessly rip off his suggestions:

1. Plastic Surgeon: Buy, borrow or steal a set of medical scrubs. Scrawl ‘free breast exams’ on a piece of cardboard.

2. God’s Gift to Women: wrap a bow and ribbon around your neck.

3. Proselytizing Mormon: Dress in a dark suit, white shirt and conservative tie. Buy a copy of the Book of Mormon. Knock on people’s doors, but instead of saying ‘trick or treat’, ask if they’d have time to talk about a ‘book that’s really changed your life’.

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Consumer Whore Week: Wet Wipes

[Warning: this entry involves poop.]

Though once the sole province of young diaper-wearers, wet wipes have now crossed over to the adult mainstream, with companies like Charmin and Cottonelle pushing toilet-paper-sized, flushable, adult-targeted wipes.

Obviously, as a guy, my first reaction to this was extended, derisive laughter. But, urged on by a wet-wipe-evangelizing female friend, I took the standard wet-wipe challenge: wipe thoroughly with regular toilet paper, then go back for a wet-wipe pass.

The skid mark so aptly demonstrates how much you’ve been (quite literally) missing in the past, you’ll likely end up, like me, an instant convert.

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Intervention

This is what you get for hiring smart-asses:

From: Rob Barnum
Subject: Intervention

Josh-
Our relationship takes on many forms: business partners, CrossFit devotees, dot com escapees, an Old Testament microcosm, co-blimp pilots, bloggers, friendsÖyou get the idea.
But, my good chap, when you blog about company business and then accidentally link to some unknown weblog (www.blure.com?) rather than our animation partner, it makes us all look bad. From both a blog-brotherhood standpoint as well as a company.
Since today is a day of prayer, think about it.
You really let us down.
Rob

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