Ugliest animal I’ve ever seen. The Aye-aye.
Monthly Archive for August, 2007Page 3 of 6
We shot the pilot episode today for a new reality show, called Wells Fargo: We’ve Made All The Money We Need, And Do Not Want Your Business™. Since it will take a few months for the show to air, I’m posting the transcript here for your entertainment pleasure.
Scene 1: In Which Michael Finds A Car He Wishes To Buy
Gretchen: We should sell your truck and buy a car that can fit our growing family.
Michael: I agree. Also, you’re sexy. Look, here’s the exact car we’ve been talking about, for a reasonable amount of money. It is an environmentally-friendly clean-diesel 2006 Jetta, with low milage. We should buy it.
Gretchen: Let’s buy it.
Michael: Rather than spend the money we have earmarked for a down payment on our first house, let’s go get a car loan to purchase the vehicle. That way we can put more money down on the house, and qualify for a lower interest rate on our mortgage.
Gretchen: That’s a sound financial decision.
Scene 2: In Which Michael Applies For A Car Loan from Wells Fargo
Michael: My wife and I would like to apply for a car loan, so that we can purchase a vehicle for our growing family.
Wells Fargo: OK, let me get some details. How much money do you make annually?
Michael: (an amount that is 6x the purchase price of the vehicle)
Wells Fargo: Excellent. What are your monthly expenses for rent and outstanding loan payments??
Michael: (an amount that is 1/4 of our gross monthly income)
Wells Fargo: Great. It looks like you and your wife have established a sound financial footing for yourselves, one in which your income exceeds your expenses by a reasonable amount.
Michael: Yes, we have.
Wells Fargo: It also looks like you pay all of your bills on time, don’t bounce checks, and have generally conducted yourselves like responsible adults.
Michael: Yes, yes we have.
Wells Fargo: Great! We’re not loaning you the money.
Michael: Excuse me?
Wells Fargo: We’re not loaning you the money.
Michael: Why the $#%&* not?
Wells Fargo: You don’t have enough credit history.
Michael: … credit … history … ?
Wells Fargo: Yes. It shows on your credit report that you haven’t borrowed enough money to qualify to … ya know … borrow money.
Michael: Does it show that we took out a loan on a brand new Saturn 6 years ago, and that we paid it off 3 years later, just like we said we would?
Wells Fargo: Yup.
Michael: I don’t understand
Wells Fargo: Well, you paid it off.
Michael: Yes …
Wells Fargo: So it no longer counts. It doesn’t show us how you will manage your current debts.
Michael: WE MANAGE OUR DEBTS BY PAYING THEM OFF!
Wells Fargo: Yes, it sure looks that way, doesn’t it.
Michael: Does it show that we have a platinum credit card that we pay off every single month? Does it show that the credit limit on that card is high enough that, if we wanted to, we could just charge the car to our card?
Wells Fargo: Well, technically, since you opened that card up under your business, it doesn’t count toward your personal credit history.
Michael: Would you like to guess whose credit record is going to get f’d up if I stop making the payments?
Wells Fargo: Sir, don’t get snippy with me.
Michael: Sweetheart, I haven’t even started to get snippy yet. So, we’re not getting turned down because of bankruptcy, late payments, bounced checks, felony convictions, or bad dental hygiene; we’re getting turned down because we HAVEN’T BORROWED ENOUGH MONEY?
Wells Fargo: Yes sir. We have no way of knowing if you’ll pay back the money you’ve borrowed unless you’ve borrowed lots of money already, and paid some of it back.
Michael: Ok, let’s review. My wife and I will make more money this year than 80% of the people in the county.
Wells Fargo: Yes.
Michael: We pay less than 1/4 of our monthly income in rent and other fixed expenses.
Wells Fargo: Yes.
Michael: It’s not like we’re buying an Bentley here; we’re buying a family sedan for under $20,000 dollars. The payments will be less than $400 a month.
Wells Fargo: Yes. Not excessive at all.
Michael: We have our accounts here with Wells Fargo, and you have the balances in front of you. You know that we could pay cash for this car.
Wells Fargo: Yes.
Michael: And we’ve paid off every dollar we’ve ever borrowed in our entire lives.
Wells Fargo: Yes.
Michael: Can I ask a question?
Wells Fargo: Of course.
Michael: If you aren’t making car loans to people like us, who the hell are you making them to?
I’m kind of a big deal, you know. I’m a sort-of #1.
I have a little piece of #1.
I’m like #.00432 on iTunes right now.
Today, the soundtrack for High School Musical 2 was released, oh… I don’t know… intergalactically. In recent weeks, I have greatly enjoyed the ramp up to this day. A poster here, an article there. The frenzy builds.
Last January or so I wrote two posts about this cool gig I landed. After some consideration, and a good look at the confidentiality agreement and digitally watermarked demo CD, I had Mike pull them down. I don’t know how to repost them. Hopefully the blog fairy will flutter by and fix it, and also leave cookies and a sarcastic barb or seven.
The short version is this: Last December I got a call from this guy named Randy who wrote songs with another guy named Kevin who got my name from this other guy named Scott who does jingles. (This is how all good stories in L.A. begin, FYI.) Randy needs a tenor vocalist to demo up a song. Randy is paying a fair hourly demo session rate, and we book the gig.
I play it cool, I don’t ask too many questions, I sing the tune. Randy loosens up and tells me we’re working on a demo for High School Musical 2. Jackpot! Oh, and he and his partner had a cut on High School Musical… uh… Episode 1. Google confirms! He’s legit! Jackpot, with a bonus round.
The song gets revised, I re-sing it. Revised again, I sing it again. Eventually, it becomes this. Randy’s happy because Disney has just basically bought him a pool, and decides to spread the love. He recommends me to Disney for the ensemble for the whole she-bang. So, I got the gig. :)
So, as of today, the soundtrack that sits at #1 on iTunes, and will sit atop of the Billboard 100 next week, and has a good shot at being the #1 selling record of 2007, features yours truly on 6 of it’s 11 songs. Anytime you hear large ensemble vocals, as you memorize the dance steps in the next two months (Corey and Beth) you’re hearing 4-6 passes of The Chadster. Gotta love stacks.
Oh, and some of my demo vocals made it through to the final mix of Work This Out. The BGV stacks on every chorus is me. Hey… those stabs in the bridge and crazy vocal into the keychange sure sound familiar. Wow… I’m actually listening to it for the first time right now (I wonder how much of the $.99 goes back in my pocket? $.0000000023 is a safe bet.) and I am quite pleased with how much of the original vocal is still there! Yay!
Sorry.
It’s not curing cancer, but it sure feels nifty.
If you are drinking water from the fountain in the Piazza di Spagna in Rome, you should climb to the top of the Spanish steps, turn left, stop at the hilltop cafe to buy a lemon gellato, then walk another 500 steps up the bricked tree-lined walkway. All at once, the trees part, and you will find yourself standing on the garden terrace of the Medici Princes. It is the balcony of Rome, and from where you are standing, you can see everything.
To your right is the Vatican, the towering dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, the cathedral that birthed the Protestant Reformation. On the far side to your left, you can see the ruins of Imperial Rome, the city of the Caesars, just peeking out between and above the apartments and buildings. The arch and block architecture of Rome’s 1st empire on the left, and the dome and spire architecture of Rome’s 2nd empire on the right, and the whole city between is echo and cadence on those two themes.
The city is flowing with water. Every fountain in the city is fed directly from the Roman aqueduct, restored and doubled in capacity some 300 years ago. Is is fresh, clean drinking water, cool even on hot days, and the pride of the city. Romans will smile, and point to it, and say “Drink, drink! Is good!” Place your hand on the marble thigh carved by Bernini, stick your head into the stream of water, and drink!
Rome invites you inside her history. I expected ropes and barricades, a history to be viewed and appreciated, but never touched, not stepped on, or leaned up against, or drenched under. Instead, I placed my hand on wall etched with an ichthus 1700 years ago, deep in the catacomb tunnels. When I was tired, I sat down on the marble foot of a column set in place by Raphael when he was the lead architect of St. Peter’s Basilica. I sat on a wooden bench in the Sistine chapel where Michelangelo paused to eat his lunch, those few days he did pause, while painting The Final Judgement on the front wall of the chapel.
Every ancient thing in the city is in the city, in the midst of a teeming and vital urban center, with people living their lives, just as people have lived their lives since the tribes of the Three Hills first met together to trade in the sunken valley that would later become the Forum. Rome is not a museum. Her bones are wrapped in flesh.
Every ancient thing is a monument, a starting point and a prop in the telling of some great story, some story that moved the rudder of history, that set in motion some important thing still echoing today. This church, designed by this artist who was smuggled out of the French court by this pope, which caused this war between Spain and France, which is why this region is part of France to this day. This platform, from which Marc Antony delivered his impassioned eulogy of Julius Ceasar, “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ear,” which drove Brutus and Crassus from the city, opening a power vacuum in Rome that would be filled by Ceasar’s adopted son Octavian, whose ascent to the imperial throne sealed the fate of Rome as an empire ruled by tyrants, and no longer a republic. This dank and fetid hole, where Peter and Paul were chained to the wall for 19 months before being martyred for their faith. This archway, built in honor of Vespasian upon his return from Israel after destroying the temple in AD 70, the act that would cement his political power bloc and cloak him in purple, the act that would crush the national identity and religious center of Judaism for 1900 years. This chapel, where Michelangelo, the 33-year-old sculptor, who had never painted anything before, painted frescoes with such ferocity and realism that art changed around him.
Rome is the story of the church. She was incubated and born in Jerusalem, but she grew to maturity in Rome. Rome gave us engineering, architecture, and city planning. Rome gave us banking, and modern economic systems, and taught us how to build infrastructure. Rome is the story of the Renaissance, bankrolled in its prodigious infancy with papal commissions. Rome is a thousand stories, a hundred beginnings, all told with props and monuments that you can walk between, lay hand on, lead against, and on a hot day in July, splash your head beneath and drink deeply from.
Drink. Is good.
(click to see a slideshow of pictures from the whole tour.)
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