Thursday, October 18, 2012

Process serving thwarted

This photo was allegedly shot late yesterday by a process server approaching my house:

photo credit: Lee Wag

        It might have been Adrienne Loska (Mike's manager), I wasn't sure about that. Fortunately I saw her coming and yelled "Go away you douchebag! There's no Expat here!!" I put on my famous Boston accent, too. Phew, a narrow escape...

21 comments:

Jiminy Oddbird said...

How did you fake that British accent for that entire radio broadcast the other day?

A Boston accent is merely pronouncing words the way they are actually spelled. Take for instance the name of Jesus' mother, the common Yuletide greeting, and what a man and woman do who are joined in holy matrimony.

Mary, merry, & marry. On the West Coast, each of those three words is pronounced exactly the same, but that's not how the Kennedy's sound them out.

Jiminy Oddbird said...

Nice yard.

expat said...

You mean yaaad, surely?

Micro Borough said...

Representing allegedly such an oblivious and illustratively malodorous contributor to the scientific community of a significantly large quantity of mirth and less desirable secretion has proved to be a surprisingly profitable exercise. Discovering real estate such as that depicted promises to be of great value to my client, note the increased thermal insulation using purely natural wall material, the Faraday screening against the harmful and in all possibility corrupting alien radio signals emerging from the Van Ballen belt, and the clear isolation from the intrusive and polluting influences from other beings of the Homo inclusion. I can only offer my unbelievable envy if he persues the occupants...

Trekker said...

Misti, I don't know what a West Coast accent sounds like, but nowhere else in the English-speaking world would those three words be pronounced the same way! The sounds are very distinctive.

Anonymous said...

Those three words are pronounced exactly the same way here in the Midwest. Nice house btw. Not nearly as nice as those beach front homes on the Moon however.

FCT Gale. said...

Anonymous said ...'Not nearly as ... beach front homes on the Moon...'.
I was thinking, there sure could be have been some good surfing to be had there in times long ago! Ah, wait... would gravity play a role?

Jiminy Oddbird said...

That's right, yaaad; and don't call me Shirley.

Jiminy Oddbird said...

Mare, like the female horse with a doube ee branded on her ass; 'Mare-ee'.

Jiminy Oddbird said...

Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDtlEBPWUpA


Mary Tyler Moore (Mary Richards)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sclp4wVV2Cc

Jiminy Oddbird said...

Foreigners learn English in Seattle, because the accent is so bland, it supposedly is easier to learn. News anchors have to speak with a West Coast lack of accent.

Anonymous said...

"Paark yur Kahr in the Hava'd Ya'd"

Expat; Do you hear dueling banjos?

Nice house!!:)

Dale

expat said...

I'm not a fan of that movie.

Jiminy Oddbird said...

You know, I don't like Deliverance, either. It's supposed to be so great, but I don't see why. That dueling banjos scene is a trip, though. I hear that the kid really is severely challenged, that he doesn't actually play the banjo at all. Some feel that he was unfairly exploited in that FLICK. I don't know, about that. He seems to be having fun, and must have gotten paid.

expat said...

Billy Redden isn't retarded but you're right about the banjo playing.

The production was far from peaceful, in fact a fist-fight broke out between the director and the writer.

Trivia: During the production of which major 1999 movie, shot in Arizona, did a knock-down fight break out between the director and the male star?

Jiminy Oddbird said...

Never let the writer on the set.

I never did see or even ever hear about Three Kings. Looks good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_O._Russell#Career

During filming, news spread of Russell and George Clooney nearly having a fistfight on the set of Three Kings. In a 2000 interview, Clooney described his confrontation with Russell after tensions on the set had been steadily increasing. According to Clooney, Russell was demeaning the crew verbally and physically. Clooney felt this was out of line and told Russell, "David, it's a big day. But you can't shove, push or humiliate people who aren't allowed to defend themselves." After the confrontation escalated, Clooney said Russell eventually apologized and filming continued, but Clooney described the incident as "truly, without exception, the worst experience of my life."

Jiminy Oddbird said...

http://www.clooneysopenhouse.com/t86-interview-with-playboy-june-2000

CLOONEY: You can do riskier films as long as you’re willing to dump your price. Early on, I was told they couldn’t make Three Kings for the kind of money the studio had for the film. I said they could cut my money down by two thirds. It was just about doing a damn good movie. You have to gamble on yourself. You take a percentage of the backend, so if the movie makes money, you make money. If it doesn’t, you make the movie anyway.

PLAYBOY: What made you want to do that movie?

CLOONEY: David Russell wrote as good a script as I’ve ever read. If ought to get it. He wanted a lot of other actors before me. They went to Mel and to Nic Cage. I wanted to work on this movie. David is in many ways a genius, though I learned that he’s not a genius when it comes to people skills.

PLAYBOY: Did you learn about that the hard way?

CLOONEY: I did. He yelled and screamed at people all day, from day one.

PLAYBOY: Did he yell at you?

CLOONEY: At me often and at someone daily. He’d throw off his headset and scream, “Today the sound department fucked me!” For me, it came to a head a couple of times. Once, he went after a camera-car driver who I knew from high school. I had nothing to do with his getting his job, but David began yelling and screaming at him and embarrassing him in front of everybody. I told him, “You can yell and scream and even fire him, but what you can’t do is humiliate him in front of people. Not on my set, if I have any say about it.” Another time he screamed at the script supervisor and made her cry. I wrote him a letter and said, “Look, I don’t know why you do this. You’ve written a brilliant script, and I think you’re a good director. Let’s not have a set like this. I don’t like it and I don’t work well like this.” I'm not one of those actors who likes things in disarray. He read the letter and we started all over again. But later, we were three weeks behind schedule, which puts some pressure on you, and he was in a bad mood. These army kids, who were working as extras, were supposed to tackle us. There were three helicopters in the air and 300 extras on the set. It was a tense time, and a little dangerous, too. David wanted one of the extras to grab me and throw me down. This kid was a little nervous about it, and David walked up to him and grabbed him. He pushed him onto the ground. He kicked him and screamed, “Do you want to be in this fucking movie? Then throw him to the fucking ground!” The second assistant director came up and said, “You don't do that, David. You want them to do something, you tell me.” David grabbed his walkie-talkie and threw it on the ground. He screamed, “Shut the fuck up! Fuck you,” and the AD goes, “Fuck you! I quit.” He walked off.It was a dangerous time. I’d sent him this letter. I was trying to make things work, so I went over and put my arm around him. I said, "David, it’s a big day. But you can’t shove, push or humiliate people who aren’t allowed to defend themselves.” He turned on me and said, “Why don’t you just worry about your fucked-up act? You’re being a dick. You want to hit me? You want to hit me? Come on, pussy, hit me.” I’m looking at him like he’s out of his mind. Then he started banging me on the head with his head. He goes, “Hit me, you pussy. Hit me.” Then he got me by the throat and I went nuts. Waldo, my buddy, one of the boys, grabbed me by the waist to get me to let go of him. I had him by the throat. I was going to kill him. Kill him. Finally, he apologized, but I walked away. By then the Warner Bros. guys were freaking out. David sort of pouted through the rest of the shoot and we finished the movie, but it was truly, without exception, the worst experience of my life.

Jiminy Oddbird said...

So it was Jon Voight, not Jon-Luc, who perpetuated the myth about the tardo banjo player.

expat said...

The "Three Kings" story is entertainingly told in 'Rebels on the Backlot: Six Maverick Directors and How They Conquered the Hollywood Studio System' by Sharon Waxman. She even reproduces the letter Clooney sent to his director, written on hotel stationery. A good read.

expat said...

As to the question "which is finer, film grain or .tiff pixels?" that would entirely depend on the scanning resolution. I'd guess that film grain would win in all but the most extreme cases.

Jiminy Oddbird said...

The Three Amigos is pretty good, too.


Rebels on the Backlot:
Six Maverick Directors and How They Conquered the Hollywood Studio System