This month will mark the first month that I've paid rent for myself ever (I'm still not paying my car payment, car insurance, or health insurance mind you, but still). I paid it by eBaying, temping, selling the screenplays, and most recently doing background work (aka being an Extra).

On Friday I worked on CSI: New York so watch for me in the background of a club scene in a bar that looks like a New York City subway station. I'm wearing a bright green dress shirt and I'm right behind the drug dealer when he gives a girl a red pill. In fact, he has to nudge me aside to get to the girl. I'm predicting that I do some really good "backting" in the episode.

Backting = http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ac76766583

Today Ash and I saw Tony Hale (Buster from "Arrested Development") at our church. He supposedly goes all the time but today is the first time we saw him.

Short one today, no new pictures really but I'll keep you posted.

I started doing Extras work this week. On Monday I was on "Pushing Daisies" as a waiter in a magician flashback scene but I was never actually used on set so they paid and fed me to sit around all day.

Yesterday I was a party goer on the show "Worst Week"

which has Kurtwood Smith aka Red Foreman from "That 70s Show" and RonReaco Lee aka Tyreke from "Sister, Sister." I am in a bunch of shots for that show so look for me during a birthday party scene for Kurtwood's character where his son-in-law accidentally gives him "cigars laced with grass" as they kept saying on the show (aka blunts). I made a bunch of money yesterday (relatively speaking) because I was on set for over 12 hours. The food was also much better on "Worst Week" than on "Pushing Daisies."

Later today I am going to be a club goer on CSI: NY.

Maddy visited over the weekend and we had fun. I posted pictures on facebook but someone still has to tag them all. I will later if no one has yet.

The other night Ashlea and I went to Ghengis Cohen to see her cousin play bass for a band and afterward we stayed for dinner. While we were eating Adam Sandler and Kevin James came in and ate sooo close to us. Also, I swear I saw Nick Cannon at the post office today, LOL. On the paramount lot yesterday I saw the kid who plays little Chris Rock on "Everybody Hates Chris" because their trailers were across the alley from "Worst Week."

I'm not going to book a show for tomorrow in case this one today goes really late. Instead I'm going to sleep in, thrift, post stuff on eBay, and then go to Ashlea's co-worker friends' house warming party.

My writer's meeting went well. It's a good group of guys and I think it will force me to write by giving myself deadlines. They have some cool ideas they're working on. Also, it will give my week some structure. The first thing I'm presenting for the group is a screenplay I wrote a while ago loosely based on the Cheverly pool. I am currently doing a major rewrite to it.

I visited the set of Johnson Family Christmas last week. The movie is going to be an odd experience to watch. I met a couple of the actors. Two of them were from PG County, so that was cool.

Maddy came to visit. I'll probably put up pictures in my next post. We had a good time and one night I did karaoke for the first time. Ash and I sang a bunch of songs.

Brief post today because I got a background acting job on the show "Pushing Daisies." I am going to be a waiter. I'll post the episode that I'm going to be on once I know the info.

Tomorrow is a huge day. It's Ashlea and my anniversary (two years and nine months I'm pretty sure). I'm meeting my former Directing professor for lunch, then I'm supposed to have a phone interview to possibly be a screenwriter's personal assistant for between 15-20 dollars an hour, then at night Ash and I are going to Ghengis Cohen to see her Uncle play music.

Read Ashlea's blog, there's more info there. The link is to the right.

On Monday Ash and I went to a Gym Class Heroes concert video shoot. On the downside it was for Wal-Mart and apparently you'll be able to see the video on some new Wal-Mart website/ in Wal-Mart stores which is stupid and I hardly ever go to Wal-Mart. But Travis just joked about how you might see yourself on the video when you're buying "underwear or whatever."
The upside was that the concert was free and Ash and I both got our Gym Class Heroes t-shirts autographed by the four band members I first saw perform a few years ago: vocals Travis McCoy, drummer Matt McGinley, guitarist Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo, and bassist David Haik (see picture, guy on the far left):

sike, the bassist's name is Eric Roberts but right?

the shirt
They only played a couple songs but they hung out afterwards and it was a cool time. I'll post the video once it comes out whenever that is.

I had to revise the Johnson Family script once again. Again it wasn't for story or dialogue reasons but because they couldn't find casting. Instead of Lil' Sam I wrote a character named Scooter and now because they couldn't find a little boy I rewrote it as a little girl name Elisa. It really only changed her name and I had to make some hes into shes but it was still annoying.

I went to Central Casting today and registered to become a paid extra (aka background actor). We'll see how that goes.

Here's a picture of Ashlea and my roommate's cat Eva (presumably named after the girl robot from Wall-E):

"Girl robot" is probably an oxymoron.

I have my first writer's group meeting tonight with my mentor from Mr. Mudd and some other writers. I guess they have to accept me into the group. I don't know. I'll keep you posted about that.

FYI, Lucky # Slevin was a cool movie.

I am up to 203 movies on my list for this year. Most recently Ash and I watched All The Real Girls by David Gordon Green (George Washington, Pineapple Express). It is a great movie. It is mostly improvisational but I don't mean just funny riffs like an Apatow production but so much more, like elements of the story were made up as they went along. It works. It stars Paul Schneider (Lars and The Real Girl, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) and Zooey Deschanel (The Happening, "Weeds") who Ashlea swears I have a huge crush or something on but I don't really. This movie also features a really funny and semi-thin Danny McBride (The Foot Fist Way, Drillbit Taylor, Pineapple Express). I would say see this movie for sure.
Danny McBride (pretty funny dude):


Johnson Family Christmas is in production right now. They filmed some stuff yesterday and they're filming the bulk of it this coming week, however, they called me yesterday and they weren't able to get the majority of the cast to reprise their roles (big surprise, they had like two days notice) so I had to rewrite the script this morning changing names and facts and relationships. It actually didn't change the script that much and it's still pretty good. The producer said it should be in stores by January (distributed by Warner Bros.!!!) but that I should have a few copies by next month possibly. Even if it turns out sucking you all have to buy a copy.
The predecessor to my movie:


On Monday Ash and I are supposed to be in a Gym Class Heroes live concert music video if it works for both of our schedules.

My roommate got his cat. It's only a few months old and it's mainly white with black and orange spots. He named it Eva. I'll post pictures once I have some, she's very elusive but thankfully likes to snuggle sometimes.

Maddy's visiting at the end of the week, should be fun. Hopefully we can hit up the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater or something fun while she's here.

I got "Entourage" Season 1 from the thrift store for $6. I don't think I would like the show at all if it weren't about the movie biz because the guys are all idiot bros, but since it is about Hollywood and all that I really enjoy it.

I spent four straight hours revising the script this morning, I can't believe it's already 3pm.

Has anyone seen Pineapple Express yet (besides me)? What'd you think?

I'm going to cover a lot of things in random order in this post.

I wish that I had bought JohnMcCain.com a few years ago so I could sell it back to him for so much money.

Don't you hate it when you go to click on the iPhoto logo on your MacBook's tray and you accidentally hit the iTunes logo??!?!?!?!??! ARGHHHHHH!!!

I might join a writer's group with my former mentor at my internship with Mr. Mudd. He said they meet once a week and they read each other's stuff, set deadlines, talk about working on future projects, etc. I think all of that sounds awesome.

As some of you may know I have been carrying around the same brand of pen in my left pocket since middle school (blue Bic round stic, medium of course) in case I ever need to write something, or I have an idea, or a hot lady asks if she can borrow a pen, etc. However, you may not know that I also usually carry around a pad of paper. Tonight I am officially retiring three proud soldiers.

The third one has a drink ring on it.
I am going to type up everything I wrote in them into one huge file and save it on my computer forever but I'm still going to keep the actual notebooks somewhere. I really need a filecabinet if anyone if getting rid of one.

Here are a few gems (aka dumb jokes or observations) from my notebooks:
- "Why do ugly people go to public places to make-out?"
- "The first time you see certain people in their winter hats they look ridiculous" (It's true)
- "I took a urine test today... I hope they don't want it back" (Zing)
- A list that contains the following movies: Beetlejuice, Antwone Fisher, Amelie, and Back to the Future
- A list of characters including: A racist guy who always punctuates his comments with "You know what I mean?" and "Am I right?"
- A page in the notebook is blank except for the words "funeral comedian" and a question mark
- A character idea for a guy who's never been to a Subway sandwich shop AND who can't read (I felt like I was trapped behind that guy once. I hate being there when people first try out a restaurant. They're like "wait, I have to tell you what to put on my sandwich?")
- Jean-Claude LaMarre aka Pastor Jones' phone number (to the highest bidder!!)
- Just the words "booger silhouette"

I obviously didn't just give away any of the really good ones because I am probably going to use them in movies/ real life conversations so people think I'm so clever off the cuff.

I don't think I ever explained the second movie that I wrote for Nu-Lite Entertainment. They did a movie called Johnson Family Dinner that is not in any way related to Ice Cube's Johnson Family Vacation. I'm pretty sure they were hoping that they could trick people into thinking that they were the same Johnson Family though. I never saw Ice Cube's one but it would have to be better than Nu-Lite's Dinner. I would suggest watching Dinner the way I did, with a buddy, drinking wine, and taking notes. But anyway, I don't want to slam Dinner, just watch it and judge for yourself, it's not even really like a movie.
But anyway, I was contracted to write the sequel: Johnson Family Christmas. I never thought that I would write a Christmas movie, much less one about an upper middle class Black family but I can honestly say the script turned out pretty good. If you want to read it message me or e-mail me and I'll send it to you in PDF form.
The exciting thing is that Nu-Lite is supposedly going into pre-production on it right now and it may be out by this Christmas. So log on to www.BlackChristianMovies.com and buy the straight to DVD movie of my first produced feature screenplay Johnson Family Christmas when it gets made and released. Life is funny, but sometimes not ha-ha funny.

I'm watching the Olympics and Michael Phelps just won his 172nd gold medal. This one was in archery actually. Just kidding it was actually in a new event I guess where he had to type 400 instant messages the fastest or something. That would be maybe funnier if there weren't actually a competition for the fastest text messager.

I need a job soon, not really monetarily speaking yet because I am an online auctioneer (I sell stuff on eBay) and I write screenplays for a couple dollars here and there, but mainly because I'm getting stir crazy. I have some good leads right now though, more on that in the future.

Tons

OK, first of all. Ashlea and I saw "Work Out"'s Jesse Brune at Pinkberry the other night.



You probably have two questions: What's Pinkberry? and What's "Work Out"? Pinkberry is a delicious frozen yogurt place where you put a bunch of toppings on your yogurt, and "Work Out" is this show about a gym and that guy is on it.

Also, remember Ron Lester aka the fat guy from Varsity Blues and "Popular" bka the fat guy from Not Another Teen Movie spoofing the fat guy from Varsity Blues? Remember him? Well it seems that he must have lost 300 pounds:



What???? Good for him.

Here's my ticket to the World Premiere of Pineapple Express.


and here's my copy of "Freaks and Geeks" signed by Judd Apatow, James Franco, and Seth Rogen:

now I just need Samm Levine to sign it!!!!

Ashlea and I visited her classroom today and started setting it up. It's awesome that she has her own classroom.

See her blog to read about our latest trip to the UCB Theater:
http://lashlea.blogspot.com/
Tell her Pete sent you.

I met with Nu-Lite yesterday and delivered my latest script. Have I talked about what it's about yet? If not remind me to. I have another meeting with them on Monday to talk about something pretty exciting. I'll let you know how that goes.

This post is chronologically out of order. Sorry.

My roommate got an XBOX 360 and is getting a cat tomorrow. I'm more excited about the cat by far. What are good games for the 360 that don't require me to press a million buttons at once?

Ash and I are going to San Diego tomorrow for her Aunt's wedding on Thursday.

Last night Ashlea and I went to the Pineapple Express world premiere. Before the movie we stood outside and watched the red carpet. I got my "Freaks and Geeks" DVD boxed set autographed by Judd Apatow, James Franco, and Seth Rogen. When Judd saw the DVDs he said "That's a good one" and I said "Yeah."



At the premiere we saw: Judd, James, Seth, Danny McBride (Foot Fist Way, Drillbit Taylor), Joe Lo Truglio (Wet Hot American Summer), Evan Goldberg (co-writer of Superbad and Pineapple Express), a bunch of other members of the cast like ROsie Perez and the guy who played the jerky boss on Office Space, Daniel Craig (everyone went nuts), Jim Carrey with Jenny McCarthy, Jack Black, Kanye West, Lloyd and the publicist from Entourage, Jon Voight (it was sad that the little girls around me knew him as Angelina Jolie's Dad), Wes Chatham (had the greatest line in In The Valley of Elah), Channing Tatum, Stanley from The Office, Ash saw Meredith from The Office and the woman who plays Jeremy Piven's wife on Entourage, Leslie Mann, Jonah Hill, Amber Heard, RZA, Emile Hirsch, and I talked to Jeff Garlin ("Curb Your Enthusiasm" and the voice of the Captain in Wall-E) but he seemed like he didn't want me to blow up his scene because he wasn't on the red carpet. I also saw the drug dealer from The Rules of Attraction and maybe Skeet Ulrich from Scream. And some others, Ash do you remember anyone else?

Here are some of the better pictures we took:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2150099&id=18400313

Then, to top it off we got into the movie for free because they handed out ticket right near us and I snagged two. There were two theaters playing it at the same time. We were in the one with Stanley and Channing Tatum and Skeet. The movie was really good but it wasn't anything compared to Superbad.

I'll post pictures of my ticket and my signed DVDs soon.

I was supposed to turn in my latest script to Nu-Lite today but they never called. I hope I can handle that on Monday.