In-N-Out Legends (in their own mind...and on this blog)

Any of you who have had the pleasure of living or spending any time on the Left Coast more than likely not only know about In and Out Burger, but have dined there as well. Therefore you don't need me to explain how the menu works, but simply to say, that if you want a bigger burger you just ask for it by the number of meat patties and slices of cheese you want and they'll make it. A single and "double double" are already on the menu but you can order a 3 by 3 (three pieces of meat and three pieces of cheese between two buns), 4 by 4 (four pieces of meat and four pieces of cheese between two buns) and so on and so on.

Anytime the conversation comes up, everyone who's eaten In-N-Out seems to have a story about the biggest burger that they've eaten or seen someone eat. "I saw some frat boy eat a 20 by 20 one day"..."I heard someone ordered a 50 by 50 but they wouldn't make it" etc. Personally, I've taken down a four by four but stopped there.



Well, this tops them all. As you'll read about on the following page, some people in Las Vegas decided to try and take down the biggest In-N-Out burger known to have been made. A 100 x 100!

Read the full story here!

the NEXT great movie...from me to you

It's a well known fact in my circle of friends and amongst my family that the movie I have worked on in my short professional career have not been the cream of the crop. I commonly like to refer the movies that have bore my name in the credits as being easily found in the discount bin at Wal Mart.

At the point in my career that I'm at right now it really doesn't matter if the movie is good or bad. My participation does not currently affect that content of the finished film (notice I said currently). I get paid the same if the movie wins the Oscar, the weekend or goes straight to DVD. That said, of course it would be fun to work on something truly good, or that at least makes a big splash.

Until that day comes though I will continue to fill the bins of Wal Mart with such future classics as "Next." The trailer was just recently released and you can find it HERE at the movie's webpage. You can also sign up for e-mail so you can receive "breaking news" about the movie. I worked on the movie and have no earthly idea what could possibly be classified as breaking news about a movie release. Frickin Hollywood!

What a snore....Part 2

finally, Ellen made a Jack joke - and it got a laugh. Stick with what works....

What a snore....

it's official - out here on the west coast, "Grease: You're the One that I want" is beating the Oscars in the ratings right now.

this is the most terribly, boring show i have ever seen. it's rigid, no one is taking any chances, it's not funny, it's not real, there is no glamor, glitz, no explosions, no excitement, no nothing.

the sound editing for the show was terrible, mics going on and off, applause volume going up and down, camera miscues...

no one has made fun of Jack, and HE'S EVEN BALD THIS YEAR!!! That's so easy. Sure he's presenting this year, but truthfully they invite him every year and put him in front just because he's great TV!!! Take advantage...

You have Borat at the Oscars, use him, abuse him....

The only thing that could save this award show would be a steel cage match between Scorscese, Spielberg, and Lucas.

ugh, it's too bad really - could have been a great year

WRAP WRAP WRAP

4:59pm - we wrapped the principal photography for The Bucket List. A shot of tequilla, a cold beer and then back to work. For most people this is the end of this project, we here in the production office will still have 3 more weeks give or take. And then....well, then who knows. East, stay west, go central, go global....really don't know right now. I'd say I'm waiting for a sign, but I'd rather make up my own mind and just take a chance one way or the other.

So until then, here's to another notch under the old film production belt here in Hollyweird.

Two years...and the adventure STILL continues...

This was me two years and one week ago in the Caribbean shooting a documentary in Haiti:

This was me two hours and ten minutes ago, at 11,000' in the Rocky Mountains coordinating a film crew shooting on top of the mountain you see behind me:

That John Denver knew what he was doing...

It's a fact that I have fallen in love with at least a dozen girls after having arrived here in the mountains. Every where I go, from the rental car place in Denver to the top of the A Basin - there is another cute girl with her hair pulled back in a messy pile on the back of her head, smiling and breaking my heart when she walks away. Yet, before I can even begin to miss her there is another one.

I guess I should first define what I mean by cute, as normally cute is such a vanilla, boring, weak-ass word. In my opinion, there are the girls (commonly found in LA) that are trying so hard to look hot and these are the girls you notice when you drive down the street. They're commonly plastic, showing more skin than you see at most Hooter's Restaurants (so I'm told) and are noticed from a far. They are definitely beautiful, but closer examination often proves disappointing and if you dare venture into conversation you find yourself even more let down. Then there are the pretty city girls. You'll recognize them from their tightly pulled back hair, and the scowl on their face. All business, and often a bit jaded - they are metropolitan and beautiful.

But then there are the cute mountain girls. Caught some where in between college hippie and ski bum, you'll almost always find a huge smile on their face just below the stocking cap they're wearing. Hair is often pulled back in one of those piles on their head that are messy and created by sticking a writing utensil through it. Not sure what they are called, or really even how you make one, but it must be taught to every girl who goes above 6,000 feet. And they seem happy, they always seem happy and smiling.

Now please don't take this the wrong way, this isn't meant to sound chauvinist in any way, it's just that I am amazed at the number of beautiful girls up here in the mountains and it got me thinking that I wanted to know why? Were they that cute before and something on the cute gene tells them to move to higher elevations? Is it something in the air that slowly transforms them upon their arrival? Is it just the lower amounts of oxygen getting to my brain that is causing all of this?

And it's not just me, I had this exact debate with a friend over lunch a couple of days ago and he felt the same way about the mountains but neither one of us could figure out a reason why. He had to leave yesterday, and I came back up to the ski area to keep working and met another girl. Her name is Courtney and just like all the others, she is beautiful and works here at the A Basin. She helped me out by letting me use their office for a bit and then I bid her (and her 3 carat ring) farwell. She smiled, said "anytime" and then went back to her work.

That's when it hit me: they're beautiful because they're happy. They live in one of the most beautiful regions of the country, where people are laid back and don't seem completely jaded by the screwed up world we live in. You say hello and they don't have to weed through the pent up anger to find a favorable reply, instead it's right there on the surface. It's a different mentality up here and maybe a girl could make the same observations about the guys that call this home, whether full time or part time.

As for me, I'll continue falling in love with every cute mountain girl I meet until it's time for me to return to HollyWeird. I often joke with co-workers that I'm going to leave "the business," move to the mountains and open a hardware store or something. More and more, it's sounding like a good idea...

Weather Men Are Assholes

Below is Today's weather forecast according to the National Weather Service:

Today: Snow likely. Cloudy, with a high near 21. Light wind becoming west northwest between 13 and 16 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.


Here are the pictures I took just about 10 minutes ago:

Out like it came in....

When I woke up nearly eighteen hours ago, it was quiet and snowing here in Dillon, not hard - not flurries, simply snowing. It picked up and despite a bit of a scare that we wouldn't get any shooting the sun shined down upon us, literally, and when it was all said and done we had some film in the can.

Now, after watching a weather report that involves low pressure systems in Texas, high pressure coming down from Washington state, a butterfly flapping it's wings in Australia tomorrow is not looking so promising. We have already added another day to our 2 day shoot and it turning to a 4 day is not out of the realm of possibility. What does that mean for me? Change all the flights, extend the hotel (remember this coming weekend is a holiday weekend), extend all rentals, redo all the orders, and then try to make it back to Los Angeles with time enough to get on another plane to head to Boston.

But it's really true, I'm typically the happiest when I'm doing a dozen things at once in a far off location at about a hundred miles per hour.

But now...the day is going out like it came in, it's quiet and it's snowing.

Fox and the Snow Gods

I was sitting here in my "office" when i noticed an old man in a rainbow stocking cap flicking water onto the window. He was dancing around to the rock and roll being pumped across the base and generally talking to himself...

so of course I walked out to get his story.

he told me his name was Fox, and that he was one of the owners of this mountain. not the ski resort, the actual mountain. i asked him what he was doing he told me he had just talked with the snow gods and they were sending him snow. he looked away and sung to some snow boarders that were standing below him. "Get back up there, I'm sending you snow!!!" I asked him why he wasn't up there skiing? "Lost the bindings off my ski's, need to find them, then put them on...forget which mountain i left them on." He went back to his dancing.

I backed away and took a picture of him, speaking to his mountain when i noticed the small pockets of sun were gone and it was lightly snowing. I then looked down the valley and big, low lying gray cloud was blowing right for us.

Fox had done it, he brought the snow but he also brought the end to the rest of our shooting for the day. I didn't tell him that, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have cared.

Here comes the sun....

not only did that song just get played on the 80's acid rock radio station i'm currently listening to, but the snow stopped, the clouds began to break and we just might be in business.....

Ski Hill Food

the hunger pains just hit me so i went down to buy myself something. the burnt out ski bum high school kid working the check out charged me over seven dollars for a coke and an energy bar. jesus, i forget how expensive everything is up here...if I wasn't spending company money it would possibly be time for a diet.

A Thousand Miles Away & Two Miles Up

At this moment, I'm sitting at the base of the Arapahoe Basin ski area, and two thousand feet up some of the best skiing I know is a film crew of 25 people waiting for a break in the clouds.

I flew in to Colorado on Friday to prep for our shoot at the top of the ski area. The script called for a scene shot at the top of Mt. Everest, but as that was a bit out of the question, instead we are here in Colorado.

The script also called for a sunny, blue sky day at the summit, that is proving to be much more difficult. As I sit here in my "office" (see pic above) it is currently snowing and they are estimating another several inches before the day is out.

Not sure how long I'll be here, not sure how long it will keep snowing, but I'll keep a little running blog of the experiences here in the mountains....