Matt White Goes to Hollywood

something to chew on...

2008-09-18T11:16:00.000-07:00

i know i got some catching up to do with you guys, but i'll do that later.

in the meantime, can you believe summer's almost officially over??! sheeeet, man. where does the time go. at least here in LA it's always summery-ish. if i was still living back east i think i'd build a time machine so i could go back to June again.

ahh, autumn. falling leaves...hunting season...back to school.

speaking of school, remember last year when i talked about putting together my high school's 10-year reunion? NO? well screw you, i did.

here's the not-so-short film i threw together to help kick off the evening with one of my best pals from the olden days, Pastor P3ter B0nd. you won't get many of the inside jokes, but you WILL get to see my "alma mater" and some of my favorite teachers from those days.

enjoooooy.

Pete Goes Back to School

Happy Birthday, Tom Cruise!

2008-07-03T15:15:00.000-07:00

on behalf of Tom Cruise and myself, and anyone else who shares a birthday with us on this glorious date...

thank you.

the big plans for the day:

work (or rather, "work") at Last Comic
BBQ with the neighbors
drink with the friends
pass out...somewhere

the Roost is once again my bar of choice for the festivities. it was a blast last year, figured why not give it another spin. and after the crazy month i had i really just need something low-key.

i'd fill you in, but i don't have the energy right now. but it's all good. trust me.

til next time...

MIA

2008-06-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

i know.

i KNOW.

i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know
i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know
i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know
i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know
i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know
i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know
i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know
i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know
i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know
i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know
i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know
i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know
i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know
i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know
i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know

just gimme a few more blog-less days, alright? i'll be back in july.

til next time...

experiment

2008-04-07T14:51:00.001-07:00

friday night i came home, plopped down on the couch and decided not to get up off the couch for the rest of the evening. when i was flipping through the channels, i discovered "Planet of the Apes" was just about to start on AMC. having never seen (the original) POTA, i decided to make it my evening.

and what an evening it was. that charlton heston was some actor. so good...yet so bad at the very same time. yet, it worked. how that's even humanly possible, i don't know. but the man can pull it off. i just wish he could've put ON some more clothes. there are few things more disturbing in this world than a mostly-naked middle aged man's body. no matter what shape he's in. yikes. there's a reason God invented clothes.

anyway...at some point i remember thinking to myself:

"gee, charlton heston should be getting up there in age these days. i wonder when he's going to die..."

next day -- DEAD!!

coincidence? probably. BUT what if...what if...i'm a mutant. and my mutant power is that whenever i think about someone and wonder when they're going to die -- they die the NEXT day.

there's only one way to find out.

"(INSERT YOUR NAME HERE) is getting pretty old. i wonder when (INSERT YOUR NAME HERE) is going to die..."

let me know how it works out.

til next time...

St. Patty's Day

2008-03-17T19:00:00.000-07:00

Today's been pretty lame. i'm chained to my desk. every now and then i go stand outside and bask in the sunshine for a few minutes. like a lizard. i figure the smokers get to go outside every twenty minutes to puff a cig, why can't i? and if my boss gives me shit, well then i'll just have to start smoking then, won't i.

yes, no st. patty's celebrations for me today. i think. at least none that i've been invited to. yet. but that's cool, because there's no way on earth nor in hell that any st. patty's day now and forever can live up to the one i had on March 17, 2001. i remember it well...

[BEGIN FLASHBACK]...

i was but a wee lad of 21, merely months away from graduating NYU and officially beginning my career as a starving artist. it was spring break, but THIS spring break, instead of heading to Florida like so many of my northeast compatriots, a small army of NYU-ers and I went to London...

...where we appreciated all the culture London had to offer. like its art. and its Indian food.

it just so happened that our last night in London fell on St. Patrick's Day.

and it just so happened that we stumbled across the wildest, craziest pub in all of Soho called "Bad Bob's". and Bob had a gigantic dance floor in his basement.

i don't know who the DJ was or even if there WAS a DJ, but Bad Bob was pumping out the dance hits one after another. my feet didn't leave the dance floor from 11pm to 4am -- not for a second. not even to use the loo. it's a record for most consecutive hours of dancing which i doubt i'll ever break. the hits were just THAT good.

[END FLASHBACK]...

that was the last night i spent in London. and thanks to our sinking dollar, that may be for good.

Happy St. Patty's Day, friends.

til next time...

alive and kickin' it

2008-03-13T18:23:00.001-07:00

my friends. long time no blog. i wish i could say i missed you...but i haven't. i needed this little break. it's not you. it's ME. i swear.

but i'm starting to get the itch to re-enter the blogosphere, so my (unintentionally) long hiatus may soon be over. the problem is, where to start?

last you heard i was bemoaning my long hours on the grammy's and pining for my weekend in the mountains.

well, i can tell you that those mountains were gorgeous. and that i've become quite the awesome snowboarder. sure, you won't be calling me "shawn white" any time soon, but i'm much better than i've ever been, due mainly to my sweet new board more so than my skillz. but those skills are multiplyin'.

and yes, the grammy's did suck ass. not the show. the show was pretty good, actually. it was just the overall experience. but i survived. and i now have a fresh new major television production under my belt and on top of my resume. while i could write blogs and blogs about my experience, i won't. because i'm LAZY. so i now present to you...

"Matt White's Gr@mmy Highlights/Lowlights"

Highlight: I got to pee next to Tony Bennett backstage in the Staple's Center men's room.
Lowlight: Tony had a very weak stream. Not a good sign for his prostate. Sad.

Highlight: I got to meet one of the Beatles!
Lowlight: The Beatle was Ringo.

Highlight: I got a front row seat to watch Kanye, Alicia, Beyoncé, Tina, etc rehearse and perform.
Lowlight: By that point I would've traded them all for my pillow.

Highlight: I got to work closely with some of the most successful producers, directors, etc working in TV.
Lowlight: I'm pretty sure none of them remember/even knew my name.

Highlight: I got put up in a hotel so I didn't have to drive home late every night.
Lowlight: Said hotel was a Holiday Inn.

Highlight: When I asked one of the "older" directors who had my job on the grammy's 25+ years ago "how she did it?" (meaning, how did she survive the workload/crazy hours?), she instantly replied, "Cocaine. Lots and lots of blow." (not a joke)
Lowlight: Drug dealers don't take credit cards.

that, in an e-nutshell, was my grammy's experience. been there, done that. moving on. next. never again.

right now i'm back at my old desk at Last C0mic Standing, Season 6. and it's good to be back. we're taping the majority of our shows in Vegas this year, so it looks like i'm gonna be spendin' some Q.T. in Sin City over the next several months.

Lowlight: They're putting us up at Bally's.

The whistle just blew, folks. and i am outta here! i'll try to post some cool pics soon. thanks for checkin' in.

til next time...

Mammoth HO!

2008-01-25T17:30:00.000-08:00

tomorrow i finally finally FINALLY FINALLY!!!! get to try out my new snowboard!! i only got it 2 whole months ago! but i must wait no longer. the day has finally come. it's time for my yearly pilgrimage to Mammoth Mountain.

this is my 4th last-weekend-in-January trip in a row, with many many more to come.

that is, of course, if my friends and i survive the 4-12 hour trek up there. just our luck, this year our trip has to coincide with one doozey of storm. which makes for some kick-ass skiing!...but sucky driving. but we're goin' anyway.

i've already warned my friends that if we get stranded on some mountain pass, 8,000 feet above sea level -- i WILL eat them. like the Donner Party.

NOT like the Lemon Party.

but if it's a choice between freezing to death and doing that, well...my arm might be twisted.

til next time...

50 grams

2008-01-22T00:03:00.001-08:00

despite the fact that i'm glued to my computer 12+ hours a day, i just can't seem to find the time (or the energy...or the desire) to blog.

wa wa wa, you've all heard that before, i know. my apologies. but 2008 has come roaring out of the gate in terms of employment. and considering half the town is still out of work with the writers' strike, i gotta be grateful and gobble it all up like a hungry british orphan while i can. right?

my next project -- the Grammy Awards. this is the big one. #50. Fifty years of Grammy. a few more years and she'll officially be a senior citizen. (thankfully, i'm not writing the jokes this year...actually, maybe i AM. we don't have a writer.) that is, of course, if the show even happens. those pesky writers are threatening to shut us down. lay off! -- i say. this show's gonna pay my billz for a couple months. besides, it's a show by musicians for musicians. the amount of actual writing involved is very minimal at max. and what is written could be done so by a chimp. enter, matt white, stage left.

NOT.

i may be many things, but i ain't no traitor. i plan on getting in the guild one day and hope to benefit from the sweet, sweet deal these writers are gonna get now that the pissin' contest they're in with the studios seems to be losing stream. but who knows. if this business is anything it's unpredictable. this mess could get messier. and if the Grammy's gets the ax like the Golden Globes did...the shit just might hit the fan.

and i'll have a front row seat to smell it.

til next time...

look out below

2008-01-03T16:43:00.000-08:00

you know how right before a plane lands it dumps its excess fuel so that in case of a crash it'll only become a fiery inferno instead of a RAGING inferno?

at least i think this is true. someone told me this the other day and it seems like a waste of perfectly good fuel to me.

how about this -- you know how right before a jump into hyperspace, an imperial star destroyer will dump its trash, conveniently allowing renegade rebel space ships on the run to blend in with the other "space junk" and drift away to safety -- provided they don't look out their rear view window and notice the OTHER space ship belonging to a ruthless bounty hunter following, like, forty meters behind them?

that's what i'm doing with this blog. i've got too many stories to tell from '007 that are just cluttering up my mind...floating around. too much space junk. it's high time for some jettisoning. time to cleanse my blog palate for 2008.

A. RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT

a few weeks ago i was stopped at a red light on virgil and beverly/temple. it was around 7:30pm and i noticed a very attractive african american woman in the car next to me. she was sitting in the front passenger side seat, the window was rolled down completely, and her chin was resting on the door. her eyes were closed and her face had a very relaxed expression, like a child in the middle of a pleasant dream.

and then i noticed the little string of DROOL trickling down from her chin. but this was no ordinary drool. this drool was a little...pink.

then i saw more pink drool, trickling down the sides of the car. only this pink drool had CHUNKS of pink in it.

that's no drool...that's...that's...

THEN SHE ERUPTED!

"HuuuUUUUURLLL!"

Chunks of pink, flying everywhere! Chunks of pink, slipping, sliding down the side of the car. Vesuvius was no longer dormant.

That was close. A few more inches and she woulda hit my car...

"HUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRLLLLL!"

More pink! This time one grazed my antenna, a warning shot fired across my bow.

The light was still red.

Come on, come on...damn you, light! turn! TURN! GREEN! GREEN!

PPIIIIINNNNNKKKKKK!

Even closer!

I couldn't handle it. I inched my car as far away from hers as possible, my nose hanging out into the intersection, just asking to be hit.

I looked over at the girl, who suddenly was not so attractive after all. steam was coming out of her nostrils...her ears...her eyelids had opened, revealing eyeballs that had rolled back in their sockets, showing me their creamy white underbellies.

the ground started to quake. this was it. it was coming.

now my car was shaking...

RED

the street lamps were swaying...

RED

a jagged crack split the crosswalk...

RED

the girl extended her neck...tipped her head back...and...KA-BLOOOOOEY!

GREEN!

my chuck taylor smacked the gas pedal so hard my four cylinders didn't know what hit them. with an unprecedented adrenaline boost the Camry was airborne across that intersection, the acidic shower of pink chunks raining down harmlessly on my vapors.

the moral of the story:

um...ummm... not all pretty black sleepy girls are as they first seem?

weaksauce, i know.

B. PA ON ICE

My mother sent me these pics a couple weeks ago. They're from the ice storm that struck the northeast back in early december...

and i call this next one, "get in ma belly!"

mmmm. meat.

actually, i've been cutting back on my red meat consumption as of late.

C. UNDER PRESSURE

i had my yearly physical a few weeks back. yes, i know, i look like the epitome of "good health". but it appears i am the victim of a killer slowly attacking my organs, one heart beat at a time. they call this beast the "silent killer." yes, i, matt white, have high blood pressure.

i had borderline h.b.p. last year at my physical. but this year i scored through the roof. 150/100. (anything under 120/80 is normal) so now i pop a pill every morning, cut back on the cold cuts, cut back on the drinking (ha!), and wait til the grim reaper comes a rat-a-tat-tattin' on my door.

funny thing tho. i've been monitoring my b.p. at home ever since my appointment and it hasn't been NEARLY as high. but, hey. when you're sitting in a cold room in just your undies knowing that at any minute a middle-aged man is gonna come through that door and put his hand down your panties, you'd be a little "tense" too.

D. THE MIRACLE OF LIFE

Congratulations to Nehal and Jenny (Nehnny) who gave birth to this darling little girl, Lila Jade on December 21st.

Jenny smoked and drank her way through pregnancy, and as you can see, Lila ain't wastin' no time.

And here's the G33saman family -- Ryan and Stacy with their little naked gossling, Ryker.

Meet the Glenzu's. Mommy, D.J. Daddy Kebi, and the irresistibly cute Lil' Lisa. Lisa's mommy is Japanese, daddy is American, but her hair is 100% Kim Jong-Il.

and of course there's little Robby, the newest addition to my family. i had the pleasure of meeting Robby at Thanksgiving, and i'm pleased to report he doesn't look like an alien NEARLY as much as he used to just a few months ago.

Welcome to the world, kids! i look forward to watching you grow up. from a distance.

D. EXPELIARMUS!

Another kid whose journey into adulthood i enjoyed following was Harry Potter. 2007 brought about the end of the Potter books, although we still have two more movies coming to disappoint us.

and i must say, well done J.K. sure, you're no J.R.R.R.R. Tolkien, JR. you might not write with the elegance of C.S.S.R. Lewis. but your likable little wizard captured the hearts (and wallets) of BILLIONS as he strove to merely complete his destiny by ridding the world of an unspeakable evil. what's so bad about that?

as for Dumbledore...

well, i saw that coming a mile away. i've got a natural knack for spotting gay wizards. i can pick 'em out of a crowd like THAT. i've got what they call..."Gizdar".

there are gay wizards all around us. you probably have met some and don't even know it...

take Dumbledore, for instance. old. single. beard. pet bird. not fond of pants. wears rings. the writing's on the wall, folks. the wall of the Hogwarts Mens Room, that is.

then of course there's Gandalf the Grey/White. enjoys re-inventing himself. has a horse that matches his outfit. obsessed with jewelry (again with the rings), likes smoking the pipe -- endless.

must I even go on? beard. hermit. knows how to handle a sword. has an apartment in West Mos Eisley. vacations at Fire Island, Dagobah. it's all so obvious.

then there's this guy. sure he's no wizard, but he does keep a magic wand in his pocket for all the muscly-armed paper boys in town.

which is why i keep this little action figure by my bedside -- as a reminder to me, that if i'm not married by the time i'm 32, THIS is my DESTINY...

E. TOP TEN LIST

Lot of great movies in 2007! Here's my Top Ten favorite, in no particular order:

1. No Country for Old Men

2. Hairspray (i know, but i can't help it)

3. There Will Be Blood

4. 3:10 to Yuma

5. Darjeeling Ltd.

6. Ratatouille

7. The Bourne Ultimatum

8. Hot Fuzz

9. Into the Wild

10. Spiderman 3

*JUST KIDDING*

10. Lars and the Real Girl

F. HANSON-ED

the other night i was at Barney's Beanery and i got "Hanson-ed".

i haven't been Hanson-ed since 1997! -- when i was a freshman in college and had hair down almost to my shoulders that was dyed blond and i looked like a girl. come to think of it, the fact that i kept getting Hanson-ed is WHY i cut my hair that fall.

but there i was at the Beanery, enjoying a beer, chatting with this girl, and all of a sudden she hits me with it out of NOWHERE...

"do you know who you look like?"

"no. who?" i lied, expecting the usual, and taking a huge sip of my beer.

"ZACH HANSON!"

SPRRRRRAAAAAAAYYYYYY. my heff went everywhere.

"what the f*ck?!"

"Zach Hanson. the youngest Hanson. the drummer -- "

"i KNOW who he is, alright! Gosh! Look...I gotta get up early tomorrow. I'm goin' home."

and with that, I left...her with the bill. oh well. bitch.

i drove home near tears, scanning my memory banks for any and all images of Zach Hanson. i remember he was shorter...a little on the pudgy side...with long girly dark blond hair. surely i don't look like him! surely that girl was INSANE!

i ran to my laptop and immediately googled "Hanson" and this is what i found...

there they are. 10 years later. the Hanson brothers.
Isaac, the oldest one (in the middle) is still a bit fugly. but i'm diggin' his hair.
Taylor, the middle one (on the right) is still the prettiest girl i've ever seen.
and then there's little Zach (on the left). my how he's grown. still got a little of that facial chub. but nice thick hair. nicely groomed eyebrows. nostrils look equally proportioned...

and i realized, that girl was giving me a compliment. Zach Hanson is a sexy young mo-fo. i shoulda made love to that girl on the spot. and i blew it. Matt White blows it again, folks. i really did. i had a feeling she was the one, too. she was the one...

FOOL! what was i thinking?! i mean, surely it could've been worse. i've GOTTEN worse.

i was "Phil Hartman-ed" TWICE while waiting tables back in 2001. not even on the same day! not even by the same people! separate occasions! months apart!

if that's not a blow to a 22 year old's self esteem, i don't know what is!

No, sir. I'd much rather stick with my normal "do-you-know-who-you-look-likes".
Matt Damon with a dash of Jim Carrey.

but then there's this guy...

i've gotten "Ricky" a few times as well. mostly from my Nanny White, God bless her soul. she always said i was her "little Ricky Martin." i don't think she realized that was a bit of an insult. i mean sure, he's ridiculously good-looking and all, but come on -- Matt Damon is a genius. Matt Damon kicks ass. Matt Damon sleeps with an Oscar under his pillow!

Ricky Martin shakes his bon-bon.

and besides, i look better in a speedo.

G. "G" as in GOODBYE, DOUBLE-O-SEVEN

I had high, high hopes for '007.

sure, i had some successes. i had a great year of employment, beefed up my resume on some quality shows, got to travel to some awesome places (i.e. Mexico City). i also paid off all my credit cards, dug myself out of a financial mire, and for the first time in my adult life finally have a savings account with more than $100 in it.

BUT...that Big Break...that moment when opportunity knocks/strikes, lifting me out of the galleys and onto a career path of writing, producing, directing... still has not come.

and i've got no one to blame but myself. ...but maybe the writers' strike did screw things up a teensy bit (but i'm 100% behind you writers, strike on!)

this year, 2008, i'm making the switch. these past few years i've been spending 75 - 90% of my time working and 25 - 10% furthering my creative career. on that rate, i should be getting my lucky break, oh, around 2032.

but THIS year, it's all about ME, baby. my goal is to work as little as possible and write as MUCH as possible. i gots the ideas. i gots the yarns to spin. it's all about having the time now.

and a little more discipline sure would help.

but i can't help but wonder if/when that Break comes, if i'm destined for that classic case of "be careful what you wish for..." because if life is really about the pursuit of HAPPINESS...then that Big Break has already come. cuz, honestly, i can't imagine being any happier.

really. seriously. i'm still just about broke, i don't have a nice car, i don't own my house, i'm single with no end in sight, and i've got a so-so career doing something i don't really want to be doing.

and yet...i'm happy. ??? i think -- i know -- i take for granted how many people can't say that.

i guess that just makes me the luckiest guy in the world.

2007, it's been nice knowing you. i've kissed loved ones goodbye, and i've welcomed new loved ones in. i watched close friendships slowly dissolve, while others i'd left for dead were rekindled. you've been a mixed bag. a mixed bag of nuts. and fortunately for me, i love nuts. they're high in protein.

i'm hopping on a plane in a couple hours for my return flight back to LA. i haven't been this excited to start a brand new year in a long, long time.

2008, get ready. i'm making you ma bitch.

til next time...

399

2007-12-31T15:03:00.000-08:00

welp, i failed. all i had to do was write two more measely blogs before the strike of midnight tonight, december 31, 2007, and i couldn't do it. i just couldn't handle it.

but fear not, i've got some goodies stewing inside me and i'll make it my resolution -- nay, PROMISE -- to you, my fans, that in double-o-eight i'll spend more time contributing to the blogosphere. there will be new news, new adventures, new treats, new tricks, new ups, new downs, and maybe even a video blog or two.

and in those video blogs, i will be wearing no clothes.

as for tonight, i'm kicking '007 out in the same place i kissed it hello. NYC. but no more times square for me (thankfully). i'll be kicking it around brooklyn. but then again, in this town, on this night, you never quite know where you'll end up...

my friends, a Happy New Year to you. here's to 2008!

til next year...

so this is Christmas...

2007-12-24T21:41:00.001-08:00

every year i tell myself

-- matt, buy your presents early next year. do not be an ass and have to battle the crowds on christmas eve like you did this year...and the last year...and the year before that...

and every year i ignore myself.

so there i was again, christmas eve 2007, at the mall. but it actually wasn't that bad. i think i've perfected the art of Christmas Eve shopping now. i got in and out in under 2 hours.

and hey, it's better than giving I.O.U.'s like I did two years ago...

by far the hardest part was trying to squeeze my father's pick-up truck into the parking lot. that thing is GIGANTIC. practically a hummer. and at 14 miles to the gallon, you might as well just call it a hummer.

but my day was a success. my parents throw a party every Christmas Eve. i see the same people every year. answer the same questions every year. eat the same things every year. and you know what? i wouldn't trade it for all the ice at the north pole.

which...according to Al Gore, is not that much these days.

but all things aside, there's nothing like christmas at home. especially when there's a 47-pound home-grown free range turkey getting nice and sweaty in the oven downstairs as i type.

and it's nice to know, even though it was 60 degrees yesterday in PA, far too warm for snow, i'm still gonna have a WHITE Christmas no matter what.

HAHAHAHA. it never gets old folks! never gets old!

Merry Christmas, everyone.

one down, three to go...

2007-12-23T16:59:00.000-08:00

I just logged on and noticed that i have 396 blog posts to my name. will i make it to lucky 400 by the end of '007...? i'll have to ask mr. owl.

granted, i'm realizing that about 352 of those posts had something to do with bodily excrement. why is that -- i don't know. or DO i? perhaps i have a fetish. no. i don't. i definitely do not. and to those of you who do -- shame on you!

but i've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially since a friend of mine sent me THIS.

and i've come to the exciting discovery...that BLOGS and good old-fashioned POO actually have a lot in common:

some are long,
some are short.

some really stink,
and some don't stink half-bad.

sometimes i sit and sit and nothing comes out,
while sometimes it just floooows.

some are corny.

some are painful,
some feel real nice.

some make me laugh,
and some bring tears to my eyes.

some i'm quite proud of,
while others i'm like "Good G-d did that really come from ME??!"

and if i ever get around to writing that blog about why everyone should drive a hybrid, then i can honestly say...

some are green.

til next time...

breathe! push! breathe!

2007-12-18T17:41:00.000-08:00

my friend jenny of "Nehnny's Bun" fame is now in labor!... and has been for quite some time.

i saw her back in october and she was HUGE then. i can only imagine she's quite the behemoth by now.

i wonder what it's like having something that big inside of you that refuses to come out.

anything i ever have inside of me wants out way too badly...and always at the worst possible times too.

hmm.

good luck jenny!

QUESTION

2007-12-17T23:23:00.000-08:00

You're sitting in starbucks working on your script, sipping your grande peppermint moca frappacino when it hits you -- NATURE. and she wants out, fast.

you quickly pack up all your belongings, grab your coat, and race into the men's room -- one of those single toilet jobbers -- knocking an old man with diabetes outta the way in the process.

but you make it!

and they all lived happily ever after...

until you reach for some T.P. -- and the dispenser is EMPTY. not a shred left. not a scrap in sight.

your tools:

a large trashcan with a lid a few feet away (its contents unknown)

a pack of thin, flimsy, plastic toilet seat liners (mandatory in all CA public restrooms. best law EVER)

a sink four feet away

three crisp twenty dollar bills in your wallet

your voice

your cell phone

your left hand

prayer

a paper clip

two rubber bands

what oh what do you do?

...

seriously, WHAT DO YOU DO?!! i've been sitting here for three hours and the angry mob outside the door keeps getting angrier!

*blogged from my new blackberry

over the river and thru the woods...

2007-12-11T16:54:00.000-08:00

friends, romans, before i start, a belated congratulations are in order...

to the sexiest mo-fo ever to walk the face of this earth. ever. seriously. for ever. and ever.

matt damon.

the bluebirds sing of your sexiness

the whales gulp krill for your glory

oh, to be so sexy

if you could bottle even one ounce of your sweat
and anoint the heads of the unsexy with it

the smiles that would spread from cheek to cheek

eh, you get the picture

so...Thanksgiving. i never did get around to blogging about my trip back east. buckle your seat belts.

no place does Thanksgiving better than the Jersey Shore.

not even Cape Cod.

Turkey Day Fun "Fact" #1: the pilgrims were actually headed for the Jersey Shore, but a tempest blew them into Massachusetts instead.

despite all the houses built on sand,
my roots run deep at the Jersey Shore.

The Offshore Inn. My favorite restaurant on earth. Owned and operated by 3 generations of my family.

TDFF #2: the original Off Shore was destroyed by a fire in 2002 -- a fire caused when it was struck by a meteorite.

nice printing runs in my genes.

Granny could've had a long career as a cue card guy if she so desired.

the restaurant shut down for the day and the call was sent to family members far and wide -- "it is time to return from whence you came."

speak 'o the devil, there she is...

Granny. keeping an eye on Felix.

making sure he doesn't mash out all the lumps in Granny's mashed-po's.

they're SUPPOSED to have lumps.

my pop's been raising turkeys all year, just for the occasion. that wednesday he had two butchered. so we dined on two, fresh 35 lb birds. nothing in the world like free-range turkey...

TDFF #3: at the first Thanksgiving they actually did not eat turkey. they ate maize, maize bread, stewed maize, twice-baked maized potatoes, and deep dish maize pie.

i bet they had plenty of laughs when they visited the out house the next day.

here's cousin Peter carving up the birds, as Granny, Mum, and Uncle Frank observe.

my only job the whole entire day. "carry the turkey from the kitchen to the dining room."

mission accomplished.

the Seniors table...

the soon-to-be-Seniors table...

food, glorious, food

TDFF#4: there is enough tryptophan in a single slice of turkey to put an entire colony of African Army Ants to sleep for 3 months.

sticking to tradition, after the meal we
retired to the bar to partake in the grueling game of Bingo.

cold hard cash was at stake. i'm talkin' about some crisp new Jacksons.

and one of those bills wound up in my pocket!

i hadn't won at Reunion-Bingo since '87. i felt alive once again!

the last round. the dreaded "full card" bingo. and i came oh so close to victory once again. but no cigar.

TDFF #5: A harbinger of things to come? Bingo was banned from the holiday by the Puritans after it was introduced to the Indians during the third Thanksgiving. the Indians took to it right away and refused to quit playing - going 92 days straight and setting a Guinness World Record.
sadly, their lack of harvest that season nearly wiped out the entire tribe during the lean winter months ahead.

the Koch-DiTullio-White's

November 22nd, 2007

looking forward to 2017 already.

and then...the day AFTER Thanksgiving... my dreaded 10-year High School Reunion

which wound up being a ton of fun. not nearly as disastrous as made out to be on TV/movies.

we had about 35 people come from our class of 110. par for the course as far as reunions go these days.

great to see some faces i hadn't seen since graduation day, ten and a half years ago...

reunited and it feels so good.

the Three Amigos, me, Pete, and Goose

we made some pretty great videos together during our hey-day (hay-day?) and managed to crank out a couple more for the reunion as well. i'll post them online in a few weeks...

and of course, there was that extra special day that comes once a year in Pennsylvania. the Monday after Thanksgiving. a.k.a. the first day of buck (deer) season.

but this year... i guess you could say i didn't have much luck...

til next time...

WTF?!

2007-12-03T01:22:00.000-08:00

the other night i, apparently, had a dream so...amazing / surreal / ridiculous / fill-in-the-blank that it inspired me to stumble out of bed, find a pen, find a notebook, and jot down a few key words that would "surely" help me remember the entire dream come morning.

thing is...i FORGOT i had even climbed out of bed to DO just that.

that is, until this evening...as i lay in bed, about to drift asleep -- when it hit me!

wait! didn't i have some crazy dream the other night?! and didn't i get out of bed and write down a few words in some notebook to help me remember it, using only the moonlight to find my way?!

i clapped, and my bedroom lights popped on. sure enough, there, on the dresser by my bed, was a notebook. closed.

i took a deep breath and opened it.

inside, hastily scribbled on the first page, were four distinct words.

BELLBOY

COLLAR

VEGAS

DRUNK

i have no clue what i even dreamt about nor do I EVEN WANT TO KNOW. i'm so scared.

til next time...

the VSFS

2007-11-26T17:28:00.000-08:00

it's pitch black, freezing, drizzling, and dreary here in Pennsylvania as i type. i don't get on that plane back to sunshine for another day and a half. just hoping i can survive till then...feeling faint...so cold....mama?

November's almost over now and no one is more glad than ME. this month has been quite the bitch. well...more like a bastard. allow me to explain...

the Victoria Secr3t Fashion Show basically ran me into the ground. a week-long string of 12-17 hour days really sucks the life out of you. come show day i was quite the cranky script supervisor.

not even the Spice Girls reunion debut performance could cheer me up. in fact it made matters worse.

speaking of the SG's, you oughta get a look at them BEFORE hair and makeup goes to town. YOOOOOWZA!!

i've had substitute teachers in grade school more attractive than them.

but thanks to the hair & makeup wizards at ILM, even grubby middle-aged British ladies can look gorgeous these days. i never cease to be amazed...

i tell you who's got some al-naturale good beauty genes -- that Heidi Klum.

and she's a MOTHER. twice!

i'm gonna save her pic to show to my future pregnoid wife.

see this, honey? yes. it IS possible. it IS.
you've got three weeks to lose that baby weight.
i said THREE. no. NO.
now you listen HERE -- don't make me...DON'T make me --
Look! now look what you've made me do!
...
baby, i'm sorry. i'm so sorry.

so like i was saying, by the time show day rolled around, i was more or less ready to tell the VSFS to go FCUK themselves.

and then came the Wrap Party.

never in all of my days have i been to such a party. open bar, free flowing champagne, caviar! the DJ was spinning mash-ups and out on the dance floor -- the models. dozens and dozens of models. and orlando bloom (tool).

after tossing down a couple quick Vodka T's, i cruised on out to the dance floor. as we white folk say, it was time to "bust-a-move." and i unleashed my best.

keeping my arms tight and to my side, my torso began writhing...swaying in mid-air. i dilated my pupils and flicked my tongue rapidly -- tasting the air for pheromones. they were EVERYWHERE. it's a move i learned from watching a documentary on India, directly inspired by the mating ritual of the king of the cobras, himself...the King Cobra.

and it worked like a charm. a snake charm, if you will.

see this girl in the baby blue. i had her under my spell.

our eyes met on the dance floor, then she'd turn away...but then she'd look back! then away...BACK!...then away... the game was afoot.

i slithered my way in for the kill...

and got cock-blocked by one of her "handlers".

no matter, i had all the time in the world...

for what seemed like eternity we danced. at times only mere inches apart...then feet...then yards...then meters...but then inches again...

slowly i was hypnotizing her with my swaying bod...my unblinking gaze...flickering tongue...

until i felt a PINCH on my ass.

Eureka!

surely my trance must've worked on some other poor unsuspecting super model, so i spun on a dime. who would i find before me...Alesandra?? Karolina??? the Klumster herself???

but NO. my friends/co-workers Augie and Jessica, snickering like schoolgirls.

but wait! -- yes, Jessica was a looker, i could USE her to make aforementioned super model jealous. yesssss. yesssssssssssss...

so i pulled back and slithered my way over to Jessica instead.

and when i turned around to shoot that model my patented "see what you could've had for dessert tonight" look -- she looked me straight in the eye...AND WALKED OUT.

Gone. Gone, baby, gone.

funny...that never happened to that King Cobra.

til next time...

steee-RIKE!

2007-11-11T14:47:00.001-08:00

yes, friends, in a showing of solidarity with my (future) fellow writers, i, too, have decided to go on strike. Matt White Goes to Hollywood is officially closed for business!

i wish.

i sit at work all day and read all the hollywood gossip rags, trades, blogs and long to be on the picket lines as well. why? well...it just looks like so much fun! all the smartest, funniest, wittiest mo-fo's in town all huddled together chanting. you just know they're having a laugh! it's a club, and i want IN. in fact, it's the only club in Hollywood for which i'd ever stand in a line or pay a cover (dues). i guess i just need...patience. yes, patience... that's the ticket.

in case you noticed, i did use the "w" word above. i've been WORKING again for the last couple of weeks. and you all know how much i hate to work. hence the lack o' blog for awhile. i'm script supervising the 2007 Victoria Secr3t Fashion Show.

oh, boo frickitty hooo, matt!

yes. woe is me indeed. i'm not complaining about the content. but, well, work is work. no matter how beautiful or scantily clad it is sometimes. basically, if a "thing" -- anything -- requires me getting out of bed before noon, it's only a matter of time before i will resent said "thing" with all my being. which is why i will no doubt hate my own children one day. but let's save that blog for another decade, shall we...

i have managed to interject some good times into my life despite my daily grind of sitting in a window-less room in the basement of the Kodak Theatre. why, just last week for instance, i flew to NYC for a whirlwind of a weekend to witness the holy matrimonial vows of my friend Seh (Seh Wa?). it was my first Korean wedding, and i was not about to miss that.

Did You Know...

- that in Korean weddings it's custom for the bride to be escorted down the aisle by her last three ex-boyfriends. the former boyfriends then untie her and hand her over to the groom as a symbol of "here you go. take her, she's all yours."

- that in Korean weddings, the pastor takes a knife fashioned from iron ore found only in the depths of Baekdu Mountain and makes a small puncture in the groom's palm. blood is then squeezed from the palm into a silver chalice. the bride must then drink from the chalice as a symbol of eternal servitude. if any blood remains in the chalice, the pastor then smears it on the train of her white dress -- an embarrassing symbol of "unworthiness." (fortunately this did not happen)

- that in Korean weddings, instead of saying "you may now kiss the bride" the pastor says "you may now initiate your rite." on that cue, the groom then goes to kiss the bride. but when she kisses him back, he bites her on the tongue. then, while her tongue is between his teeth, he lightly punches her in the stomach to "ready the womb."

- that in Korean weddings, instead of throwing rice, the wedding-goers throw dried sea gull feces. but not just any gull feces -- only the feces belonging to clusters of gulls living on the eastern shores of Ganghwado, Korea's 5th largest island. the thrown dried feces is directed mainly towards the bride, its medicinal properties said to aid in a long and fertile life.

- that in Korean weddings, you bring your wedding gift to the CHURCH and not to the reception hall. CRAZY!

I got another four days of work left ahead of me. after that i'm hopping on a plane back to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving/10-year High School Reunion. yike-aroooo!

til next time...and to all the writers out there, UNION FOREVER!!

stop drop and roll

2007-10-24T17:51:00.001-07:00

my neighborhood...

the view from my neighbor's house...

relax. those pictures were taken back in May, when a fire ravaged Griffith Park. my house and i were treated to a front row seat. fortunately, there were no Santa Anna winds, which is why my house is still standing and the firemen were able to put it out over night -- thus, not warranting a major national news flurry.

as for these fires raging right now... well, aside from a bad case of the sneezes and a scratchy throat, thanks to the giant cloud of dust/ash that's hovering over the lower fourth of the state at the moment...i'm just fine. the fires are mainly to the north, northwest, and south of me.

many east coast transplants out here complain that southern california doesn't get any seasons. not true, we have three -- earth(quake), wind, and fire.

wind and fire have just collided. hence the Apocalypse down in san diego, where the majority of the damage has been wraught.

good luck and godspeed to those brave firefighters. may there be windless days and nights ahead...

til next time...

the deer head has landed...

2007-10-22T21:46:00.000-07:00

i was born and raised in Pennsylvania. not Philadelphia, PA or even Pittsburgh. Pennsyltucky, PA. which means, I'm part redneck. (probably explains my love for all things camouflage).

and in that little school district in which i was edumacated, there was one day every year that we had off -- a school holiday -- that very few other school districts in the world observe. and that day was the Monday after Thanksgiving. but to those of us from Pennsylvania it shall always be known as...the first day of buck season.

yes, i'm talking about buck...as in deer. a male deer.

matt! you suck! how could you go out and kill bambi, you bastard! i'm never reading your blog AGAIN.

your loss. but for the record, i DON'T kill bambi. only bambi's papa...and occasionally his mama.

and it was nearly three years ago now, on a trip home for Thanksgiving, that i bagged this bad boy...

this is what we hunters call a nine-pointer. and he was a B.E.A.U.T.Y.

You still suck, Matt. I'm gonna call P.E.T.A. on your ass! And anyone who has to hunt animals to feel like a man is just trying to overcompensate for his small penis.

Actually, I, too belong to P.E.T.A. (People for the Eating of Tasty Animals). and that's okay, you don't have to agree with hunting. had i not grown up with it as a part of my culture, I probably would despise it too. but just know that this deer was taken on my parents' property as part of a legal, state-wide hunt to control the ever-growing deer population in Pennsylvania.

And, having been felled with a single, clean shot to the heart, it was dead before it hit the ground. Meaning, it didn't suffer.

And and, my penis size is completely normal for a white male my age. Or so my doctor has told me.

Back to the deer...

Bagging a monster buck like that in Pennsylvania, let alone on your own farm, is a rare gift. a gift that i did not want to squander. a gift that I wanted to keep forever...a little piece of home...that would creep out roommates and prospective girlfriends for years and years to come.

So i got its head stuffed. or rather my pops did. for my birthday. (thanks, dad)

Only one problem remained -- how to get a monster deer head from Pennsylvania to California.

Would it fit in a suitcase? Nope. An over-head compartment of an airplane? Nope nope. A FedEx box? Nope nope nope.

between the incredible spread of its antlers and its long, beefy neck, it created a dimensional dilemma. no box was either long, wide, or deep enough, no matter how many we tried. except, of course, a refrigerator box. but shipping that across the states would've cost millions.

days turned into weeks...weeks into months...months into years...and years into more years. and my beloved deer head was only collecting dust in my parents' basement...

until one day this summer.

when my uncle clint passed away last winter, his daughter Shelley (my cousin) and her family decided to buy the giant motor-home RV he and my aunt used for month-long ski trips out west.

it just so happened that the bottom of a motor-home contained ample storage space. ample enough...for a deer head.

Shelley and her fam flew from their home in Arizona to PA this summer to pick up the RV. they drove it up to Maine...down to Maryland...over to Rushmore...back to Jersey...then on to Yellowstone...the Grand Canyon...before finally coming to rest at their home in Scottsdale. And all the while, my precious severed deer head was in the belly of the RV, wrapped safely in a blanket of bubble-wrap, its polished glass eyes staring out the porthole at Americana.

then one day last week, the phone rang...

"hey, Matt, it's Shelley. we're down at Disneyland for the week. and we've got your deer head."

"i'll be there in five minutes," I said, tears of joy brimming in my eyes.

oh the fun we had! Space Mountain! Splash Mountain! Pirates! Soarin! California Screamin'! ride after ride we hooted and hollered, my beloved deer head always by my side. one time during the Bugs Life 3-D movie...perhaps it was the funny glasses playing a trick on me...but i could've sworn i saw it crack a smile...

and so, in the Pinocchio section of the Disneyland parking lot, our journey has come to an end. man and beast were reunited at last.

thanks to Shelley, her husband Bryan, and their three precious girls.

"what's his name?" asked Caitlyn, the little blond girl.

"why...i don't know. i suppose it's time i give him a name," i said.

"you should name him Rudolph," said Lily, the little asian one.

"oh, Lily," I chuckled. "that's just SICK."

til next time...

the berk...

2007-10-16T14:45:00.000-07:00

howdy. i'm back in LA now, after my week up in Berkeley, or as they (i) like to call it..."the Berk."

what a beautiful place. i didn't realize how beautiful it was until i got back to LA...and realized how UGLY it is. (but the ugliness is wearing off and i'm loving LA again.)

it was nice to see some leaves turning color... hear the pitter-patter of rain outside as i was falling asleep...smell all the crazy homeless men...a cornucopia for the senses!

i often like to think how my life would've been different had i gone to a REAL school -- like Berkeley...or Penn State -- rather than NYU. and by "real" i mean a school with...

a.) a campus
b.) pretty buildings (such as the Berkeley Library pictured here)
c.) real sports teams (other than fencing)
d.) an ounce of school spirit

but Matt, NYU was in the heart of the Big Apple. so in essence, the whole city was your campus!...

Spitooey! don't get me wrong, NYU, i loved ya. but i can't help but feel like i was robbed. robbed of the traditional college experience. the one our forefathers fought so valiantly to establish.

just think of how much fun i coulda had...frat parties...homecoming football games... hackey-sack on the quad...kidnapping a horse and shooting it in the dean's office...

i ask you, what's better?

a lush, rolling campus...or a 3-acre park filled with dope smoke and dog poop.

an ivory tower... or Tower Records.

oh, if i could only turn back those hands of time...

OR...perhaps there's an easier answer...
GRAD SCHOOL.

(hahaha -- NOT!)

on to more pictures...

i arrived at Berkeley excited to take part in a good old fashioned protest. gee, what could we be protesting today?...

the War...
the Children's Healthcare veto...
human trafficking...
capitalism in general...

NOTHING. everyone's happy up there these days. so i held my own protest to protest the lack of protest.
(pay no attention to the happy asians behind me)

that's me with my pal Duke Randave Amante Mendinuetobaddabingodingelberryschmidt.

he was a bit of a nerd and had to "study" most of the time and "can't go out drinking with you every night" because he had a "scholarship to keep" besides "you're way too old to try to get into parties up here" since i'll "never pass for nineteen anymore" and "frankly, the fact that you really want to so badly is creeping me out."

a great guy. an okay friend. lousy wingman.

but the good news is, i didn't bomb my endocrinology midterm as NEARLY as bad as i thought.

those after-school study sessions with my private tutor are really panning out.

one day i took the delightfully grungy BART train under the water to visit San Francisco.
S.F.
St. Franny.

and no i didn't leave my heart there.

(nor my wallet)

i went to visit Jenny, my old friend and co-teacher from back in Japan, who is now 7 months pregnant.

and one day, with Maury Povich's help, she hopes to find out who the father is.

j/k

here she is posing on her doorstep...

...and in her living room.

gotta love that old school SF architecture.

...before it goes up in FLAMES in the next earthquake!

mwa hahahahahahaha!

meet Skittles, jenny's very soft and talkative kitty.

when Skittles dies, i hope to use her pelt to fashion a pair of slippers. she was that soft.

(2 days later, the Animal Rescue people showed up and took Skittles away -- damn you, Ellen DeGeneres!)

that evening we had a nice Italian dinner followed by some grade-A gelato.

and believe it or not, after about 18 tries of me holding-out-the-camera-to-take-a-picture -of-both-of-us

...THIS was the best one.

people kept saying, "you gotta eat at Zachary's ...you gotta eat at Cheeseboard...you gotta eat at Top Dog."

so to appease them, i did. but just at Zachary's.

and i gotta admit, that was the BEST mutha-fuckin p*zza i've had in a long long long time. (a long long long time equaling 28 years.)

my mouth is watering just looking at this pic... from the pizza, not from Duke. the pizza. the pizza.

what a coincidence! my old buddy Scott (pronounced "Scaught") Lee goes to grad school up in Berkeley too!

i know Scott from my days as a goody-two-shoes camp counselor at LCLC, a church camp outside of Buffalo.

Matt White: 1st row, 3rd from the right

Scott Lee: 2nd row, 3rd from the right

and of course, when two or more LCLC camp counselors gather together...

beer will be there.

Berkeley, for being such a hippy haven, actually has a great football team this year. and what were the odds -- they had a home game while i was there!

unfortunately, on account of me not having $1,000, me not being a student, and me not being able to find a student who looked close enough like me that i could club on the head and steal his I.D...i couldn't get a ticket.

so i made like Zachias and climbed a tree.

...only to watch them LOSE. they went from 2nd place to 10th in one day.

sucks to be you, Cal. sucks to be you.

except for your Marching Band! they totally rocked! if i went to Berkeley, i'd definitely wanna be in the marching band. for sure.

and as the sun set on me, my time up North had drawn to a close. will it be another 3 long years til i visit you again, NoCal?

let's pray not.

(this is actually a picture of the sun setting on the Golden Gate bridge while shrouded in fog. it is. just take my word for it)

til next time...

heading north...

2007-10-08T01:04:00.000-07:00

it's been three years since my last trip to San Fran, high time i pay that town another visit. so i am. tomorrow. i'll be there for a week, crashing with a buddy of mine at Berkeley.

aaahhh, college. how i miss those bygone school days. i'll be taking my 'puter and plan to do a lot of writing...maybe in the library...or the commons...or the dining hall. depending on how things go, i may even pledge a fraternity or two. or join a protest. what are kids protesting these days anyway? i'm so out of the loop. so very very old...

hey! maybe i'll ask that cute girl from organic chemistry out for some coffee. she keeps looking at me, like maybe she's interested. or maybe it's not me she's into at all. maybe it's my freakin' lab partner, Skip Mulgrew. starting running back on the football team. ass. he gets all the girls and leaves all the lab work to me. then again, what girl would want me. what with my face full of pustules and all.

so, yeah, my next blog or two will be coming at you from a few more parallels to the north.

til next time...

face down, under the sheet...

2007-10-01T19:42:00.000-07:00

the other day i experienced my first ever massage.

as in full body (nearly nude), qualified/trained masseuse, oils, lotions, incense, sitar music, the works.

as opposed to the untrained hands of various friends/acquaintances during ski trips, camping trips, or at the tail end of late night party where a bottle or two of wine was involved.

i'd been meaning to get one for a while now and finally decided to treat myself for surviving LCS 5 and a job well done.

and i gotta say, driving there... i was a wee bit nervous. as are most men when it comes to getting a massage.

you see, there are two things that go through a man's head while he's lying face down on that table, waiting for his masseuse to come in...

1) what if i fart?

2) what if i get a boner?

well, my friends, i am proud to say, my first real massage has come and gone, and i did not get a boner.

til next time...

MOAB!

2007-09-26T23:06:00.000-07:00

here it comes! as promised and better late than never. i am now gonna take a huge DUMP of a (b)log and spew so much text and megapixeliation your direction your heads might just implode.

my friends, the Mother Of All Blogs has begun.

join me, as we take a little trip backwards in time...

to LAST NIGHT.

when i arrived home, to find one of THESE things on the wall of my bedroom.

Scutigera coleoptrata

the House Centipede

or as i came to know them while growing up...
the dreaded "Thousand-legger."

probably my least favorite of all God's creation, second only to the earwig.

and i can come up with 1,002 reasons why.

so there we were, face to face. (a coupla silver spoooooons...)

there was just no way in Hell i was going to bed with that thing as my roommate.

so i took off my flip flop... climbed up on a chair....took aim....and...and......THWACK!

MISSED!!

the Thousand-legger fell (practically floated) to the ground and scrambled for cover...
RIGHT UNDER MY BED.

it was 12:30am. i was way too exhausted to go rooting around under that bed. who KNOWS what's under there. i haven't seen that square of carpet since i assembled that bed after a trip to Ikea nearly 3 years ago. there could be dozens of 'leggers down there...maybe thousands.

so i hopped online and went to wikipedia. surely that would help settle my nerves. after a brief search i found what i was looking for.

did you know Thousand-leggers originated from the Mediterranean region and have followed humans around as civilization has spread...to the Orient...to the West...perhaps even to the Moon! it was only in the last 100 years that they even made it to southern California, and they can live 6 years or more. they're also the number one eater of spiders, roaches, bed bugs and other pesky insectoids.

all that didn't make me feel ANY better. but what DID, was this...

"In Japan, these creatures are referred to as gejigeji (ゲジゲジ^?) and enjoy a level of popularity. They can often be seen for sale in pet stores."

Pet Thousand-leggers??! gotta love those Japanese. they've tamed the un-tamable. i hear in some instances, they even use them as babysitters...

...as shown here, as this T.L. tucks in this precious Asian baby.

that night i slept soundly, confident my friend the Thousand-Legger was below me, protecting me from God-Knows-What.

i guess you could say, i slept like a baby.

an Asian baby.

unlike LAST THURSDAY NIGHT....

after i got home from the Arcade Fire concert at the Hollywood Bowl.

i love the A.F. but for some reason...i just wasn't "into" it that night.

perhaps it was the swarm of drunken, stoned hipsters i seemed to have found myself in the middle of, who kept screaming "play Wake Up! play Tunnels!" while dancing/stumbling/gyrating their way through the entire night. obnoxious.

that'd be like going to a Bruce Springsteen show and screaming "play Born to Run!" or hollering "Start Me Up!!" at the Stones. come on! it's the Arcade Fire. they've got 22 songs to their name. sit back, shut up, and let them do their shit.

i gotta say, i don't think i've ever left a concert and been LESS of a fan of a band than i was going into the show. but that's pretty much what happened. and you can thank those lousy hipsters for that.

or perhaps it was because earlier that day (unbeknownst to me at the time) 3,000 miles away a girl failed to look both ways before pulling out into a busy street, causing an on-coming vehicle to plow into her at 45mph. that on-coming vehicle just happened to be driven by my mother. thankfully she's fine. her VW, not so much. so perhaps the universe was sending some bad vibes my way, keeping me from kicking back and having a good time...

or maybe i was just plan exhausted from a crazy week of work. which brings us to

LAST WEDNESDAY NIGHT...

and the Season Finale of Last Comic.

and here he is, the Last Comic Standing himself, the man from Hickory, Mr. Jon Reep, about to boogie down with my co-worker Stephanie.

Jon's a great guy, super funny...but i can't help but feel that Lavell (giant Jabba-the-Hutt-like black dude) got robbed.

that's Amy Schumer, who made it into the Top 5. her act is a bit Silverman-ish, but she's even more hilarious behind the scenes.

we bonded earlier this season while talking about her dad's cousin, Senator Chuck Schumer of NY. he saved me from paying about $700 in unfair hospital bills a few years back. (long story)

there we are, the LCS script department. Lisa, me, and Tim, oh so very happy to have our lives back.

EARLIER THAT DAY...

that's Tim and I backstage, a few minutes before show-time.

a 2-hour finale is a major production. we had the USC Marching Band, puppets... i think the network forgot we're a show about stand-up comedy.

yet, thankfully, it went off without a hitch...

still, few people were happier that the season was over than the script team.

this season has taken us from...

night shoots at Medieval Times...

to other night shoots at the LA Coliseum.

nocturnal craziness ensued.

(yes i know the sun's still up in this pic, but you have to get to set early)

BACK AT THE OFFICE...

that's me with producer/writer/comedienne Page Hurwitz.

in the off-season she earns her keep as Carrie Fisher's stunt double.

and this is it. how i spent 90% of my summer. glued to my computer keyboard, my pet raccoon thirsting for food and attention. neither of which would ever come.

needless to say, it was enough to drive a man...

CRAAAAZY.

i'd thrown a fun toga party two summers back, and since Hollywood loves a sequel, i decided it was time to launch Part II.

this time, it was personal.

personal enough that a few of my old friends from summer camp flew out for it.

and of course, a couple Japanese.

i explained to them earlier that an American toga party is a form of "costume party."

so they showed up in street clothes with Minnie Mouse ears and a Mexican wrestler mask.

after a quick trip to my linen closet, all was well.

LA can be pretty lame when it comes to theme party participation. but for some reason people love a good toga.

i got a keg of MGD and refused to go to bed until it was kicked.

mission accomplished.

yet there were a few casualties.

UNLIKE THREE WEEKS EARLIER...

when a small gang and i drove out to Vegas for the weekend.

we crashed with Robo-won, who was out there working for the summer.

here are the laaaadies before a night on the town.

it was also one of my last chances to hang with pal Dae before he moved to Denver.

i'm gonna miss that cowbell.

it was HOOOOOOTTTT.

luckily, thanks to some insider information, we were able to Ocean's-11 our way in to the MGM pool.

fishin' for cancer...

what a great weekend. hadn't had that much fun since...

TWO WEEKS PRIOR...

at my 28th birthday party.

this was my first birthday spent in LA, and i could think of no better place to host it than my most favorite dive bar in the universe.

The Roost.

here's a mini NYU reunion, with Herman, Pete, Schofield B. Demille, me, and Patrick (all the way from Deutschland)

Jordan and Neighbor Eric made an appearance.

(Alex the Jerk did not)

Matt 'n Terrence. fellow Pennsylvanianites.

my Polynesian friend Duke Randave Mendineutomolloyappawakiwakidingo

and his girlfriend "Trish."

the mischievous Mr. Tom Rice with lady bell Jess Mitchell...

these girls...

Whitey Ford posin' with Allentown...

Bryan and Cleve...

the comedic stylings of Schofield and Mitchell...

shots!

(Going...)

Luigi, Pauley Price, and Dae...

(Going...)

Danny Mo and Danny Wall...

(Gone.)

What a great birthday. Good times, good drinks, with good friends. I hadn't been that liquored up in a long time.

In fact, I was just about as drunk as my parents were when...

28 YEARS AND 9 MONTHS EARLIER...

...this happened.

that's all folks!

don't forget to tip your waiter and waitress. good night.

last monday standing!!

2007-09-17T17:17:00.001-07:00

this is it! my last week of work!

our grand 2-hour finale is on this Wednesday night, 9-11pm on NBC. watch it.

i already know who wins, but i ain't gonna tell you....unless you PAY me. or bribe me. or torture me. or even ask me. i'm a real Loose-Lips MaGee sometimes.

i tell ya, after the stress this gig's put me through, there's only one thing on my mind. REVENGE. and there's no better revenge than by running up a ridiculously huge alcohol tab at the open bar-ed Wrap Party. i thought i'd fulfilled my drunk-off-my-ass quota for the year last month, but i may just have to make an exception in '007.

after this week i will re-enter the sweet, sweeet life of the delightfully unemployed. i'm already getting giddy just thinking about filing my UI claim... *squeal!*

i've then got one month to catch up on all the writing i was supposed to be doing this summer -- including the 'ol blog. and i'll probably throw a road trip or two in there as well. unless i succumb to my friends' taunts and join Facebook. then i'll probably blow it all in front of my computer screen, my red, bleary eyes scanning the net for friends of old and new. no, i won't do it! noooo!

but fear not, friends. my unemployment will be (relatively) short-lived. for by the end of October i start work on the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

First, Miss Universe. Next, Vicky's Secret. it's a hard-knock life.

til my freedom!

(p.s. this was NOT the mother of all blogs...that's still coming)

in the works...

2007-09-06T00:28:00.001-07:00

friends, i've got the mother-of-all-blogs brewing, stewing inside me. just sit tight for another day or two...

so close...so very very close....

1776.06

2007-08-18T11:28:00.000-07:00

...that's what i wrote a check in the amount of on friday before sending it off to a debt collector -- the last check i will (ever?) have to write as such. because I, MGW, am now officially out of CREDIT CARD DEBT.

1776.06. how symbolic of my new-found freedom from those evil bastards at Visa/MC. in the black. outta the hole. i've viewed my credit card balance online about 52 times yesterday. $0. what a lovely number that zero can be sometimes.

"congratulations. i hope you find some way to celebrate," said the lady from the credit card company when i called to get my final balance.

and did i ever.

pics to come...

(hang tight, folks, work's still sucking up my life....but i'll be back soon)

til next time...

leah in translation...

2007-08-07T16:17:00.000-07:00

if you look under "my peeps" you'll see a new link to "leah-sensei." leah's a fellow LCLC alumnus who's over in Tokyo teaching at the very school i used to! it's awesome because she often posts pics of my former students, so i can keep tabs on them 5 years later, 7,000 miles away.

check her out...

ho ho ho

2007-08-07T15:57:00.000-07:00

christmas is only 140 days away, and i've already got #1 on my wish list...

all work and no play...

2007-07-24T21:02:00.000-07:00

...make matt very GROUCHY. and you won't like grouchy matt. matt doesn't like grouchy matt. i feel like any second i'm gonna rip open my shirt to reveal bulging green muscles (man-boobs). then i'll take off on a rampage through the city, throwing cars through buildings and buildings through OTHER buildings. the airforce will be dispatched, and we'll fight a climactic battle in downtown los angeles (outside of broadway bar) during which i'll finally be destroyed by a skinny jewish boy who somehow knew to place a cybertronic cube into my navel.

but before i'm completely vanquished, my soul manages to escape to spend years in hiding in griffith park, awaiting the right moment to return... but to do so, i need the blood of that boy who killed me...

life's so complicated sometimes.

i'm just over half-way through a 14-day-in-a-row work streak.

wa wa wa, poor matt. he has to work two weeks straight without a single day off.

i hear ya. but may i REMIND you, i work in Television. the Boob Tube. i don't have cushy 9-5's like you biznaz folk. my days have been 10am to 2am or, lately, 8pm to 4am. or even the occasional 7am to 1am. sucks to be me.

i keep calculating my paycheck hoping the extra digits will cheer me up. they don't. which i'm kinda relieved about. i always thought i cared too much about money. i guess i really don't! sure i love money, but i don't LOOOOOOOVE money. i've been broke for the last 6 years. just so happens the last 6 years were the happiest years of my life. why this is just hitting me now, i do not know... it's 3:47am and i can't sleep. too many night shoots in a row...

at least work is going well. i was pissed because my boss asked me to do cue cards for our location shoots so they could save money from hiring a "professional". like a fool i agreed, thinking he only meant ONE shoot, not all FIVE of them. so next thing i knew i was back printing cards again. just when i think i'm out...

but it's actually been a good thing. it's given me the chance to bond with our host, bill bellamy. we're...what's the word i'm looking for...ah, yes, "homies" now. that's right, matt white and bill bellamy. ebony and ivory. if this were 1994 i'd be the coolest kid in school.

still, i'd give my left nut for a day off. i haven't seen a movie since Transformers. haven't even cracked open Deathly Hallows. my tan's fading fast. my friends are forced to do things WITHOUT me (how horrible for them!) while my parents are cruising the Mediterranean. it's not fair. even God took a break after day 6.

i need my "matt time". i'm not talking about the "matt time" i get every morning and at night when i can't fall asleep (although it didn't work tonight). i need...basically another month off! like june. sweet, sweet june.

[slaps face] snap out of it! i got a good job. i gotta be thankful for it. besides, the crazy bullshit hours end this week. after that it's back to 10-6.

but i tell you what has been helping me get through these last weeks...

this!

check it out...

til next time...

pick the herman

2007-07-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

my friend (andy) Herman is quite a character.

CARTOON character, that is.

a few of us had a little competition to see who could turn him into the best Simpson.

you be the judge.

Schofield's...

mine...

Terrence's....

find the right combination of all three and i think we've got something.

til next time...

doh!

2007-07-19T16:25:00.001-07:00

dang, it's been a long time since i touched this blog. sorry, friends. work's been kicking my ASS. but it's been fun at the same time, so i can't complain. or rather, i CAN complain, but i shouldn't. at least not publicly. and especially not since today was pay day -- cha CHING.

i promise a more blog-worthy post at some point. my life post-August 2nd should be much less crazy. until then, i'll throw you some scraps to tide you over...

do yourselves a favor and go to simpsonsmovie.com to design yourself as a Simpson. it's been the source of many yuks around the office.

this is about as close as it gets for me.

Meet LCS script supervisor Lisa Lagasse...

Meet Lisa's boyfriend Ed.

Terrence's isn't too bad.

he's the one on the right.

not sure who the dude on the left is...

take a good look at my pals, comedic duo Herman & Schofield...

as Nelson would say...

HA ha!

til next time...

back to work...

2007-07-09T14:34:00.001-07:00

i'm back at my old desk at Last Comic Standing. i've worked 3 days
out of the last 5 weeks, so it'll be nice having a steady paycheck for
awhile...

but not as nice as unemployment, that's for sure!

this has been a great, great, great last few weeks... pics to come.

in the meantime, here's a jpeg a friend just sent me which lifted my
back-to-work blues.

enjoy.

til next time...

28 years later...

2007-07-03T18:56:00.000-07:00

Twenty-eight years ago today...in a hospital room in Reading, Pennsylvania...a young woman gave birth to a boy. a boy, shimmery and shining with golden light. a boy who would bring joy to the hearts of millions...whose infectious smile would chase black clouds away...whose laughter could crack the coldest heart of stone...whose wit and wisdom would, no doubt, one day save this planet from total annihilation during an invasion from a ruthless alien species....

meanwhile, in the room next door, this lady was pushing a 7 lb 11 oz mini-mart of joy out of her uterus.

and they named him... Matthew Gerald.

thanks, everyone, for the birthday cards, calls, emails, e-cards, texts, sky-writing, myspace comments, etc...

i hardly feel a day over 27.

til next time...

Knocked Up

2007-06-24T22:07:00.000-07:00

I love it when art imitates life. "Knocked Up" is a big hit at the BO. (kinda). how ironic, considering a bunch of my friends/relatives/acquaintances just popped steaming, gooey little buns out of their own ovens. and most were even legitimate!

let's meet a few...

here's Robby, the newest member of the Koch-White Clan.

my cousin Meredith gave birth to this little alien a few weeks back. (can't remember the date -- sorry Robby! i'm a lousy 2nd cousin)

here's Mommy and Robby...who seems to hate life already.

don't worry kid, it gets better.

awhile back my good buddy Glenz lent a sperm cell to one of his wife's Japanese eggs and waa-laah! a little Asian-Caucasian hybrid named Lisa was born.

i hear hybrid babies produce 30% less emissions.

by 2030 the goal is 35%.

Mama-chan and Papa-san...with baby-chan.

just a month old and Lil' Lisa already has a BLOG! check it out under "My Peeps".

and welcome to the Blogosphere. :)

and speaking of blogs and hybrids, my friend and former co-teacher Jenny got some good news of her own a couple months back! she and her husband Nehal (together they're known as "Nehnny") are growing a fetus of their own as we speak.

and here it is...

Jenny is Chinese and Nehal is Indian (not the Native American kind).

two races not necessarily known for "infertility".

now i know what you're thinking...

this is it. two billion Indians and Chinese in this world, and now they're gonna go and start breeding to create a Master Race, and then it's goooooodbye white people.

but that doesn't have to be the case. we can all just get along.

plus, even if the new Indo-Chinese race has the most brilliant brains on the planet, able to quadruple-bypass your heart and fix your computer at the same time in 30 seconds flat, they're STILL no match for our athletic ability and smoooooth moooooves on the dance floor.

wait, that's black people...

what are white people stereotypically good at again???.... besides war, serial killers, and getting fat?

shit. we are LAME.

anywho, back to Nehnny. here's Jenny's tummy.

like Lil' Lisa, she's got a blog too, listed under "My Peeps" as well.

if it's a boy, some names they're considering are...

Matthew

Harold

Kumar

if it's a girl... well, they'll put it up for adoption and immediately try for a boy.

i kid! i kid! times have changed. and Chinese people don't do that here in America.

i think...

*yawn* okay, i've only managed to offend a few billion people here tonight, so i'm calling it quits. all in a day's work...

til next time...and CONGRATULATIONS!! :)

if you are a friend of Matt White and you and your significant other are "with child" and would like your fetus ultrasound pic posted on this blog, please email it to Matt. Goose, i'm talking to YOU.

he ain't no brando

2007-06-20T19:50:00.000-07:00

for being such a great liar, bill clinton is a LOUSY actor.

and how big is hillary's butt gonna keep getting??

they should take a lesson in comedy from Rudy. his SNL episode was a classic.

til next time...

one week back...

2007-06-18T22:47:00.000-07:00

number of days i've been back in california: 8

number of days it took me to re-adjust: 2

number of hours i spent cleaning my room my first day back in town: 5

number of times i dusted my room that day: 1

number of times i've dusted my room in 2.6 years of living there: 0

number of times i sneezed while dusting: 52

number of movies i've seen since i've been back: 3

number of "sneak previews": 2 -- "Hairspray" and "Ratatouille" (both EXCELLENT)

number of times i attempted to spell "Ratatouille" before i looked it up on google: 3

number of laughs in "Knocked Up": 877

number of times i wanted to puke in "K.U.": 4 (baby's head sticking out of vagina)

number of hours i spent in traffic on saturday to get from one side of town to the other: 3

number of times i've been to Pinkberry since my return: 1

number of times i've been to Stinkberry since my return: 8

number of kick-ass new bars in downtown i've been to: 2

number of "allen's" i tossed a few back with in one of those downtown bars: 2

number of hispanic cougars who hit on me at that downtown bar: 1

number of times i've been to the gym: 2

number of celebrities i've seen working out at said gym: 1 (ashton kutcher)

number of times ashton kutcher asked me to stop staring at him as i was working out: 0

number of sweet new kick-ass cell phones i got: 1

number of no-good "friends" who DROPPED my phone on a tile floor the very day i got it: 1 (it still works)

number of no-good copy-cat "friends" who ran out and got the same EXACT cell phone as me two days later: 1 (damn you, glazer!!)

number of times i've been to the beach since my return: 3

number of shades i've turned darker since my return: 4

number of moles on my skin currently undergoing cancerous mutations: 17

number of dolphins spotted: 1

number of sharks spotted: 0 :(

number of japanese dudes i taught how to boogie board: 2

number of seagull feathers that somehow managed to get into the lining of my swimsuit to poke me in the anus as i was boogie boarding: 1

number of words i typed in my new script: 0

number of videos i finally posted of me and my friends landing a baby kracken in mexico last month: 1

good to be back.

til next time...

about to leave

2007-06-10T10:04:00.001-07:00

my friends, my time on the east coast has come to an end. in a few short minutes i'll be heading to PHL to hop on plane bound for sunny California.

hallelujah.

i think the day has come for me to turn in my East Coast card. i just can't deal with life here anymore. it's just too much. the air -- too clean. the tap water -- too delicious. the traffic -- wouldn't even qualify as traffic. i could drive over 35mph on a highway during rush hour. too dangerous. it's not right.

not to mention the fact that one day it's 90 degrees and steamy, like something straight out of Mississippi (i've never been to MS, but i imagine it's something like Hell), and the next day -- 75 degrees with a nice cool breeze. oh! and don't get me started on the water that falls from the sky. i went to my friend Molly's wedding. as i entered the church, hot, sunny, blue skies. as i left the church -- POURING RAIN. madness. my brand new suit got wet on the first day i wore it.

yes, i look forward to getting back to my western lifestyle. where the air is dry, the sun always shines, and the cars drive nice and slow. the simple life.

but before i sign off, here's a few more 1's and 0's for you to enjoy... (click on them to make em bigger)...

Mick & Molly...the happy couple.

Molly is my oldest friend -- the "girl-next-door" when i was 0 - 13 years old. practically a sister to me. i've seen her naked. she's wiped my butt. it's what kids do.

Molly also invited our old high school principal, Mrs. Misterkiewicz.

here i am dancing with her. never too late to score a few more "points", if ya knows what i means...

ceeeeelebrate good times, come on!
(it's a celebration)

The White's.

notice the giant white blob just below my crouch. it always happens to me at weddings.

a Meadow Hill Drive reunion.

me and my bro's, with the Sweigert Sisters (and brother...we don't like to talk about him)

i took a break from snapping pictures for the rest of that week, including my trip to granny's house (sorry granny), but managed to grab a few this morning when i went water skiing with my aunt.

not bad for not having been on skis in 5 years.

but not great either.

Aunt Carol.

show off.

ever since Tequila, my pet tarantula of 15 years, died last year, there's been a gaping hole in my heart. well, i can now say that hole's been filled -- by a stinky little boxer named Roscoe.

how can you not love that face? and that dog's pretty cute too. ;)

yes, man's best friend. but i'm not joking, he really smells. i few minutes with a garden hose would do him some good.

it's just 4 days shy of a MONTH that i've been gone from LA. a MONTH. never again. well...at least not until i'm directing some independent film in shanghai or something like that.

PA/NJ family and friends, it's was awesome seeing you again. thanks for another great trip.

LA friends, i've got the rest of this week off. time to grab some DRINKS.

Natalie (roommate). get that boyfriend of yours outta my house, the MAN of the house is comin' home!

til california...

three years ago...

2007-06-05T20:11:00.000-07:00

on June 5, 2004, i steered my (un)trusty little Dodge neon through the desert and came upon a sign...

alas, after four long days on the road, i'd finally made it.

only fortune and glory await...

my stomach was growling so i pulled off the highway at the first town i came across -- a lovely little hamlet called "Needles." i began searching for a place to stuff my gullet... "Jack-in-the-Box? What's that?" i thought to myself. but it looked tasty enough for me.

and that's when i saw this...

*GASP!*

$2.99 for GAS!!!

the most expensive gasoline i'd ever seen! surely, the most expensive gas in the world!!

i just had to take a picture.

CUT TO:

3 Years Later...

*sigh*

who would've thought in such a short amount of time $2.99 would go from a steal to a DEAL. not I. but the fact that those Big Oil CEO's are gonna rot in hell for eternity does make me sleep better at night, i gotta admit.

so, yes, this day marks my Three-Year Anniversary of my arrival in Los Angeles. and to celebrate, i went out to eat at my favorite restaurant in the world...which just happens to be in Point Pleasant, New Jersey.

yep, still back east. now i'm on the "Grandmother's House" portion of the trip. nothing but lounging and eating, lounging and eating, lounging and eating for me. oh, and sleeping. but tomorrow i'm hitting up the beach. it's been years since i've dipped my toe in the Atlantic. can't wait.

i remember my blog post last year at this time, on my Two-Year Anniversary, how i was lamenting my "broke-ness", my "debt-ness", my recent "unemployment-ness"...

my, what a difference a year makes. three really is a charm. let's keep this good-fortune ball a rollin'!

thanks, LA. i'll be home soon. and that's a promise.

til next time...

back in the USofA

2007-06-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

well, i did it. i survived my first (but maybe not last) Miss [insert name here] Pageant.

i'm sure all of you have heard by now that Miss USA took a dump on the stage (not literally), and some of you may have even watched the clip over and over and over again on youtube. like me.

if not, and you want to, here it is:

it's a shame, too. Miss USA was a real sweetheart. one lazy afternoon the script department decided to sneak off to the hotel pool...where we found several of the Miss Uni contestants lying in wait. Miss USA was there. she caught me staring at her and winked at me. yes, i said *winked*. and right then and there i fell in love...

...at least until the night of the show, when she Dick-Van-Dyked her way across the stage in her evening gown. all the booing...the hissing... i must've been doing it louder than i thought, cuz security came to escort me away from backstage.

but when it was all said and done, it was a pretty frickin' cool show. and i was proud to be a part of it.

for the record Miss USA was booed the ENTIRE time she was down there. the viewers at home couldn't hear it though til the "Final Question" round. she got booed out in public, got booed at the beginning of the show during her intro, etc etc... i loved Mexico City, but that's just plain rude. you got a problem with America, that's fine. but don't take it out on the cute little mulatto girl from Tennessee. come see ME. *cracking knuckles*

anywho... without further adooo (i know that's not how it's spelled, but i'm too lazy to look it up), here's the last of my pics... (click on them, they get BIGGER)

there's sarah and I out to lunch. while the rest of the crew was working hard, we always managed to sneak away for a nice lunch. here we are out with gene, the writer (in the grey), and tal the earnst & young accountant -- the guy who counts all the votes.

fun guys.

my neighbor alex recommended a couple restaurants to hit up. this was one of them -- Izote. i guess it was written up in the NY Times or something. a lot of the crew read the NY Times though, so we were about the 38th group from the Miss Uni show to eat there.

but great food nonetheless. here's our appetizer. a pepper stuffed with goat cheese.

here's the Izote crew -- the script department (me, jen, and sarah) out with gene again...

notice my dessert -- mangos with fruit and a cream sauce... i ate a lot of mango down there.
i missa tha mango.

our hosts flew in a day or so before the show to rehearse. mario "saved by the bell" lopez and vanessa "not jessica" manillo.

i would've been more excited if mark paul gosselar (zack morris) was hosting, but a.c. slater was all right.

actually, they did a damn good job as far as hosting goes. i'd give them a good reference any day.

a lot of hurry-up-and-wait for the girls. they've been cooped up for almost a month at this point. many of them don't even care who wins, they just want to get the thing over with.

notice Miss France in the upper left with her finger to her head.

that's Miss Belgium down in front in the white, next to Miss Germany, Miss Kazakhstan (more on her later) Miss Russia, Miss Greece, Miss Bolivia behind them, Miss Korea, Miss Denmark, and the new Miss Universe -- Miss Japan -- in the upper right.

the night before the show, the Trumpster flew in to do his "inspection". you might not know this, but Trump gets a vote in determining who makes it to the Top 15.

his hair gets TWO votes.

all the girls had to parade before him, walk up to the front, and say their name and age.

Miss Greece, mm mmm mmmmm.

i wonder how you say "ha-cha-cha-chaaa" in greek...

then Trumpy told them how beautiful they ALL were, how HUGE the show was gonna be, yadda yadda yadda...

...and went down the row shaking hands.

i'd love to find out if the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain, if you know what i mean...

group photo!

...and there she is...soon to become Miss Universe -- Miss Japan. gotta admit, she is CUTE. sugoy! kawaiiiiii!

Miss Kazakhstan on the other hand....was very nice. and a good sport. people were teasing her about Borat, and she took it rather well. but during swimsuit rehearsals, i couldn't help but notice that her pubies crept down to her knees. i think that cost her some points...

that's Miss Korea, behind Kazakhstan. her name was "Honey Lee". that sounds like a Bond girl to me. also super cute. i couldn't decide who i wanted to win more, Japan or Korea. life's fraught with tough decisions sometimes.

and now i'm back in the states. good old pennsylvania to be exact. because tomorrow, my good old friend Molly gets married. wouldn't/couldn't miss it.

and it is HOOOOOOOT. Mexico City's got nothing on the east coast these days -- it is STEAMY. those cool california nights are looking real nice right about now...

thanks Donald for the gig. thanks Mexico City for being a good host -- at least to me (no diarrhea!) thanks Sandro for showing us a good time. and thank GOD i'm back in America. it's good to be home.

til next time...

kidnapped!

2007-05-25T12:46:00.000-07:00

just kidding.

unless i mean kidnapped by FUN! HAHAHAAHHAAHAHA! HA!

sorry i've been so incommunicado lately, but between work and after-work shennanigans, i haven't had the time to blog. and since internet access costs $16.50 (dollars, not pesos) a DAY at my hotel (no gracias!) i haven't been able to get online late at night and wax poetic about life like i can do at home.

but i'm managing to steal a few minutes on donald trump's dime right now, so here goes...

the best part of working abroad are two magic little latin words -- "per diem".

and i've been using my 50 bucks a day to eat like an Aztec god.

but when i don't feel like shelling out the dough, i grab a few of these at a place near my hotel -- pastor (pork) tacos. the red meat is pork. the yellow stuff is pineapple. a-mazing.

lots of funky architecture down here. which you can kinda see in this restaurant we ate at one night...

...and the bar in our hotel.

and this art gallery where we (my co-workers Jen [my boss] and sarah [my assistant]) met up with my old amigo from film school...

Sandro.

haven't seen the dude since we graduated...
6 years ago!

so much has changed...but even more hasn't.

he's still the same Mexican/Italian/Jewish/
Left-wing/Nudist i knew back in the day.

Sandro's a real "chilango" ("Mexican City-er"...i.e. "New Yorker")

...and showed us around an old school neighborhood in southern MC called Coyoacan, former home of Trotsky, Frida, and even Cortez himself.

here we are out to dinner...

...and here's the same restaurant, minus the flash.

on the menu: ant eggs, cactus, marlin tostados, and the most deliciously gooey chocolate dessert ever.

a couple days later we snuck out of the office, called a car service, and had our driver take us an hour north of the city to the great pyramids of mehico -- the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon.

...which, like a spanish conquistador, i planned to conquer.

nice ass.

halfway up...

Victory. that's me and Sarah, admiring the view.

notice my excellent posture.

check out some wonderfully grainy video from my digi-cam...

that night we met up with sandro and some ex-pats at this old school bar in El Centro...

where we split a bottle of tequila, with tomato juice chasers...

while being serenaded by mariachis...

between the music and the tequila, Sandro's friend Isaac (pronounced E-sock) was in the mood...for love.

unfortunately for him, Sarah was not.

about that time, we decided to play a little game called, "Let's Grab an Electric Wire and Hold Hands to Shock Ourselves and See Who Lets Go First."

apparently, it's a popular game down here in MC.

when in Rome...

after several rounds of the girls letting go first, i'd barely even broken a sweat. so it was time for some guy vs. guy action...

again, the victor! apparently i have a freakishly high tolerance for electricity. just how high? i was about to find out...

80 megaHURTS. seriously, i couldn't even control my hands to let go. the guy had to turn it off. but i'd done the unthinkable. i had conquered direct current. it was time to celebrate...

with some cuban cigars.

well, maybe they weren't cuban. but they COULD'VE been.

an empty bottle.

the end of a long, memorable day. our last day of freedom before a long week of work ahead of us...

...and that brings us up to now -- one week later. i been working my arse off this week, but it's been worth it. i haven't enjoyed working on a show this much in a long time. for many reasons. 77 of the most beautiful reasons in the world to be exact.

this will probably be my last entry until i'm back in the states. but until then, join the 1 billion+ people around the world (yes, it's true) who watch the Miss Universe pageant on Monday night, 9/8 central on NBC. (apparently it's huge in Latin America). it's gonna be a good show. promise.

til state-side...

hola

2007-05-16T10:58:00.000-07:00

hola mis amigos!

...yeah, that's about where my spanish ends.

can't talk long, but i'm having a blast down in the MC. this place is blowing my mind. having worked at "Chi-Chi's" in college, and having seen "Nacho Libre" and "The Mexican", i thought i was prepared for the REAL Mexico, not that whimpy Baja sh*t, but this town has exceeded expectations in each and every way. and i love it!

lucky for me, my mates in the script department are equally as adventurous and reluctant to do "work", so we're all about the loooooooong lunches...

i'll blog more later, but in the meantime here's a few jpegs to whet your whistle...

lots of statues down here...

generals...

gandhi...

martin luther king...

seriously.

the Auditorio Nacional, where we'll be coming to you LIVE on Monday night, May 28th on NBC.

i've been told over and over and over again, DO NOT take a green taxi. unfortunately, that's like telling people in NYC not to take a YELLOW taxi. they're everywhere. and they're Beetles!

i've never ridden in a beetle. screw it, i'm gonna take a green taxi. but just once.

and last but not least, check out the lobby of my hotel below...

gotta get back to work...

hasta la proxima vez...

on the road again...

2007-05-14T00:52:00.000-07:00

wuz up, my homies...

just lettin' you know i'll be out of the country again -- this time for about 3 weeks. it's Miss Universe time, and i'm the official Script/Swimsuit Supervisor for the 2007 pageant down in monstrous Mexico City. after that i'm off to Pennsylvania for Molly's wedding, NYC for fun, and the Jersey Shore for my annual visit to granny's house.

my SuperShuttle gets here at 9:30am, so i gotsa finish packing. LA friends, i'll be gone for a month. :( sucks, i know. but try not to miss me too much.

til mexico...

FIRE(D)

2007-05-08T22:55:00.000-07:00

to celebrate the exact 1 year anniversary of my firing as a cue card guy, the hills decided to erupt in FLAMES.

a month ago it was the Hollywood/Burbank fire. that was plenty close. or so i thought... this time, it got personal. griffith park. los feliz. my 'hood. my house is fine, but i've got a front row seat.

i'll post some pics (compliments of my neighbors) as soon as i get 'em. in the meantime, i'm gonna cross my fingers and try to get some shut-eye.

here's to not being evacuated in the middle of the night!

til next time...

the sea was angry...

2007-05-06T21:34:00.000-07:00

i'm back from bachelor party: ensenada. and i feel like i've been run over by a tijuana taxi. not because i got wasted. (i did, in fact, get wasted. but not THAT wasted) it's just pure exhaustion from a whirlwind weekend south of the border. i took a break from being a paparazzi and let my friends do all the photog-ing, so until i get copies of their pics, words will have to suffice.

and since i'm beat and montezuma's getting his revenge, i'm gonna make this brief:

i've NEVER seen waves (swells) so big as i did yesterday. some had to have been 12 feet high, maybe more. it was the perfect storm, people (not really). out of 16 cocky, young guys in their prime, 14 got seasick. and most of them puked. i consider myself lucky, i only puked once. after which i managed to pull myself together and go on to catch the most fish, again. (it's in the genes). but most people puked three or more times. one guy, appropriately pre-nicknamed "beef", puked no less than 12 times i bet. he was in the fetal position the entire trip.

the highlight of my trip was when one of the guys hooked into a mini-kracken. i'm talking about the giant squid. architeuthis. sure, most architeuthi are 30 feet long, and this one was only about 4, but it was a NASTY sucker. pun intended. ask my finger, i was stupid enough to poke it! those suckers are sharp! we got some great pics and even digi-cam video, so i'll let you guys see for yourself as soon as i get my hands on it...

i even had the mexican deck-hand cut out it's beak for me! what, pray-tell, would i want with a giant squid beak? well, my mom's birthday is coming up. i thought it would look nice on her dresser, right next to her bottle of paris hilton (jailbird's) perfume. but when i went to pocket it at the end of the trip, it was gone! the same deckhand had mistakenly throw it overboard with the dead fish scraps. bastard! and that was the low-light of my trip.

and of course that evening was followed up with the usual bachelor shennanigans. none of which i will share with you, because what happens in mexico...haunts you for the rest of your life. but don't worry, no one got arrested.

til next time...

gone fishin'

2007-05-04T18:08:00.001-07:00

in just a few short minutes i'll be packing up my computer, racing home, throwing a few clothes in my backpack, and then caravan-ing down to ensenada, mehico for my pal chris's bachelor par-tay. we're chartering a boat to go chase around a few fish. hope they're biting. i've always wanted a marlin for my wall...

have a great weekend!

til next time...

uhh...whatever floats your boat?

2007-05-02T21:44:00.000-07:00

there's a guy at work named Badger Coon. Yes. Badger and (Ra)Coon. two woodland creatures. one guy. actually, he spells it "Koon." (german?) but i'm exercising my artistic freedoms here.

and today i had this HILARIOUS idea. last time i had a hilarious idea at work, i wound up unemployed. but this time it was different. this time i was gonna find a picture of a badger...then get a picture of a racoon...photoshop them together...and then say, "hey, everybody! check out this picture! why it's my good friend...Badger Coon!"

when the laughter stopped, i would be crowned their king.

so i went to google...typed in "badger photos"...

and that's all the further i got. because what popped up... was THIS:

WHAT THE "F".

i stared at my computer screen in disbelief. i stared and i stared. and stared. i was shocked. disgusted. appalled. intrigued. bemused. confused. drooling. disgusted.

gold.

immediately, i snapped into action -- emailing that jpeg to everyone in the office and printing out a nice, crisp hard copy for my records.

"heeey you guuuuuuuuys..." (holding up the photo)

oh, how they howled. who in the world would draw such a thing?? we laughed and we laughed. until a PA named Jeremy walked into the room.

"oh," said Jeremy. "It's a 'Furry'."

say wha??

Jeremy proceded to enlighten us. here goes...

apparently, there is a very small, secretive group of fetishists out there that call themselves "Furry's". while most fetishists get their rocks off on shoes, or leather, or whips, etc, these guys get their jollies from imagining themselves as wild animals while having sex. they even go so far as to dress up...in animal costumes.

"i know all about it," said Jeremy. "My good friend fantasizes about being a fox."

blank stares of disbelief all around...

but the more i got to thinking about it, the less weird it -- nope. no it didn't. it's still unbelievably ridiculous. to think that grown men actually become aroused at the sight of the rock-solid body of a...BADGER-MAN.

disgusting.

now THIS is more like it...

til next time...

buzzed

2007-04-27T15:50:00.000-07:00

relax, this isn't another drunken blog post. i'm talking about my hair. i'd been gradually getting it cut shorter and shorter, and this time i decided to go for it. i got the buzz cut. not sure how i feel about it yet.

it's quick and easy, which is nice. it looks blonder. some people say it makes me look younger, some say older. all i know is that i'm gonna be 28 in a couple months and i'm the only one who got carded when some co-workers and I grabbed a few drinks the other lunch, so it can't make me look THAT old. but it's a nice change for once.

one of my co-workers keeps trying to convince me to get a full-on mowhawk. not that wussy fauxhawk i had a couple summers back. but i'm a professional now. there's no room for such nonsense in my world...at least until this summer. then i'm totally gonna do it.

here's two more vids to brighten your weekend.

first...take a look at this ridiculous CLOWN car George Clooney drives whenever he visits the Tonight Show. the Cloonster. George Clown-ey. i guess it's all electric or something. such a weird little vehicle... a Mini Cloon-per.

last... i took this when i was smack-dab in the middle of Times Square for New Year's Eve this past year. if you've never been there for the ball drop, your missing out. watch and envy...

got some good times heading my way this weekend... lots of birthday dinners...fun movie screenings...the weather's warming up...

life is good.

til next time...

metube

2007-04-26T16:28:00.000-07:00

i know i'm a little late in the game, but i just figured out how to post stuff to youtube the other day.

which means ya'll are in for a treat! i've got buckets of home videos, student films, cartoons, and geopolitcal rants just waitin' to be seen.

First up, one of my favorites -- The Adventures of MiShell the Snail. a cartoon i made during my "Intro to Animation" class at NYU senior year. when a hungry little snail named "MiShell" goes on a quest for food, she soon gets more than she bargained for.

enjoy.

til next time...

Joshua's Tree

2007-04-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

there's something about the desert that really helps you clear your head and put life into perspective. maybe it's the thin air. maybe it's the cactuses (i refuse to say "cacti"). or maybe it's the fact that it's so dang BARREN you leave thinking "thank God I don't live here! i love my life!" whatever it is, this weekend out in Joshua Tree National Park was a goodie.

it's been a long time since i've posted a photo essay on this blog. let's let some megapixels do the talking, shall we...

'twas a fair Saturday in the Jumbo Rocks section of Joshua Tree National Park...

Since Yoliene and I worked late on Friday, we drove up last.

we arrived at the campsite around 2am, to find there wasn't any room left in the tents. so we slept under the stars...

...newlyweds christine and dae were there as well. we didn't go knockin' when we saw their tent a'rockin'...

...the desert has such bizarre wildlife -- such as this creature, with it's twitchy nose and over-sized ears... fascinating...

...a little joke i pulled on christy...

that boulder flattened her like a pancake. oh how we laughed!...

...that afternoon we took a hike through the craggy, granite rocks of Mt. Doom...

...we could see the molten magma coursing through the cracks below, spelling certain death to any unsure-footed novice...

...such as Janet.

we lost a good friend that day. she will be missed...

...Fearing for his own life, Dae turned back and hiked back to camp on his own...

chicken.

...while the rest of us made it to the summit, celebrating with a delicious victory feast!...

...where we discovered the elusive desert orchid, one of only three specimens known to be alive in the wild.

i snipped off it's bloom so i'd have proof for my neighbor...
(renowned botanist Henrich Von Shtuhl).

...it's been a life-long dream of mine to poop on a cactus.

folks, with a little hard work and perseverance, dreams do come true...

Survivor: Joshua Tree.

That night we returned to camp...

...and were treated to this sunset.

And just like that, our fun in the desert was about to come to an end.

The End.

outta here...

2007-04-20T15:53:00.000-07:00

as if this week wasn't bad enough, the stupid american public had to go and vote off the only pretty person left on American Idol...

i'm gonna miss you, sanjie.

that smile of yours brightened my life many a night.

my favorite 'do.

it takes balls to pull of something like this.

...albeit, tiny, little brown balls. but balls nonetheless.

seriously, have you seen the girls left on "Idol"?? wooof!

what a week. i'm puttin' this puppy to bed with a camping trip to Joshua Tree. in a few short hours i'll be laying out under the stars looking for betelgeuse.

(it's a star so huge that our sun and all of its orbiting planets (orbits included) could fit inside of it)

(in case you didn't know)

til next time...

he's no tom stoppard...

2007-04-18T15:14:00.000-07:00

the whole Virginia Tech shooter thing just keeps getting more and more awful. i hate sensationalized news and fear it's only inspiring other copycat crackpots out there to cook up their own schemes for 15 minutes of infamy... but then again, i do want to be informed on current events, so i'm allowing myself to gobble it up. for now...

there's a blurry line between fueling the news media and being a well-informed citizen these days, but this time i'm willing to blur away. i'm glued to cnn.com during the day and to cnn at night. and now with this whole "package" he sent to NBC News, looks like we got a few more days of this to put up with.

yesterday i spent a few minutes reading this kid's plays. one of his classmates had the files and posted them on his blog, which was then linked to one of cnn.com's stories. "Richard McBeef" and "Mr. Brownstone" were their names. i read them...and was SHOCKED. "Richard McBeef" was almost exactly like the script i just finished writing, "William McPork"! wtf!

okay, okay, i made that up. but i WAS shocked. no, not at the violence. video games are violent. tarantino's violent. his stuff wasn't absurdly violent...it was just plain BAD. for being an English major in his senior year, i was shocked at how POORLY this guy could write.

but, in all seriousness, one thing was absolutely evident. this kid had problems. no doubt stemming from his home. and i started to feel sorry for him, for the very first time. he wasn't evil. but there was definitely "something" at work inside him.

ironically, the sermon at my church this weekend touched upon "evil" like this. my pastor mentioned how the author Norman Mailer was intent on finding the cause of Adolf Hitler's descent into villainy. Mailer found a photograph of young Adolf from the 1890's, when he was a child in austria. he stared at his boy-ish face for hours...days...searching for some glimmer of darkness...some black halo...some sign that this boy would grow up to become the most evil man of the twentieth century. but he found nothing. it was a photograph of a boy. a boy just as any other. it could've been anyone.

and that's when Mailer (hardly a fan of christianity) concluded that there had to have been some vile, other-worldly forces at play. every time i look at that nerdy kid's face i think the same thing.

til next time...

yikes

2007-04-17T11:38:00.000-07:00

i admit, i was a little numb to the whole Virginia Tech thing yesterday. every time i'd check my email i'd see the death toll in the "google news" ticker creep higher and higher. call it a defense mechanism, if you will. when i hear bad news from 3,000 miles away, i try to pretend as if i didn't. like sergeant shultz. (i know nuhzing. nuhhhzziiingg!)

but then i awoke this morning and saw that kid's face plastered all over the place. and i was intrigued. i just assumed the killer was some crazy white guy. 99% of serial killers are white males. if you're a friend of mine, you should be scared. and there he was...the worse massacre-ist in American history... a nerdy asian boy.

wow. didn't see that one comin'.

so i started reading the stories...the eye-witness accounts...and i was horrified. bone-chilling. i never really understood that word until this morning. i watched a video clip interview with one of the survivors...

she told how the kid poked his head in the door during class and then disappeared. "weird", they all thought. minutes later he came back and opened fire. this girl dropped to the floor and pretended to be dead. after he left, the remaining survivors in that room, started whispering to each other. he heard them and came back in, shooting several more. then he left again. this time, several girls ran to the door and tried to lock it. it wouldn't lock. the killer came back and tried to break down the door. the girls barricaded it with their bodies. so he started shooting through the door... not satisfied until all were dead.

if that's not evil, i don't know what is.

til next time...

Thank God You're...not in the credits! WTF?!

2007-04-12T14:27:00.000-07:00

anyone catch that show the other night? what'dya think?

it's not bad. not as funny as watching it live right before your eyes (SNL was like that too), but not a waste of TV either.

if you stuck around to watch the microscopic end credits FLASH by at warp speed, you may have noticed a certain someone MISSING from the credits.

that's right. "matt white" was nowhere to be found. i worked on that show for 6 weeks. early mornings. late nights. weekends. for 6 weeks. okay, more like 4. but it FELT like 6. i get some girl to cover for me for TWO days while i fly home to say goodbye to my uncle. and guess whose name they put in the credits. HERS. two days! ... 4 weeks!! come on!!!

needless to say, i was a little..."miffed." so i called my boss.

fortunately, i'd worked with this lady before, and i knew she was all about the credits. (she didn't like it when i went credited as "M. Gerald White" on the last show we worked on together because she thought i was making a joke out of it. i was.) i mean, who really watches the end credits of a TV show? NOBODY. but it's the principle. the principle, i tell you!

so she sent off a "few emails" to some "higher-ups", and it looks like everything's gonna be "rectified" by the next show. we'll see...

on a windier note, i'm stuck inside my house. it's so frickin' windy out, i really don't want to leave. so...i won't.

yes, i'm gonna miss having these week days off like this. Last Comic starts up next week. then it's off to burbank every day. ironically, the LC offices this year are right across the street from the Tonight Show. fun.

til next time...

thank god you're here!

2007-04-09T08:59:00.000-07:00

get those tivo's warmed up! only if you've been living under a rock have you not seen the promos for "thank god you're here", the so-called comedy sensation that will rock our worlds tonight after "deal or no deal" on nbc. nbc's been playing those stupid promos every two seconds.

captain, what were those blue flashing balls...

i'm sorry, i didn't realize they were flashing.

wa wa wa wa wa

but in all seriousness, it's a funny show. probably the funniest i've ever worked on. you'll like it. trust me.

check it out.

Easter

2007-04-08T23:30:00.000-07:00

for a rather gloomy day in LA, i certainly had a great Easter. probably my best since i've been out here.

kicked things off with a terrific church service, followed by a pot-luck Easter brunch. got my buzz goin' from stuffing my face with ham.

topped things off with a trip over to PINKBERRY -- my newest addiction. for all you out-of-towners, it's the latest frozen yogurt fad here in LA. all the hiltons and lohans of the world are doing it. but it is sooooooooo f-in' good, i don't even care.

washed that yogurt goodness down with two or three or four margaritas at the cabo cantina with the Hammer and some of my favorite lady-friends. kept the buzz alive and well...

drove home to a juicy rack of lamb dinner hosted by neighbor alex. lots of wine. lots of lamb. lots of pics from eric's recent trip to japan. (welcome back)

slipping...into...food coma....

zzzzzzz..........

(not so) Good Friday

2007-04-06T01:06:00.000-07:00

becuz i have to work!!

it's my first day on this gig too -- who has to start a job on a friday?? let alone GOOD friday??! matt white, that's who.

should be an "entertaining" job at least. the "i love new york" reunion for vh1. how come i always gets these ghetto shows??

but i did get some other good news today. i officially sealed the deal on season 5 of "last comic standing". sweet promotion and even sweeter raise. at this rate i'll be runnin' NBC next year. ERRR. not really. this is about as high on the script department ladder as i can go. after this i'll need to jump ladders. like mario in "Donkey Kong Jr."...wait. mario was the bad guy in DKJr. and were there any ladders? or just vines? forget it.

til next time...

sigh

2007-04-02T13:49:00.000-07:00

natalie comes home today. t-minus 4 hours. she just sent me an email...aka "warning shot" over my bow...as in, "you BETTER have that house in tip-top shape, else you'll getta whippin', boy!"

6 weeks. that's how long she's been gone -- working on a film fest in Dallas. that's how long i've had this place to MYSELF. a bachelor. alone. in his sweet, sweet bachelor pad. and now those days... (shudder)

don't get me wrong, i love natalie. she's been the PERFECT roommate. we're going on 2.5 years! that's my longest roommate ever. EVER! and we're still going strong. it's hard to believe she just turned 37 the other day. that's frickin' OLD, man. strange, becuz she doesn't look and act a day over 30...

in many ways it's the perfect arrangement.

she goes to bed early. i go to bed late.
she wakes up early. i wake up...sometimes.
she's gone all day saturday. i'm home all day saturday.
she's home all day sunday. i'm gone all day sunday.
she Tivo's "The Office" and "Lost". i Tivo "The Office" and "Lost".
she menstrates the 23rd of each month. i menstrate the 23rd of each month.

see what i mean?

we're like two peas in a pod...that never really...interact with each other. ships, passing in the night. if it wasn't for the wads of long black hair she leaves on the shower walls, heck, i'd think i was living alone anyway!

but it's not the same as really...TRULY living alone. the freedom....FREEEDOOOOM!

guess i better put some clothes on.

i blog about it a lot, but it's 100% true. i spend 3/4 of the day at home in just my underwear. it helps my "creative process."

oh, and natalie doesn't read my blog, btw.

(but if you secretly do -- love ya! welcome home! :)

til next time...

burn, baby, burn...

2007-03-30T16:34:00.000-07:00

disco inferno!

i'm sure everyone by now has already heard of the wildfire that threatened to wipe out the hollywood sign. well it's a few hours after the fire began, and it's looking like things are all under control. i'm looking out my living room window now, and the gigantic cloud of dark reddish-brown smoke that engulfed the area for a few hours has practically dissipated. crisis adverted.

firemen: 1

fire: 0

with plenty more fires on the way this season.

and it started off as such a nice day...

got a haircut....went to home depot to buy a mailbox with a LOCK on it...(the guy who stole the $500 from me got my bank info by stealing my mail! -- i got the money back, btw)

went to the gym...

i ran a few minutes on the treadmill and then went upstairs to pump some IRON, when i just happened to look out the window...

my gym sits right on sunset blvd, almost directly south of the hollywood sign. and there it was -- the evil, billowing, churning, fire-cloud, like something straight out of Lord of the Rings. looking for any excuse to stop working out, i took that as a sign from God and high-tailed it outta there.

unfortunately, i lacked the $1.50 in cash to pay for parking, so i had to pay with my credit card at the automated ticket booth on the ground floor. while i was there, a man approached me...

man: excuse me...do you know where that cloud of smoke is coming from?

i looked. the man was none other than emmy award-winning actor James Spader from ABC's "The Practice." although he was so chubby he looked more like Porky Pig. very nice guy. although he kept asking me questions i couldn't possibly know the answer to. (i.e. how fast is the fire moving? how did it start? etc) hot wife too.

i told james everything i knew -- that the fire was started by al qaeda in an attempt to scare America from getting involved in the Iran/Britania hostage crisis. and then i went home.

three hours later the fire was all but out. nice work, LAFD.

til next time...

a day in the life...

2007-03-23T00:31:00.000-07:00

...of a script supervisor.

9:45 am -- rolled out of bed.

9:46 am -- sprayed myself head to toe with axe body spray.

9:49 am -- drove to work in Hollywood.

10:16 am -- arrived at work, 16 minutes late. didn't care.

2:13 pm -- left work to go to 7th street in Santa Monica for a meeting.

3:02 pm -- arrived at meeting place.

3:05 -- 4:22 pm -- meeting.

4:23 pm -- worked out of santa monica office instead of sitting in traffic for 2 hours to get back to Hollywood.

8:37 pm -- ordered out dinner. greek. yum. free.

11:02 pm -- left santa monica for studio city to deliver script to professional script printer.

11:24 pm -- arrived in studio city (SM to SC in 22 minutes!)

11:25 pm -- shot the bull with script dude (a.k.a. industry gossiped)

11:49 pm -- left studio city for los feliz (home)

12:08 am -- arrived home.

12:09 am -- pooped in toilet.

12:23 am -- showered.

12:41 am -- blogged.

12:54 am -- lights out.

rinse. and repeat.

two more days to go...

til next time.

the bastard!

2007-03-19T12:09:00.000-07:00

the following is not the way you want to wake up on a monday morning...especially starting your first day at a new job.

ring ring. ring ring.

mw: hello.

recording: this is a message from the Washington Mutual Fraud department.

mw sighs. not THIS again. he almost hangs up. last time they called to ask if he bought $10.32 worth of stamps at the post office. he did.

recording: please do not hang up. it is very important that you verify recent account activity. if you made a purchase of (beat) $89.00 (beat) at LuckyBrand Jeans in Century City, California on Sunday, March 18, please press "1". if not, press "2."

mw presses "1." beeep. (what?? they're nice jeans!)

recording: if you made a withdrawal of $500 at an ATM at 32 Union St., San Francisco, CA on Sunday, March 18, please press "1". if not, press "2".

BOOOP! BOOOOP! BOOOOOOOOOP!! (two, two, twoooooo)

son of a bitch.

so sue me.

2007-03-18T00:43:00.000-07:00

okay, i tried. i really really did. but the "blog-a-day" thing is much harder than i ever expected. oh i've got some good 'uns coming your way, no doubt about that. they're cooking up on the old back burner in my cerebrum. i just lack the time to put finger to keypad right about now.

this is my 343rd post. my goal WAS to hit 500 by the end of '07. hence the sudden influx of blog posts. but i've always kinda lived my life in a "quality not quantity" sorta way, so why change that now. am I write?

(i did that on purpose)

i start my next gig tomorrow AM. 6 days working on the "Genesis Awards". And sadly it has nothing to do with "Star Trek II" and everything to do with being "kind to animals" and other such nonsense. don't get me wrong, i LOVE animals. D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S.

(just kidding, Genesis Awards boss -- should you ever stumble across this!)

till next time...

the ides of march

2007-03-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

nothing to beware today. a pretty low-key day, actually.

it's late. i'm pooped. even though i slept in past noon and really did nothing of note except take a walk around my 'hood. i love my 'hood. it's a great walking 'hood. not a great running 'hood though, unfortunately. (too many hills) which is why i'm so fat.

i think it was the beer i had earlier this evening that did me in. delirium. sweet, sweet delirium. i haven't put something so delicious to my lips in quite a while...

tomorrow i need to get my ass out the door and to the gym. i've been such a home-body lately. maybe because for the first time in a month i'm actually HOME. and maybe because i live in PARADISE. and maybe because Natalie is in Dallas all month and i have THE WHOLE HOUSE TO MYSELF!! Nat's been a great roommate these past two and a half years (holy crap!), but it's mighty nice living alone. you know, as God intended.

plus it makes it much easier for me to root through her stuff and try on her clothes.

see you tomorrow...

7 blogs for 7 days...

2007-03-14T23:24:00.000-07:00

i'm actually feeling the itch to blog more these days, so to capitalize on that i'm challenging myself to write every day for one week straight. after one week, i'll see if i can keep on going. who knows how long i'll make it. WHO KNOWS!! HAHHAHAHAHAHA!

they may be long blogs, or short blogs. (size doesn't matter) hot blogs or cold blogs. fat blogs or skinny blogs. funny blogs or sad blogs. soft or hard. blue or red. good or evil. you get the picture.

some blogs might be a poem i just wrote whilst driving home. or a dirty limerick. or hai coo. how do you spell hai coo, anyway? i suppose i could look it up, but i ain't gonna. because on some blogs i just won't care about speling.

and some blogs might just...be...one... word.

snerp.

like that one.

the madness starts...

NOW.

til tomorrow...

(p.s. happy birthday Dan)

WTF?!

2007-03-13T22:38:00.000-07:00

i leave the west coast for 4 days, and when i come back -- $3 gas again!

(shaking fist in the air) HALLIBURTOOOOOOOOOOOOONNN!!!!

...

2007-03-11T22:44:00.000-07:00

that's how i feel right now. "..." waiting for what's next. not happy. not depressed. just... ready. to go on.

these last two weeks were rough, i ain't gonna lie. i've got a good life, i really do, but when it rains it pours. these past several weeks i've been balancing a life on the west coast -- consisting of a job that stole all of my free-time, energy, patience (among other things) -- with my old life on the east coast and the gradual death of my uncle, a man who'd been a part of my life since day one. my godfather. who didn't miss a birthday. who taught me how to waterski. who built the house that i grew up in, and half of the house my parents live in now...

i jetted back for a couple of days to see him one last time two weeks ago. i was shocked how much he'd deteriorated since christmas. on my last day visiting he pretty much just stayed on the couch with a blanket over his head. he peeked out to shake my hand and give a raspy "see you later" when i was leaving. and by the look in his eyes, he actually meant it. but my aunt's sad smile when i hugged her goodbye at the door confirmed what i knew already. that was gonna be it.

he hung on for almost a week after that. i had both the luxury and the curse of being 3,000 miles away during that time. a busy job kept my mind occupied, yet there was always a cloud hanging over every laugh. working on comedy shows and family crisises don't mix well. the last week was truly rough for my parents and brothers who were now called in to help my aunt. for months she'd been by my uncle's side every moment of his battle, but now it became too much. a 6', 200 + lb man who could once build a house single-handedly could no longer "turn." he could walk straight ahead, (albeit with a walker) but the cancer robbed him of his ability to tell his body how to turn. how f*cked up is that.

just my aunt was with him at 2am last monday morning when he took his final breath. he's in heaven now, no doubt building another big house. i'm sure he's got the foundation poured already. i just hope this time he stays away from choosing another sharp-cornered coffee table. i've got eleven stitches across my forehead to thank for that.

the funeral was...well, a funeral. i was a pallbearer for the second time in a row (the first being for my grandmother). you know what they say, always a pallbearer, never a...pall.

but now's where things are supposed to start getting better. my life-consuming job is finished. done. my uncle's life-consuming disease has killed itself. his suffering is now over. life goes on.

i'll be landing in LA around midnight tonight. like always, i requested a window seat on the right side of the plane. a few minutes after passing over Vegas and the pitch black of the mojave, a sprawling patchwork of lights -- like a giant computer circuitboard -- comes into view. that's my favorite part of the 5 1/2 hour flight. welcome to Los Angeles. those lights are never gonna look more beautiful.

til next time...

oscar night

2007-02-25T16:55:00.000-08:00

it's hollywood's biggest night!!

...but i'm 3,000 miles away. and could care less. 2006 has provided me with more satisfying movie theater-going experiences than any other year i can think of...yet i've only seen ONE, count'em, ONE of the Best Picture nominees. Little Miss Sunshine. Very good. But Best Picture worthy?...i think not. I'm pulling for The Departed, even though i haven't even seen it yet. (if i had my pic, Casino Royale would take the top spot. with Borat in close second)

now back to me.

i'm back home for a couple days to spend some Q-T with the fam. some of you know that my uncle clint has been battling leukemia for the last 8 or 9 months. he'd been putting up a strong fight and come the Christmas holidays he was looking pretty good too. minus some hair from chemo, but not too shabby.

well, as with most cancers, when things go downhill they go downhill quick. the cancer spread to his brain and spine, and the doctors gave him about 2 weeks to live. this was almost a week and a half ago. i saw him last night, a bit today, and i'll see him tomorrow too when i keep him company while my aunt runs some errands. then i leave tuesday to head back to LA so i can finish up my last week of work. so unless some unforeseen miracle occurs, tomorrow will more than likely be the last time i see my uncle clint alive.... i can't quite put how i feel about that in words...

on a lighter note -- it's snowing. and there's several inches on the ground already, too. it's nice to get a slice of good old-fashioned east coast winter again.

til next time...

i just wanna bang on the drum all day...

2007-02-09T14:03:00.001-08:00

i'm back to work. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

seriously, when am i gonna get rich? i really can't wait til i can make a cool mil, pop it in the bank, and live off the interest the rest of the live long day.

well, a mil doesn't go too far these days. especially in this town. maybe 10 mil. yessss...yessss that should work nicely.

i had a very productive two-and-a-half week unemployment though. aside from NOT blogging (sorry), i got a lot of quality writing work done. which, after all, is the reason i'm out here. but it's nice because now that i'm nearing financial recovery and improving my fiscal responsibility, i can work to live instead of live to work. the only draw-back is that once it's time to get a'workin' again...i really really really really really really really don't wanna. so spoiled.

i'm working on, yet again, another NBC show. only THIS show is not a pilot. it got picked up. it'll be on TV the end of March. look for it. "Thank God You're Here." Aside from the fact that i must take the Lord's name in vain every time i say the title, it's a pretty cool show. gonna be some nice laughs heading your way next month. get your Tivo's ready.

i also just got hired to script super the Miss Universe pageant. i'll have to miss our annual Memorial Day camping trip this year, but it's 10 days in Mexico City. with babes. the HOTTEST babes in the universe. and 99% of them will be losers. crying. in need of a shoulder. enter matt white. with his ripped, be-muscled shoulder...

there, there, miss sweden, rest your weary head...

domo arigato for that foot massage, miss japan...

miss guatemala, here's my laundry. remember, cold water set on permanent press....

it's going to be AWESOME.

i've got a half-mexican, half-italian Jewish filmmaker friend from NYU named Sandro who lives in M.C. i'll have to look him up. have him show me the sites...

have a great weekend, friends. it's cold and drizzly again here in LA. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

til next time...

HA HA!

2007-02-02T16:56:00.000-08:00

sorry...

couldn't resist...

happy weekend everyone!

(compliments of mr. seh kim.)

til next time....

good times

2007-01-26T13:08:00.000-08:00

i'm hitting the road in a few minutes to head up to Mammoth Mountain, USA!! wahhooooo!
one of my favorite places on earth!

this year i can only snowboard for one day, due to monetary reasons -- or lack thereof. (my last two gigs are taking FOREVER to pay me!!! why is it that we can pay bills instantly online, do this and that INSTANTLY, but in order to get paid it takes weeks -- WEEKS!!)

but i digress...

this week has been WONDERFUL and has flown by way too quickly. it was my first official week of unemployment in a long, long time. (my time home doesn't count. that was "vacation") i've forgotten how lovely unemployment can be. here's a glimpse of my daily routine...

1:30 pm -- wake up
2:00 pm -- shower
2:30 pm -- watch "Masters of the Universe" on DVD
4:00 pm -- make lunch
4:10 pm -- read
5:00 pm -- go for a walk around the neighborhood
6:00 pm -- catch up on my Tivo-ed TV
7:30 pm -- make a light dinner
8:00 pm -- watch more TV
9:30 pm -- go to the gym
11:00 pm -- make "real" dinner
11:30 pm -- start writing
4:30am -- go to bed

this is it. this is what my life naturally gravitates to whenever i don't have a day job. why i'm such a night owl, i'll never know, but burning the midnight oil must be in my blood.

i know i've said this 18 trillion times, but this time i mean it -- i'm almost done with my script. i haven't looked at it, touched it, spat on it for months...until this week. and i gotta say, it's not too shabby. and although a writer's work is never really done...this is getting close. one more day of tweaks/polish and i'll be ready to start showing it to people. whatever comes outta that...who knows.

gotta finish packing, folks. have a great weekend!

til next time...

Last Saturday Night...

2007-01-24T02:25:00.000-08:00

INT. CENTURY HYATT PLAZA HOTEL - NIGHT

We're backstage at the 18th Annual Producers Guild of America Awards. Men in tuxedos, women in designer gowns mingle throughout the Green Room, anxiously awaiting something...someONE. Paul Simon sings "The Boxer" from the stage in the Ballroom next door...

A door opens. In HE walks, swarmed by his "people". His lovely wife (much lovelier in person) at his side.

Immediately, the tuxedo-ed men bow to him, as if he's their god. These men are producers, studio-executives, studio HEADS...yet they take a knee.

MEN: So good to see you...thank you for coming...so good...so good...

MAN: (brushing them off) Thank you, thank you. Hey, I rewrote my speech. Who do I talk to --

MEN: It is an honor...Thank you...You are the best...You are the greatest...

MAN: (pulling a piece of paper from his pocket) Thanks, thanks. I have a new speech here. Who do I give this to?

VOICE: That would be ME.

The tuxedo-ed men rise. All heads turn towards a young man standing in the corner. He is not tuxedo-ed, but yet still stylishly dressed in all black. The frighteningly handsome young man with pointy hair smiles, a twinkle of devilish mischief in his eye. He speaks...

"I'm Matt, the script supervisor."

MAN: How's it going, Matt. I've rewritten my speech, and I need to get this into the teleprompter.

MATT: No problem, Mr. Cruise. I'll take it there right now.

TOM: Can I come with you?

Matt's taken aback. No one has ever asked to go with him to the teleprompter before.

TOM: (re: the paper) This is the only copy I have.

MATT: Sure. Follow me...

Matt turns, and trots quickly out of the Green Room. He knows time is of the essence...
His brain races with activity...is Tom Cruise really following him??

He turns around. Yes, yes he is. He's two steps behind.

He turns back around -- nearly crashing into Indiana Jones and Ally McBeal.

HARRISON: Tom, good to see you!

Tom, Harrison, and Calista shake hands warmly and exchange pleasantries. Matt does a dance-of-joy on the inside when he realizes Han Solo is the same height as he is.

The "hellos" are over, and Tom turns back to Matt...they're out the door of the Green Room now, sneaking through the back of the darkened Ballroom. All eyes are on Paul Simon, so they slip by unnoticed.

Finally, they're at the prompter.

MATT: Hi Rich (the teleprompter guy), Mr. Cruise has changed his speech.

So Tom sits with the prompter operator and dictates his revisions, while Matt stands back and enjoys the last few minutes of Paul Simon...which transition into a surprise performance by Stevie Wonder singing "Superstition."

It's moments like this when Matt really loves his job.

The prompter is changed and Tom gives Matt he signal. Mission Accomplished.

Matt and Tom sneak their way out of the Ballroom. Almost out...almost...and FREE. They made it.

It is then Matt tells Tom something he'd been planning to tell him should the day come they ever meet...

MATT: You know, we have the same birthday.

Tom looks surprised.

TOM: July 3rd? No way!

MATT: Uh huh. It's a great frickin' birthday.

TOM: It is! I used to hate it because all your friends were gone for the summer, and you never got to have a party in school. But you gotta love the fireworks!

MATT: Gotta love them!

They pass by a couch on the way and begin jumping up and down on it -- "We love fireworks! We love fireworks!" -- before continuing on their way.

They've returned. Katie (Kate) smiles at Matt as if to say "thank you for returning my husband."

Tom turns to Matt.

TOM: Hey, thanks for your help, man.

MATT: No problemo.

And with that, Matt turns and leaves the Green Room. The show has been saved. All because of him. Children will sing songs of him one day, and sculptors will build busts of his head. But to Matt, it was just another day at work.

*note: everything here is completely, 100%, more or less true. even the couch-jumping.

**note: okay, maybe not the couch-jumping. :)

in the meantime...

2007-01-15T23:48:00.000-08:00

hey friends,

i owe you a big fat steaming log of a blog one of these days. it's coming soon, fear not. i feel it gestating and squirming inside me.

until then, enjoy this little tidbit from the www to tide you over...

til next time...

westward 'ho

2007-01-03T11:26:00.001-08:00

this is the last day in my longest visit home since...well, just out of college. i've gone through many phases. the "i can't believe i used to live in Pennsylvania phase." the "gee, Pennsylvania isn't so bad phase." the "i LOVE Pennsylvania phase." and now the "get me the hell out of Pennsylvania! phase."

i take that back -- it's not so much get me the hell out of PA as get me the hell out of the East Coast. i caught a few moments of the Rose Bowl game the other night. Pasadena, CA. blue skies. 75 degrees. i'd spent the day lugging my suitcase through a downpour in Manhattan. i was ready to hop on a plane right then and there.

this trip home has been a goodie for many, many reasons. finally, i got some QT on the farm. i managed to sneak in a few road trips here and there, but for the most part i was home enjoying some peace, some quite, some home-cookin'. got a few pics to share with everyone, but that'll have to wait til i get back to LA.

gotta thank my parents for another great Xmas. i'll pay you back for the plane ticket. promise. and if things keep going the way they have been, it'll be sooner rather than later.

friends, the battery's been recharged. looking forward to grabbing '007 by the balls and making it MINE.

(that's 2007, not James Bond 007, FYI...although that Daniel Craig was mighty hottt)

til next time...

it was the worst of times, it was the best of times...

2006-12-31T10:08:00.001-08:00

that pretty much sums up my 2006. but as it draws ever so closer to a close, i gotta say, i'm much better off on this december 31st than i was on the last. so despite all the ups and downs, hills and valleys of this past year, it feels good to end it on top. yet i'll still be filing it away in the ol' memory banks as a "stinker."

i'm kicking '006 out the same way i rung it in -- with a bang (hopefully not literally) in Times Square.

although this year i got the hook-up. thanks to my new line of work, i've got several friends working on the Live New Year's TV shows. so they offered to sneak me in.

that WAS gonna be the plan until my phone rang about a half hour after i climbed off the bus at Port Authority last. it was my old boss Wally from SNL.

Wally: "I hear you're in town. I really, really, really need a cue card guy for the Fox New Year's Live show."

Cue card guys can always sense each other a mile away. We're like Highlanders.

Long story short...it looks like i'm gonna be a cue card guy once more, possibly (hopefully) for the very last time. A fitting end, don't you think.

Happy New Year, friends! I've got high hopes for '007. And you should too.

and if you're bored with Dick/Seacrest, flip on over to Fox, and you may see a devilishly handsome cue card guy "accidentally" get on camera.

Til next year!!!!!

'twas the night before christmas...

2006-12-24T21:54:00.000-08:00

...and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse...

Errrr. FALSE.

my parents live in a 100+ year old log farm house, and i can totally hear a mouse crawling in the wall right now. someone didn't get the memo...

hard to believe, but i've been home for practically a week now. about 85% of that week was spent in bed. and in the dark. no, i wasn't sick. haven't felt this good in a long time, actually. i just likes my sleep. seriously, i've been sleeping in til anywhere between 12:30 and 3:30pm every day. and sometimes i take late afternoon naps as well. i admit, it's a little bizarre waking at 3:30, hopping in the shower, getting dressed, only to find the sun about to set. it's like i'm a vampire or something. except instead of living in Transylvania, i live in...

wait for it...

...Pennsylvania.

wa wa

that was my Christmas gift to you all.

but seriously folks, it always takes me a good four or five days to remember i'm a Pennsylvanian at heart. my first few days i feel like i'm wandering around some barren planet...

what is this in my nostrils...FRESH air??

and these highways...TWO lanes? and what happened to all the stoplights? and where is everybody? hello? heeellooooooo? all i see is...DARK.

the darkness is definitely the weirdest part of coming home. there's so much light pollution in LA. Heck, just the other night i was driving home down Sunset, stopped at a red light, and this weird guy on the corner kept making crazy gestures to me. i was doing my New York-iest to ignore him until i realized, he was actually gesturing (albeit rather bizarrely) that my headlights were off! he was trying to help me! oops. that crazy man may have saved me from a hefty ticket had i been caught. or initiation into some gang. probably both. from this day forth i promise to pay close attention to any and all vagrants on the late-night street corners of Sunset Blvd. and that's a resolution i intend to keep.

so far so good, this trip home has been just what the doctor ordered. i kissed the high blood pressure goodbye. actually, due to by slothness, i probably have little-to-NO blood pressure by now. yeah...i should go for a walk. NEXT week.

friends, wherever you are this holiday season, i wish you the best.

Happy Birthday, Jesus.

til next time...

the voyage home...

2006-12-18T09:59:00.001-08:00

i'm all packed and waiting for the super shuttle.

got a nice, long coupla weeks ahead of me back home. perfect for some R & R. just in time.

mom, my flight lands at 8:40.

enjoy your last week til the holidays!

til next time...

FINALLY

2006-12-16T19:49:00.000-08:00

a day freakin' off! i'm no real stranger to working 14 days straight, but when you're pulling down 12-15 hours daily, it gets a little old. especially since my last day was SUPPOSED to be last sunday. i had big plans for this week. BIG plans.

tops on my list: do laundry or buy more underwear.

well i get a call bright and early monday morning. it's the producer of the NBC pilot we just shot the (long) day before. the director wants to know where i am. my presence is requested in the editing room. for the rest of the week!

"i asked you if you need me for post, and you said 'no'," i groggily replied.

"there was a miscommunication," he said. "we need you there right away."

me: (annoyed) "i've got a doctors appointment at 11. i'll head in when i'm done."

producer: "can't you cancel it?"

me: "no. no i cannot."

that'll learn 'em for jerkin' me around.

i dug through my hamper for the cleanest-dirty panties i had, and one hour later i'm sitting in a hospital gown on the table of my new doctor. Dr. Duffy. unfortunately, no relation to the White-family-famous Dr. Duffy of Reading, Pennsylvania. But i could tell right away Dr. Duffy of Beverly Hills was going to be equally as great.

it had been almost 6 years since my last physical. time to give these old bones a tune-up.

i was celebrating in my head the fact that i would not have to be "rectally probed" (his exact words) until i turn thirty, when i realized Dr. Duffy was taking my blood pressure for the third time. he frowned.

"you have high blood pressure."

gee, wonder why.

140 over 100. not so good.

i guess hitting the gym has more added benefits than just looking good in a speedo.

looks like i've got me my first new year's resolution.

til next time...

intern wanted

2006-12-14T17:24:00.000-08:00

award-winning filmmaker, writer of hilarity, world renown blogger seeks applicants for a non-paying, non-credit internship.

duties include any and all of the following:

returning emails
returning phone calls
paying bills
light house-cleaning
heavy laundry (with skills at stain-removal)
shopping for christmas and birthday presents
car maintainence
light yard-work
attending various functions in my place (i.e . parties, church, etc)
doing my taxes
updating my myspace profile

also, must be an excellent cook.

or, i could just get a girlfriend.

naaaaaaaaaaaa .

chamay

2006-12-09T00:28:00.001-08:00

chamay is the best beer in the world.

DRINK IT.

it's made by monks.

Today...

2006-12-02T18:32:00.000-08:00

...i stayed in bed til 3:30pm. (slept til 2, listened to my ipod til 3:30).

took a shower.
shaved.
watched Tivo-ed episodes of the original "Star Trek" ("Mirror, Mirror") and "The Office"

and now i'm heading to a Korean BBQ dinner, followed by a night of karaoke with friends.

life is good.

til next time...

all work and no play...

2006-12-01T01:05:00.001-08:00

hey gang. yes, yes, i'm still alive. made it back from ATL safe and sound -- just in time to start working my ass off again. no rest for the weary...

and to make matters worse -- this time i had TWO jobs at once. i "accidentally" double-booked myself. you know those scenes in sitcoms where the guy is on a date with two women at once, and he rushes back and forth in between them, hilarity ensues, at least until he slips up and inevitably loses BOTH dates and winds up cold and alone and horny? well, that was totally NOT me these past two weeks. oh, i'm still cold and alone and horny all right, but i NAILED the two-job thing. i'm happy to say that one of those jobs ended this evening, and now i can go back to being full-time at only ONE job for the next coupla weeks.

but believe me, it wasn't easy. nor fun. nor will i ever do it again (any time soon). twice the heartburn with headache. twice the number of working til 4am evenings...but twice the paychecks -- cha-ching!

still, not good for the ol' social life. i've got a list four meters long of people i need to call/email back. i hope to complete that list by '07.

tonight, my employment with the Arby's Action Sports Awards (airing December 10th on Fox, check your local listings) came to a successful close. and it always amazes me. the week leading up to the show is sooo taxing in every way -- physically, mentally, socially -- that i swear i'm gonna quit the biz, buy a loft in downtown and make jewelry for the rest of my life. but then comes show day. the rush of adrenaline as things finally pull together...the electricity in the air as the clock counts down...that's when i realize, THIS is why i'm here. and suddenly, going through hell was all worth it.

like tonight, for example. the show had just started and i was man-ing my station in the Green Room, ready to rehearse the script with the presenters before they went on stage. suddenly, i found myself surrounded by the most RANDOM group of people whose presence i've ever graced. Jamie Kennedy. Dennis Rodman. WWE superstar John Cena. Tom Green. Paris Hilton. Wilmer Valderrama. Andrew Dice Clay. Yes, i said Andrew Dice Clay. and then there was little old me.

and then i did something that even now i can't quite believe that i did...

Paris put her purse down at the table i was sitting at to take out her camera. she opened her purse, pulled out a bottle of perfume, sprayed herself, snapped a pic with Willa Ford, and walked away -- leaving her perfume on my table.

so i put it in my pocket.

finders keepers.

on closer inspection when i got home, she left the price tag on. $24.00. the b*tch is worth all the money in the world, and yet she shells out 24 bucks for perfume!! either that or she pulled a winona ryder...

it does smell mighty nice though. and you know what else smells mighty nice right now?? my sheets. tonight i won't be so cold and alone after all.

yes. yes i did.

til next time...

stuck

2006-11-13T18:30:00.000-08:00

what's a white boy gotta do to get home these days??

this is the second time in a row my flight back to LA has been delayed. last time was 3 hours at JFK. this time, it's only one hour. but it's now a 10:45pm flight, which means i won't be getting back to LA until the wee wee hours of the morn. poo.

the BET awards went off without a hitch, a gunshot, or even a bitch-slap. kind of a disappointment, actually. i was hoping forward to some drama with a capital D. not so much. if anything i was shocked how NICE everyone was. unlike the Vh1 Hip Hop awards, this time i got to hang backstage by the rehearsal teleprompter. i got to "chill" with Snoop, Nelly, Flav...basically everyone before they went on stage. and they were all really...nice. not that i talked to them or anything. i don't really talk to celebs unless i have something meaningful to say. and somehow complimenting someone on their grill just seems a little "insincere" coming from me. but when i was in close proximity, i was pleasantly surprised how polite and down-to-earth most of those hip-hoppers really were. despite the bling and steel teeth and all.

you know who else was super nice?? the ATL hookers. highly recommended. not like sleeve of wizard at ALL...

(only you Borat fans will appreciate this)

can't wait for my bed and temperpedic pillow!

til next time...

one more month?...

2006-11-11T15:44:00.000-08:00

i worked 18 hours straight yesterday. i think that may be a record for me. i've pulled plenty of 16's. one or two 17's. but i do believe 18 has now officially taken the cake. congratulations to me. if i got paid overtime, i'd be laughing all the way to the bank. unfortunately, i'm on a flat daily rate. a decent rate -- if it were an 8 - 10 hour day. but 18? not so much. welcome to show biz.

but in about 26 hours from now (but who's counting??) i'll be DONE. i get to sleep in monday, check out of the hotel, tool around town with my uncle, and catch a 9pm flight back to LA LA land.

then 10am tuesday i start my next gig. in santa monica. i'm looking at an hour+ commute. yippie.

it's feast or famine in this biz, and right now i'm chowing down. but this boy needs to soon go on a diet.

december 10th. the magic day. the last day of work i'm booked for so far...and if i have my way, my last day of work in 2006.

that gives me three weeks to:

sleep (more than 6 hours a day)
finish my rewrite (i've been stuck on page 99 for a month)
hang with my neglected friends (i'm being disowned by several people)
clean my room! (boy does it need it)
hit the gym (arms are a'shrinkin')
get my car tuned up (it's idling a little "rough")
get my body tuned up (haven't been to the doctor in 5 years -- oops)
get my mouth tuned up (haven't been to a dentist in 3 years)
go home early for Xmas (and miss the super expensive flying days, chill on the farm, start planning my high school reunion next year)

but all that may change should i get a phone call to work. sure is hard passing up a few benjamins...

til next time...

i watch too much "Frontline"

2006-11-09T19:35:00.000-08:00

and as a result, i gotta say, i'm pretty psyched about the election results the other night. it was exciting to watch things unfold. i certainly don't miss the old days when it was fairly cut-and-dry weeks before who was gonna win. these nail-biters rock!

i, like the majority of americans, have watched my support of republicans (other than Ahnuld, Bloomberg, and McCain) disintegrate over the years. between the corrupt, right-wing douchebag leadership in congress, and a president who's completely out of touch with reality, i found myself pulling for the democrats all the way. if you would've told me THAT back in high school i would have laughed myself silly.

at least Bush got the message now. i know the whole situation in Iraq can't fall solely on the shoulders of one man (re: Rumsfeld), but at least ACT like you're trying to fix it. how many generals did Lincoln fire those first couple years of the Civil War? had he "stayed the course" with McClellan, we'd all be whistling dixie now.

(i know it's a flawed joke: the south merely wanted to secede, NOT take over the north. so sue me.)

and i'm certainly glad they burnt Atlanta to the ground, because ATL2.0 is mighty nice. at least Peachtree Street and the hotel where i'm staying at. i've been working too many hours to really get out and enjoy the nightlife i've heard so much about. booo. maybe saturday...

but it's 10pm EST, i just got off work, and i managed to convince my cousin Kristin to get out of bed and come pick me up. our destination -- a "Waffle House". we don't know where the nearest one is, but drive a few minutes in any direction and we'll be sure to find one.

i've had nothing but three slices of pizza to eat all day. i'm needing something healthy. anyone know the nutritional value of grits?

til next time...

off to Hotlanta

2006-11-08T08:40:00.000-08:00

i'm on my way to ATL for the next few days for the BET Hip Hop Awards (airing next wednesday on Fox...just kidding, BET)

it's been a bumpy few days. first Diddy dropped out. diddy did-N'T want to perform anymore. then Snoop gets busted in the O.C. then our host, some guy named Katt Williams, gets busted for bringing a gun to the airport. never a dull moment in hip hop land. should make for an interesting show on sunday...

i'll be working my ass off, but hoping to sneak away for a few minutes to grab dinner/drinks with my aunt/uncle/cousins/in-law. i'm sure we can work something out...

i sure am gonna miss this 90+ degree weather we've been having, though. i went to the beach this sunday. the BEACH!

gotta jet. literally.

thanks for voting.

til next time...

Two Years Ago...

2006-11-07T11:46:00.000-08:00

...Matt White turned on his computer, logged onto a website, and spewd the words from inside his head through the tips of his fingers. From the deepest of thoughts, to the mundane-est of details, his brain runeth over, collecting, swirling, thriving in the great cosmic cesspool known as the world wide web.

And thus, a blog was born.

And Matt was pleased.

Thank you to everyone for patronizing me and my blog, in every sense of the word. Here's to many, many more years as i travel down this long and windy yellow brick road of life.

Til next time...GO OUT AND VOTE!

________________

EDIT: ooops. i just realized i jumped the gun a bit. MWGTH's actual two-year anniversary is November 10th. the egg on my face!

but there are worse things than being premature... (that's what SHE said) wa waaa

still...

VOTE!

oooooh SNAP

2006-10-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

blogger has this neat little function where i can email-post my blogs. i send an email to _________@blogger.com and wa-lah, it shows up as a blog post. pretty nifty when you're sitting at work supposed to be "work"-ing. now i can type a g-mail with a serious "gotta get down to business" look on my face, but little do they know i'm actually blogging. ha HA!

so, you're probably wondering how my little appointment with the quack -- i mean, chiropractor -- went this morning. well, wouldn't ya know i woke up this morning and my back felt FINE. why does that always happen? (like the day i have a haircut appointment i always wake up to a great hair day???)

but i went to the appointment anyway. the first hour i was forced to spend reading a laminated pamphlet on how chiropractology is a vital medical science (read: legit) followed by a five minute video reiterating the same thing. naturally, it made me even more skeptical. then i met dr. scott (we're already on a first-name basis), a very nice young asian fellow. he proceeded to go through the pamphlet with me yet another time, and even had me read the highlighted phrases aloud when he pointed to them with his pen. over-kill. just snap my frickin' back already!

finally, he took a look, or rather a "feel", of my spine. i've got an inordinate amount of tension built up all along the right side. hmmm... then i mentioned to him that i also suffer from foot pain occasionally from my almost-flat feet. turns out they're not almost-flat. they're almost-totally-flat. (my dad was a cop (flat foot) but i actually get the flat feet. great) i stood on a special scanner do-hickey and it revealed that i carry 80% of my body weight on my LEFT foot. i've got tension on my right...and all the weight on my left...with flat feet. i'm officially messed up. crooked.

so two X-rays later i made my next appointment to meet with him. monday morning. that's when we're gonna discuss my "treatment" options. personally, i think it's nothing that a pair of insoles, a bi-monthly massage, and sitting on a seat cushion at work can't handle. but i'm willing to go along for the ride a few stops to see if he can make a believer out of me. after all, he's asian. i feel in good hands.

on the flip side, i'm loving my new gig. SO much less stressful than last week, as BET is a professional network with an actual budget. meaning, they actually have a 3-person script department complete with a COLOR copy machine. it's beautiful.

it's basically me in an office with a bunch of sassy black girls. don't worry, i ain't misbehavin'. this morning one girl even said, "oh matt, you so quiet." for my safety, i should probably stay that way. why, just today they were talking about our lunch-time options...

"i want Koo Koo Roo."

"i want Arby's."

"How about 'Soup Plantation'?" said i.

a collective GASP rippled across the room. and that's when i realized what i'd done. i'd said it. the "P" word. even after all these years, the pain... lesson learned.

either that or black people just really hate soup.

til next time...

my aching sacroiliac

2006-10-26T17:33:00.000-07:00

there are many things i hope to inherit from my father. his handiness (probably won't happen). his aim (got it). his sense of moral decency...(weeell...). and there are some things i'm banking on being recessive. his fuse. his hairline. his cholesterol level.

but there's one thing i never thought would fall that close to this tree -- his bad back. looks like i wasn't so lucky.

friends, i am IN PAIN. i know, i know. between my ulcers and my spine, my body's telling me something. probably STOP WORKING SO HARD. but tough luck, body! in a few short months i may actually be in the black for once! suck it up and DEAL. pappa needs a new pair o shoes!

i noticed things were weird in NY. i started to get searing flashes of pain down my legs from ass to sole. but no back pain. i did a little wikipedia research and deduced that my sciatic nerve was pinched. so i slept on the floor a couple nights to unpinch it. and it worked -- or so i thought.

cut to two weeks later and the pain flashes are gone, replaced instead with a dull, constant ache which seems to travel from between my shoulder blades down to my lower back and back again. i cracked my back several times. brief relief, but then more pain. i bought a memory-foam pillow. nadda. i had a friend crack my back. super relief -- followed soon by even MORE pain. it's been days now and things back there keep getting consistently worse.

which is why, at 10am tomorrow, i will be seeing a chiropractor. my first ever.

and it serves me right. i have had a life-long disdain for back pain and its sufferers. it was my dad's favorite excuse for getting out of doing things when i was a kid. whatever, i thought. now i know, maybe it wasn't such an excuse after all.

i had no tolerance for back pain sufferers. a young girl i knew in high school had to spend a couple months in the hospital just to fix her crooked spine. cry baby. i used to deliberately step on cracks, just to break my mother's back. i just didn't get it.

but now i KNOW. back pain is no joke. no laughing matter at all. karma, you suck.

til the healing hands have fixed my spine...

oooof

2006-10-24T20:51:00.000-07:00

i'm back, friends. another day wiser, another dollar richer. well, until i paid a hefty credit card bill. now i'm broke again, but still a little wiser. i won't lie to you, last week was a doooooozy. i signed on to work on a new game show pilot for NBC. it was only gonna be six days. some quick easy money before my next gig kicked in. it wasn't great money, but it'd help me hone my skills in the script department.

what i didn't realize was that i WAS the script department. a job for three people suddenly landed on my shoulders. to cut costs they decided to stream-line the crew...and unfortunately, much of the "dead weight" they decided to forego was in the form of their script team. they didn't even give me a friggin' copy machine!!!

needless to say, i earned every freakin' cent of that paycheck last week. there were some long hours, some muttered curses, and tight chests. i hate stress. but there were some good things that came out of it...

it helped that i acted like i was in complete and utter control the entire time. every setback, minor to major, i let just roll off my back. inside i was screaming. outside i was professional. and it was noticed. in this town, it's good to be noticed.

i got a pseudo promotion. because i was doing my job, my assistant's job, and my boss's job they gave me the title of "production/script supervisor". which will look good on the resume. yet, unfortunately, it was a promotion in name only, lacking the monetary compensation that a true promotion entails. yeah well.

i also got to work with some really cool people. everyone was over-worked, over-stressed, and over-eager for the whole show to be over-and-done-with. in the same boat. so by the end of the week i actually found myself enjoying the company of those with whom i was suffering.

even the director and executive producers were cool. as usual, i wound up at a bar with the execs after the last day of shooting, and we shot the shit for awhile. they thanked me endlessly for my positivity and hard work, and i guzzled down free long island ice teas -- ecstatic that my hell was over. yet it's amazing how a few free drinks can erase a week's worth of resentment.

i just got back a few hours ago from a weekend respite in the mountains to visit the "magnificent jandersons". they've been out here for two months now, and this is the first chance i've gotten to take a ride out to their new home on the fixer-upper-summer camp they were hired to revive. nothing like a few days at 5,000 feet to restore your soul.

tomorrow i start my next gig. but it should be a real cake-walk compared to last week, so i should have some more blogs coming your direction.

and just what is this next gig? why it's the BET Hip Hop Awards.

stop laughing.

til next time...

another one for you...

2006-10-10T07:46:00.000-07:00

two blogs in two days! it's a MWGTH record!

well not really. back in the day i was posting almost every day. but that was before my job had me glued to a laptop 24/7.

after the show ended saturday, i swore to take a good 3-4 day break from my 'puter. yeah, that didn't last. i came crawling back, begging for more.

[petting computer...] i'm sorry, buddy. i'll never let go. never let go...

it's 10:41 in the AM, Eastern Daylight time, and i'd much rather be in bed. or, in my case these past two weeks, "on futon". (and an AWFUL futon at that!) problem is, it was so f*cking mc-steamy last night, i woke up all sticky this morning and couldn't fall back to sleep. (sticky from SWEAT, people, minds outta the gutter!) and to make things worse, i was covered in huge mosquito bites!! i even have one on my cheek, right below my eye!! that little mo-fo bit my face! motha f*cka, don't mess wit ma face!!! now i look like fitty cent.

sorry for all the cussin' lately, but when you spend a few weeks emersed in the realm of "hip hop", you start to pick things up. even whitey's like me.

fortunately, my boss was SUPER white, so it made me look a lot less hip-hop-clueless than i was. ice cube was on the show performing his hit "why we thugs". well she, being a stickler for correct punctuation, added a "?" to the end of the title. on all the schedules, rundowns, scripts, etc, ice cube was now going to be rapping (she also spelled it "wrap"), "why we thugs?"

in a single stroke from her keyboard, she completely emasculated a "cop killa". oh, how we laughed.

but it didn't end there. for ice cube's second number he was doing "steal the show". but she misheard him, and typed up "steal the shoe." so now he was a sensitive, self-reflective rapper with a shoe fetish. seriously, she was just asking for a drive-by. pow pow. i made sure to stay a few steps behind her when leaving work late at night.

today marks day #2 of my see-all-the-people-i-can-possibly-see-before-i-leave portion of my trip. working 12-17 hours a day isn't very conducive to seeing old friends, that's why i had them book me a return flight a few days later than normal. day #1 was very nice. i met my old roommate shane for lunch in our old hood in brooklyn. all the guys from the loft have since left and gone their separate ways, (although we're still myspace-pals), so it was a nice afternoon of catching up and reminscing. williamsburg still kicks ass. my absolute neighborhood of choice in NYC.

then i took the train down to lower manhattan, walked around wall street, peeked in on the WTC (still just a hole -- but the one building they did build looks nice), before grabbing some yakiniku (japanese bbq) in the east village with my pal Fred.

today promises to be an equally busy, beautiful fall day. i realized on my way to LAX two weeks ago that i forgot to pack a jacket. turns out it would've been a waste of space anyway.

alright, gotta get a move on. the shorties are awaitin.'

til next time

(do black people say "awaitin'?")

i'm back, bitches

2006-10-08T20:21:00.000-07:00

i'm sitting in an NYC coffee house and got 29 minutes left on my laptop battery, so this'll be a quickie, but i just wanted to let you all know that, no, i have not died from my herpes. in fact, my lips have never felt more smooooth. oh, so smooooth.

what am i doing in NYC, you may ask? i've been here for almost two weeks now, actually, hence my lack o' blogging.

no, they still have the internets here. it's just that i was a last-minute hire on the Vh1 Hip Hop Honors (taped last night, will air next tuesday or wednesday, i forget which), working as a full-flegded script supervisor. my very first time with that official title. i'd been in "training" all summer for it, but haven't legitimately done the gig. and since everyone else in NY and LA was booked, they hired me -- ha!

this was sorta my catch 22 gig. you need experience to get a job, but need a job to get experience. and to make matters worse, the director i was working with was notorious -- both for his brilliance and temper. the odds weren't in my favor...

but friends, in all confidence, i can tell you i NAILED that mo-fo! and boy it feels good. i'm legit. i'm the real deal. i've built my own lightsaber. my skills are complete. i'm an official jedi. jedi script supervisor that is.

i won't say it was easy, because it wasn't. i logged a lot of hours infront of a computer screen, endlessly and anal-y scanning the script for any sign of a typo (and growing some beautifully bloodshot eyes in the process). i logged onto blogger a few times to type you a quick note, but, alas, my spirit just wasn't in it.

until now...free at last! after a 17-hour day yesterday, i am officially done. i've got a few days left to enjoy (and sleep) in NYC before i catch a flight home. but at least all my hard work didn't go unnoticed. the director actually emailed me today and wants me to send my contact info to his office so he can hire me again. which is great! -- if i aspired to be a career script supervisor. but who knows...that's the magic of "the industry", there's no one way to the top. unfortunately, this path will probably NOT be my yellow brick road, but at least i'm making a decent living wage for once.

but NYC wasn't all work and no play. i scored tix to the season premiere of SNL and took my boss. sort of a "thank you for hiring me even though i was your last resort" gesture. but i scored MEGA points with that. we had a blast at the taping -- and an even better time at the after parties, where we got to see the sun come up at 7am. man, it felt good to do that again! it's been way too long...

:17 left...

looking forward to getting back to LA though, although NYC has really welcomed me back with open arms. it's such a tough city to leave, sometimes. but my little house in the hills is a'beckoning. although my roommate probably isn't. i tell ya, she's getting way, WAY too used to these 2 week + outta town gigs i'm getting.

but things will be changing on old deloz ave, fo shizzle. i'm a MAN now, beyotch. shortie's gotta recognize. it's time miss natalie cooks me grub or else hit the STREETZ.

i got ninety-nine problems, and ain't one a bitch.

...or something like that.

sorry, i'm really white.

til next time...

herpes

2006-09-22T16:18:00.000-07:00

friends, i am IN PAIN.

my lower lip has decided it wants to secede from my face and has launched a nasty attack. i now have three olympus mons-sized craters (look it up) and a few more "starter" craters making my mucus membranes a most unhappy place, indeed. i haven't had ulcers this bad since i was a kid. and, for the purpose of this blog, there can be only one culprit.

is it...

a) my unfortunate habit of biting my nails -- coupled with my unfortunate habit of NEVER WASHING MY HANDS?

b) having a little too much fun with my sonicare toothbrush...in terms of brushing other areas of my body?

c) stress, mixed in with a lack of sleep, over my latest job as a writers' assistant on a TV pilot (even though it's going swimmingly)?

d) the change of seasons?...this is "fire" now in LA. not the season known as "fall" on the east coast

e) hooking up with that Thai whore down at the docks?...damn, you colonel angus!

f) probably all of the above

to give you an idea how bad it is, i've enclosed a few photos of me and my mouth.

believe at your own risk...

no, i haven't turned mulatto on you.

this handsome light-skinned black guy's face pops up when you google-image "mouth ulcers" for some reason.

who knows...maybe he's the source of all the herpes in the world.

maybe...

til an ulcer-free next time...