I Still Got Game

Each week the show gets delivered to the station by Wednesday. I know this, because I'm the one who has delivered the show every week for the past three and a half years. Ah, the glamour of television!

It's 3:38 AM right now, which makes it Friday morning, I suppose. We have been working pretty solid for the past 18 hours on this week's show. It's the first new episode I've delivered in a while and I'm looking forward to hearing about what people think of it. I'm heading in a new direction with the show, but it looks like some things are still the same. It's going to get delivered almost two days late and we are already way behind on the production of the next episode!

I did manage to slide out for an hour about six hours ago for a little bit of a break. We took off to play some basketball. All work and no play makes JR a fat, lazy bastard. Now that we're making new shows again, I have to find a little time to have some fun. I've been thinking about going running again. I used to run every night, but now I'm really lazy so I just watch TV and go to the movies when I'm kicking back.

I better get back to putting the show together so I can get it to the station before the sun comes up. I bought some apple juice and Frosted Flakes the other day, so I know what I'm having for breakfast in a little bit. I was eyeing up the Coco Puffs, but Frosted Flakes seemed like the healthier choice, even though they probably aren't! Maybe someone can find that out for me and let me know for the next time.

The Breakfast Blues

Clearly, the people at McDonald's who made the decision to stop serving breakfast at 11:00am on weekends never stay out late on a Friday night anymore. If they did, or if their kids do, they would know that it really sucks to wake up craving breakfast at McDonald's only to get there just in time for some grumpy woman to tell you breakfast ended five minutes ago.

I don't want a hamburger at 11:05am on a Saturday morning, I want a sausage and egg McMuffin, I want a large orange juice, I want two hash browns and a large coffee. There's nothing else I want to eat right now and I can't have it! If it was 11:4 am, I could see how McDonald's may have needed the previous fifteen minutes to be gearing up for lunch, switching over the grills or whatever it is that they have to do back there but at 11:05 am I should be eating breakfast!

So here I am, drinking a coffee, eating a bagel loaded with cream cheese thinking man, I wish I was at McDonald's right now reading a paper and figuring out what I'm going to do today. I've decided I need to take one day a week off each week from now on so that I don't completely burn myself out again. For a long time, all I did was think about and work on my show, and eventually it all caught up to me. Keeping the show on the air somehow became more important than what I was actually putting on the air. It consumed me for sure, it had to though, and it worked. I've kept JR DIGS on the air for over three years now, the show is broadcast nationally and despite the fact that I still haven't landed this elusive network deal, I recently put together an interesting new barter agreement with Global. Most of the money that previously was being paid to Global for airtime can now be put into the production of the actual show. So for the first time ever, I can hire a small crew to work with me on the show each week. If all goes well, I'll find more time now to write and think about stuff that's funny, instead of just how I'm going to keep it on the air for another week!
That being said, today is my day off, I should go do something. By the way, one of the things we did last night was check out a band called the Marble Index. They're a local band that's getting some radio play these days. I'm thinking about featuring some music acts in the new season and if I do, you will probably see these guys on the show in the next month or so.

An extra half hour of serving breakfast, is that so much to ask for!

Braff's Blog

I just got off the Garden State website, it's pretty cool. I really liked the movie and now I'm hooked on the site. Sometimes I go to it just for the music playing on the homepage. I don't know why, but it just kind of inspires me for some reason. The site is so well done and I think Zach Braff did an amazing job on the movie. He seems to be good at keeping his blog updated as well, which is something I haven't been all that good at lately.

It's been a crazy few weeks getting prepared for the new season of JR DIGS and although it only takes a few minutes to update my blog, I just haven't taken the time to sit down and do it. I have been pretty good at reading people's posts on the message board though. I'm looking forward to reading about what people think of the new season which kind of kicks off this Saturday night with a Special Press Conference Episode. It's not exactly what people might be expecting and I'm in a suit for the entire episode. Hmm...

I only really have one good suit and tie, so unless I find a clothing sponsor or something, you might end up seeing a lot more of that particular look in the new season.

Yep, I'm all grown up and after all these years, I've never had to wear a tie to work. I used to own a couple of skateboard shops, so obviously the whole suit-and-tie, nine-to-five thing was something that I never really got into.

Jimmy Kimmel hosted the American Music Awards tonight. I only watched a couple minutes of it. He was wearing a tie. He never wears a tie on his talk show, which I suppose is something to consider if you don't want to be wearing the same tie every week on my show.

Stay tuned, I guess!

I'm Really Happy

I love TV. And after months of not having any cable hooked up here, because I couldn't really afford it, today is a good day.

I got my cable hooked up again! I'm really happy!

I even wrote a song about it. Check it out if you want:
http://www.jrdigs.com/audio/110304reallyhappycabletvsong.mp3

Apparently I can also add pictures to my blog and just so I can prove it to everyone, here are a couple Branden took while we were screwing around, pretending to be rock stars.

The Short Went Long

I spent the entire day working on a short film that went way too long. We had a section in a local diner, reserved from three until six pm, but we didn’t finish shooting everything. We’ll have to go back and finish shooting on another day. Hopefully, I’ll get the camera for free again, along with all the other gear we had. Monitors, lights, all that stuff is expensive if you have to pay the rental fees.

I gotta get some sleep. I have to return everything first thing in the morning.

Going On Jerry Springer

One minute, you’re planning on going to Chicago to be on Jerry Springer, and the next minute, you’re figuring out how to shoot your first short film. I guess it’s fair to say that life is as interesting as ever.

Last night, at this time, I was supposed to be on my way to Chicago. And tomorrow night, at this time, I’ll be looking at uncut footage of my first short film. Right now, I’m looking at the same pile of dirty clothes on the floor that were there last weekend.

On Friday, Shane the Camera Man Cunningham turned the TV on just as the phone number for Jerry Springer was being spewed at the viewers who still watch the Jerry Springer show. Although I wasn’t around on Friday, Shane said he picked up the phone and called the number. A few hours later, we were trying to figure out what kind of story to tell the show’s producer so that they would have us on the show – BECAUSE THEY ACTUALLY CALLED SHANE BACK! It was the craziest thing. If I hadn’t received a call on Saturday from a producer of The Jerry Springer Show, I never would have believed it. She was calling me to confirm Shane’s story of “gay love triangles, betrayal and cable access television”. A free trip to Chicago would have been pretty sweet, I have to admit, because we could have shot footage down there, just days before the election. It would have been good for a laugh too, I’m sure, if we would have went through with it, but we didn’t.

We could have though, they were going to put us on the show, but then we would have had to completely reschedule Monday’s shooting of our first short film, and the rest of this week was jammed as is, and I guess I’m not so keen anymore to do any stupid thing that I can, just to have a laugh and get some publicity for the show. Plus, deep down, maybe, I’m hoping someday I’ll get to go on shows like Late Night With Conan O’Brien, or maybe even have the opportunity to yuk it up with David Letterman.

Appearing on the Jerry Springer show isn’t exactly something I’m aspiring to do anymore. Let’s be honest; it’s not quite the same kind of quality entertainment that it once was. I didn’t even know that it was still on the air!

But anyways, I better get looking over some of these lines I have to say tomorrow afternoon. I’m sure my next blog will be mostly about how things went. I’ve never done anything like this before.
Yep, life is as interesting as ever.