Midnight On E! Tonight!

I'll be trying to bring my Grandpa back from the dead in tonights halloween episode airing on E!

JR DIGS (Man with a Van)

Well, my bright idea to buy a kick ass cool old van and drive out to Regina for the Gemini Awards Show turned out to maybe be one of the dumbest idea's I have had in years and I have had lots of those over the last six years!

The friggin Van ended up completely crappin out on me litterally in the middle of nowhere in Northern Ontario! Aside from whatever was making the Van die pretty much every time I came to a full stop, turns out I at some point also put gas in the wrong gas tank. This Van has two gas tanks and well....how about I fill you guys in on the rest of what happened later on ok. I did end up shooting a bunch of video so I assume maybe that will tell the story better than I can here in my blog right now.

So I ended up turning around and heading back home here after some dude in a garage told me I was pretty much a complete moron if I thought there was any way that this van was going to make it all the way out to Regina and back again.

Now I either have to find a cheap flight out to Regina Sunday morning or just totally bail on going out there at all.

Stay tuned....

Cam's the man!

Cam says all I needed was some sort of thermastat dohicky replaced in the van to stop it from overheating and stalling on me all the time. It seems to be running fine now and thanks to JVC I got three new camera's mounted in the van about an hour ago!

So I'm all set up to shoot footage all the way out West and back and by this time tomorrow I should probably be rolling through Northern Ontario somewhere on my way to the Gemini's in Regina Sunday night.

Who cares if Merylin Denis won the Gemini Award and couldn't remember my name the next day when she was talking on her radio show about the people she was nominated with. I bet she doesn't have a sweet ass Van like I've got!

JR DIGS (Man with a Van)

Loaded up and ready to go...

Maybe one of the reasons that this van I bought was so cheap is because it maybe wasn't running so good! It seemed to be running just fine the day I bought it but I haven't really driven it too much since that day and now it keeps konking out.

I was driving it around tonight picking some stuff up before taking off for Regina and the friggin Van kept stalling on me. I don't know anything about automobiles other than you have to put gas and oil in them every once in a while so it looks like I'm going to have to take the Van to Cam first thing in the morning to check things out. It's too late to call Cam now because its way after midnight but if your up and reading this post right now Cam, message me ok. I gotta get this sweet ass Van of mine on the road and on the way to Regina so that I can make it there by Sunday night for the Gemini Awards.

Cam is the dude who contacted me a while back about the the car he had for me to drive in a demolition derby. I shot some video of the car and posted here on facebook a while ago, it should still be there I think. Since then, Cam has officially become the only guy I trust to take care of me when it comes to my car. My Van as well I guess.(lol)

I bought a Van & I'm headin WEst!

Yep, I went out and bought a van yesterday like I said I was going to do! It ended up costing me $1200 and it's awesome!

I'm going to try and get JVC who have sponsored my show in the past, to loan me a couple camera's and if I can find a couple people who want to go with me, I'm going to drive the hell out of this thing all the way to Regina and back! The televised Gemini Awards show is being held in Regina next Sunday night so in an effort to milk my nomination for "Best Host in a Lifestyle series" for all it's worth and assumming I will never get nominated ever again, I want to go to the awards show, walk the red carpet, get interviewed by ET and almost certainly embarass myself in every little town along the way!

It's a Vantastic idea!

You guys have been reading my blog lately. I'm sure you can tell that more than anything else these days, I desperately need just to be inspired again. I need to get back to that place in my head where I was six years ago. A road trip would be perfect! I can get back to meeting and shooting footage out there on the road with all sorts of people in all sorts of places on my way to the Gemini Awards all the way out there in the prairies. I can't wait to get going!!!!!!!

Tonight on the tube, Another Crappy Canadian Latenight Talkshow with JR DIGS goes back on the air. I've been shooting footage here and there over the last few months for the show but wasn't exactly feeling as inspired as I should be. A road trip right now would be a very cool idea and having Regina circled on the map gives me as much of plan as I need!

I'm going to have to air some of the orignally shot episodes over the next few weeks in order to just take off like this so I thought I may as well start back at the beginning tonight. The first time I ever met "Hurricane Andy" was the week after I was waking around naked by myself with my original JVC camera that had been given to me to start shooting the show with.

When I tell people that this is a low budget show, I don't think they really understand just how low budget it really is cause I just spent most of it on an old Van to drive out West in!(lol)

A "Van"ity Project!

Cant' sleep, can't think, can't imagine doing anything other than working on Another Crappy Canadian Latenight Talkshow!

I'm going to buy a Van!

There is always next year...maybe?

Just got back from my sisters house where my folks are spending a couple nights before they head to Florida for the winter. Buck, that's my little sister, told me she was listening to CHUM radio on Wednesday morning to hear what Merylin Denis might have to say on her morning radio show about winning the Gemini award on Tuesday night.

This is hilarious, get this! Apparently when she was talking about who she was nominated with in the catagory for Best Host in a Lifestyle series, she couldn't remember one of the four other nominees names. Mine!!!!!(lol) How funny is that? Pretty ironic if you ask me. It kind of sums up perfectly the last six years of making low budget latenight television and my first Gemini awards show experience to be honest.

I have never really been a part of this industry in the traditional sense over the last six years and I don't know if I ever really will be."Be Real with JR DIGS" was the first and for all I know, the last network series I will ever get offered again. The Gemini nomination was the icing on the cake! Cake is good, I like chocolate cake the best.

So now what? I did what I set out to do and it took more than I could have ever imagined it would to do it. I'm not the same guy I was over six years ago now. What do I do next or why bother doing anything at all? I've got some thinking to do about stuff tonight. By Friday at noon I have to let the network know what my plans are for this weekend and for the next few months with regards to my latenight timeslot on Saturday and Sunday nights on Global and on E!

I might have a long night ahead of me. I should call Marylin Denis in the morning to let her know who I am!(lol)

Last Night @ The Gemini Awards

At this very time exactly, twenty four hours ago after every other award had been given out and with guys like Strombo waiting to head for the bar while holding a handful of Gemini's for "The Hour", the last award of the night was about to be handed out.

...."and the Gemini for Best Host in a lifestyle series goes to"......

After a cocktail schmoozfest sort a thing that started around 6:30pm, the Awards show got under way. I was seated right in the front row which to be honest kind of freaked me out. Why was I being seated in the front friggin row? I knew that if the Gemini award I had been nominated for wasn't going to Rick Mercer, than it would probably be going to Merylin Denis so I don't know why it was so wierd feeling to be sitting there in the front row, but it was!

Merylin Denis after years of hosting her show "City Line" is in her final season so it wasn't a suprise at all to hear her name anounced when they finally gave out the last Gemini of the night last night. The entire evening was somewhat of a blur. I still find it kinda hard to believe that I was actually even nominated and sitting there at all last night.

After all these years of having to buy beg and barder network airtime so that I could pretend I had my own Tv show in the effort to actually get a show, getting hired last summer to host my first network produced series was pretty sweet to say the least. It got me out of debt for the first time since I started buying my infomercial airtime back in the summer of 2001 and I finally did what I had set out to do over half a decade ago. Getting nominated for a Gemini as well, isn't something I ever could have imagined in a million years.

Oh crap, I think can smell my food burning in the kitchen.

I'll blog more about my first Gemini awards show experience sometime Thursday. Right now I have to go get my chicken pot pies out of the oven and eat some dinner. I haven't eaten a thing all day and I'm starving. After that I just want to relax, maybe go for a walk, clear my head and figure out where to and what to do next. I have a few pretty big decisions to make over the next few weeks.

Blog back here on Thursday.

The Gemini Awards

Freakin out here a little bit. I have to be down town for the big shin dig tonight and I have a hundred more things to do over the next couple of hours. I don't even have nice shoes to wear at this point!

The Last EPisode...

Heading up north to help pull docks out of the water! My folks take off for Florida next week for the winter, my brother who has been home for just over a week now, heads back into the world and all the far off places that he travels to and my sister is being a suck ass and not coming up to the cottage this weekend to help close things up!

Next Tuesday is the Gemini Awards and next Wednesday is the day I start trying to figure out what to do after the big day has come and gone and Rick Mercer has won another Gemini as "Best host in a lifestyle series".(lol) I have no clue what to wear yet?

Make sure to tune into the show tonight guys. It's the last epsiode of "In The Can with JR DIGS" and it's an episode that has never aired before featuring a group of super talented film makers and actors I hope to be working alot more with in the future.

Spread the word....watch the show tonight!

Too VLog or not to Blog?

Back from a busy week and stuffed full of Turkey!

Lots going on these days but can't really or at least shouldn't talk much about any of it. The cool thing about blogging is that you get to kinda stay in touch with people in a wierd sort of way. I like that. People check your blog and get a sense of what is happening in your crazy ass little life which is great. What's not great is that if you start blogging about every little thing you do and person you met with every day, then sometimes if a person at netork"a" lets say, reads about a meeting you had with someone at network"b" lets just say, well then sometimes person"c" which is me lets say somehow gets screwed because person"c" should have just kept his mouth shut for a few weeks. Are you guys following any of this?

I'm bored of saying nothing here. I gotta start doing more video blogs again, I hate typing. I'm slow at it and it takes too long for me to type out just a short blog.

I got kicked off facebook today for adding too many friends or something. Tell you all about it when I can vlog about it. I'm done typing for the night.

I'll never be a 5:30am kinda guy!

I put on a clean shirt and went down to the big city tonight for some drinks and a bit of schmoozing at a function that I was invited to because I've been nominated for a Gemini Award this year as most of you would know by now I assume. Everyone who has been nominated for an award this year was invited.

I figured it was a good opportunity to maybe meet some people who might be interested in giving me another job maybe. The latenight show I have been grinding out all these years can't really be considered as an actual job on television because I don't really get paid by the Network for doing it. Being hired to host "BE Real with JR DIGS" was an actual job! It was the first time I was ever hred and paid money to work on an actual network television series that had a real budget and crew. It was the first time someone at a network gave me an opportunity to finally see what I could do if all I had to do was just host a friggin show and that was it!

1st job...1st Gemini nominaton! Now its time to find out what that might actauly mean to the folks in this industry.

Had a nice night but had to pack it in early to get home here and pack a couple bags for an early morning flight I have to catch. I'll be away for a few days but be back in time for the turkey on Sunday night up at the cottage with my family.

If I don't have time to blog again until next week, have a great Thanksgiving weekend everyone.