HE IS BEGINNING TO PUT ME TO SHAME.

HERE he discusses whether or not to spend $750 on a weekend in Berlin, or a SINGLE EXPENSIVE LUNCH in Berlin.

THIS IS WHAT IS KNOWN IN LITERATURE AS “The Freelance Magazine Writer’s Dilemma.”

ALSO, I forgot to mention his fancy lunch with my co-star from Cheers, TED DANSON, who said a nice thing about me, since we spent so much time on the set of CHEERS.*

That is all.

*I played the “Spooky Child From Brookline Who Sleeps Under The Bar Table And Answers All Your Questions”

I SAW THIS CLIP OF TARANTINO’S CLAPPER, Geraldine Brezca, first via Sullivan, who found it via Laughing Squid, who explains:

“Typically when a scene number is called the clapboard operator will follow the English alphabet, and each film set will have their own variation such as using names in alphabetic order, or the International Radio Operator Alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.). Not Brezca.”

SO I AM SORRY TO RECYCLE, but I found this montage to be an automatic happiness install, and I wished to share it with you, the 2 or 3 internet users who have not already seen it.

FOR ALL OF THE SURPRISING PLEASURES of my accidental half-career as on-screen “TALENT,” I think the most surprising and the most pleasurable was the new experience of being on-set: the instant, summer-camp-style frienships that make you want to make bracelets for everyone; the surreal accumulation of highly esoteric skills, from putting tape on the floor to moving the camera to pretending to smile; the weary giddiness of impossibly late nights and pervasive self-doubt, punctuated by the exhilaration of watching someone, on-camera or off, really do their jobs well.

IT IS, I THINK, the perfect petri dish for the fungal growth of IN-JOKES, and as you watch this clip, you see how a running joke breaks bad moods and creates a storyline across long, disconnected hours, and remind everyone not only WHY they are there, but THAT they are there.

THE POINT IS, I think Geradline Brezca is a MAD GENIUS if only because, in the long history of comedy, she came up with a new rim-shot, as in:

“AU REVOIR, SIXTY SIX FUCKERS”… <CLAP!>

Which is to say:

THAT IS ALL

LAST WEEK, YOU MAY RECALL, my post regarding Blade Runner guns and heartwarming letters among and between Adam Savage, Philip K. Dick, and Jeff Walker, was PUNISHED by your kind curiosity, causing this imitation blog to FREQUENTLY FAIL TO IMITATE A BLOG.

I AM NOW PREPARED TO TEST NEW INTERNET TECHNOLOGY that, if all is well, should allow me to actually link to this imitation blog from time to time, and allow you, the HIVE MIND, to swarm all over this amazing, if belated, clip of….

TED LEO AND HIS PHARMACISTS

PLEASE ALERT ME IF YOU CANNOT SEE THIS MESSAGE the moment that you do not see it.

MEANWHILE, MY MANY THANKS AND HELLOS go to the lovely folks in the comments section of March 4, especially Ms. Rachel Walker, who claims to be the daughter of Jeff Walker.

AND I HAVE NO REASON TO DISBELIEVE HER!

THAT IS ALL.

I RECEIVED AN E-MAIL this morning in which the television personality ADAM SAVAGE traced the provenance of his home-made Blade Runner gun.

COURTESY HIM, here is the original “hero” gun.

AND HERE IS the astonishing replica he made himself.

CAN YOU SPOT THE THREE DIFFERENCES? I doubt you can.*

WHILE READING ABOUT the hero gun, I noticed it came from the collection of Blade Runner publicist and geek marketing visionary Jeff Walker.

IF YOU HAVE NOT HEARD OF HIM, no worries. Neither did I until literally minutes ago, when I started googling him instead of doing my taxes.

AND DURING THAT GOOGLING, I came across this very sweet and also bittersweet document, a letter to Jeff Walker from Philip K. Dick regarding some footage of BLADE RUNNER Dick saw on television before he died….

THIS COMES COURTESY the Philip K. Dick Trust website.

I HAD NEVER KNOWN that Dick had any particular fondness for BLADE RUNNER, I found it heartening that, after a somewhat tormented life, and here, at what Dick perhaps did not know was the end of it, he is clearly so enthused.

BUT ALSO, I found the last line gasp-inducing; for in 1982, as he died, BLADE RUNNER was certainly not invincible.

INDEED, it had been VINCED PRETTY DAMN THOROUGHLY by ET.

BUT BY 2010, however, every one of Dick’s predictions for the film had eerily, impossibly come true. And what better legacy for a futurist?

*MEANWHILE, if you could not tell the difference between the actual gun and the Savage replica, the replica has a life span of only seven years, a bunch of fake memories, and it won’t flip over a turtle, EVEN IF IT IS DYING.

That is all.

IT IS FOR ONE REASON ONLY: because Paul F. Tompkins needs 300 of you to fight Persia to make comedy,

AND HE IS USING FACEBOOK to recruit you, city by city, not just to ATTEND one of his FAMOUS COMEDIAN SHOWS…

but also, in effect, by VOLUNTARY ACTION and EARLY COMMITMENT…

TO CAUSE THAT VERY COMEDIAN SHOW TO HAPPEN!

SCIENCE CANNOT EXPLAIN THIS. BUT PFT attempts to HERE. I paraphrase: if you and 299 of your friends commit to seeing Paul F. Tompkins perform in your town, HE WILL GO THERE, without asking any questions, and: HE WILL PERFORM.

RIGHT THIS MOMENT, New York City, is seeking roughly 150 additional Knights in Tompkins’s Service (KITS) in order to conjure his form HERE.

I WILL PERSONALLY BE THERE. And so, I hope, you will be, and we shall congratulate our good taste together, loudly, in the audience, UNTIL PAUL GETS VERY ANGRY AND TELLS US TO BE QUIET.

OR, IF YOU LIVE IN A DIFFERENT CITY, search the Facebook and see if someone has started a campaign to lure Tompkins with the promise of 300 souls. If not, START YOUR OWN FACEBOOK PAGE to begin the ritual. Or search, #tompkins300.

LOOK, I know it is all somewhat confusing and decentralized, but that is the system that Paul has chosen, and though anarchic, I think you will find it EFFECTIVE and DELIGHTFUL once you have made this talented comedy person travel to your town a) BECAUSE HE IS FUNNY and b) BECAUSE YOU MADE IT TO HAPPEN.

IF YOU HAVE ANY LINGERING DOUBTS regarding the wisdom of this scheme, PLEASE REVIEW THIS INTERNET VIDEO of Paul F. Tompkins at the SF Sketchfest of last month:

CASE CLOSED

That is all.