How Twitter Saved My Street

It all started with a morning walk down my street. That's when I saw it for the first time - a small hole in the road. But as I crouched down to inspect it I noticed it was more than just a break in the asphalt. There didn't seem to be any dirt underneath for at least a foot or so. Was it the start of a catastrophic sinkhole? A portal to another dimension? A shortcut to Clackamas? Either way, I photographed it and twittered about it:


And here's the accompanying photo:


Later that morning my pal @Jandroid retweeted my discovery to Mayor Sam Adams' attention and he was pretty quick to respond:


I got back to him with the info and the very next morning when I took my morning walk I discovered this:


Twenty-four hours later a cone and a barricade were already in position over the hole. And there was some official-looking spray painting around the area too. And that's how it stayed for a little over a month. Then late last week I noticed this piece of machinery in the area:



Later that morning the asphalt had been ripped up and they had leveled out the dirt and gravel underneath:



And just a few hours after that the barricade was gone and there were four cones protecting the freshly paved (and hole-free) patch of street. Beautiful.



It was pretty exciting to watch the whole process and it all happened surprisingly quickly. You always hear about all hassle and trouble it takes to get things done in a city, but this got resolved so efficiently. Maybe they call it "the city that works" for a reason. To be completely honest, someone else may have called or contacted the city as well (heck, maybe there was a letter-writing campaign I never heard about), but can we pretend that my twitter started it all? Or maybe Mayor Adams and the folks at the city gov can fill in their side of the story? How do all these things work anyway?

Either way, thanks for fixing my street!

Zombies, Bikes, & Venomous Spiders

So my pals at BodyVox got in touch with me a few months back and asked if I was interested in producing a few spooky videos for them. They wanted something short and fun to help spread the word on their upcoming Halloween-inspired dance show, BloodyVox. I came up with a long list of zombie/ghost/vampire related ideas, but finally whittled it down to two concepts I was really excited about. I pitched them to BodyVox and they liked both of them so we moved forward and started planning.

There are so many one-take online videos out there and I've always wanted to make one myself. I also really liked the idea of bicycling zombies, and after scouting the Springwater Corridor I found a stretch of the path that seemed perfect. After sending out a facebook message, I recruited a solid group of zombies (thanks Daniel, Chris, and Lisa!) and BodyVox brought some of their dancers and volunteers as well.


I shot this from the back of an Xtra-cycle as my pal MacKenzie pedaled.


This only took about 7 or 8 takes. This was the last take:



A few years back I started making an annual Thanksgiving movie with my nephews and due to popular response (mostly from my family) we started making them for other occasions as well. This seemed like a great opportunity to employ my 5 & 8 year old nephews once again and tackle yet another subject. They're always game for putting on costumes and I'm always impressed by their range of emotion and acting chops:



Stay tuned for our 2010 Thanksgiving movie - coming next month. And don't forget to buy your tickets for BloodyVox!

The Kazoo Museum Has Opened Grandly!

After weeks of planning, months of research, and too many hours spent on ebay The Kazoo Museum has officially reopened in Beaufort, SC. It's in a whole kazoo complex that's also the home of Kazoobie Kazoos and their factory.


The big event took place on Wednesday, October 6th and it seems like most of Beaufort came out to celebrate.


Rick Hubbard (founder of Kazoobie Kazoos and famed kazoo performer) and Stephen Murray (president of Kazoobie Kazoos) shared some remarks along with a number of local government officials who came out for the big event.


People were really excited to welcome a new attraction to the area, and located about halfway between Savannah, GA and Charleston, SC it really is a convenient location. I gave curated tours to anyone interested and answered quite a few question for interested visitors. I realize I'm incredibly biased, but kazoo history really is quite interesting and we've amassed a pretty nice collection that I think will appeal to most folks.

And the local press came out too. I even got a few mentions. An article in Bluffton Today referred to me as "Kazoo historian and curator of the Kazoo Museum." I like the sound of that. I may get some new business cards printed. There was another great article in The Island Packet. And WTOC from Savannah Georgia did a story for their evening news - though they didn't talk much about the museum opening (but I still get a few seconds onscreen). You can check that out here.

And you can see more photos from the museum and the grand opening here:


If you want some more info on the Kazoo Museum and what all this is about you can check out the museum website here or this old blog post. So are you planning your trip yet?

One episode down, nine to go

I watched the first episode of the Un-Road Trip TV show last week. It was pretty surreal. The graphics weren't quite finished and the audio wasn't final yet but there it was - twenty some minutes of television about the first few days of my trip. And it was pretty cool. I forgot how many awesome people I met on this trip and it was fun to see all of those folks again. And it's been fun to get back in touch with a lot of them to get new depiction releases for Halogen's legal department. Who knew procuring legal documentation could be so fun?

This pilot episode is now making the rounds at Halogen TV and once it gets approved, (hopefully this week), we'll get started on the remaining nine episodes. I've been recording temporary narration tracks for the show on my laptop in Portland, but I'll head out to North Carolina again in November to lay down the final audio. And in a few short months the TV show will be unleashed into the world.

It's incredible to see how much collaboration goes into a TV show. I know I already wrote about that a few posts ago, but I was looking over the credits for the first episode and it's surprising to see how long that list is. I was trying to remember all the folks who helped out with the first week of the trip and adding them to the "special thanks" section. Did you help with the trip? Want to be in the credits? Let me know and maybe I can squeeze you in.

Time to start the hand exercises again...

I feared this day might come and it looks like it has. In fact it looks like the day might have come twice this summer. It appears that my Guinness world record for "most high fives in an hour" has been broken. Twice. It all started a few weeks ago when someone mentioned that they had searched online for my world record and found plans for another high-five record attempt in Chicago. ComedySportz in Chicago was attempting to break my record:

After each and every performance of ComedySportz, our players line up and high five the audience on their way out of the theatre. It is a simple gesture of gratitude and camaraderie that has been a part of our show for over 23 years. In short, the High Five is part of our culture and now we will bring the "high-five culture" to the City of Big Shoulders. Especially with so much bad news permeating the headlines, we think this is exactly the kind of fun, positive event that Chicago needs.

The current record for 'Most high-fives in one hour (individual)' is held by Boaz Frankel (USA) who high-fived 408 people at the Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon on October 23, 2006. C'mon Chicago, we can do better than that!

It was honestly a little strange to be reading about myself in this context- as "the guy they wanted to beat." I emailed the ComedySportz guys to see how it went and apparently they beat my record by less than a hundred high fives though they were still waiting for verification from Guinness.

Then just a few days ago I heard about another attempt around Chicago at Hoffman Estates High School:

Hundreds of Hoffman Estates high school students slapped hands with their mascot, Flash, Friday afternoon in a bid to smack down the Guinness World Record for most high-fives in an hour.

The current record stands at 408 high-fives. Boaz Frankel set the record at Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Ore., on October 23, 2006.

One by one students filed into the football field near the school, delivering a high five -- no underhands, down lows or fistbumps allowed -- to a purple lightning bolt standing outside.

The final tally in the school's effort: 1,363 in one hour.

That's three times as many high fives as I got! That's just over 20 high fives a minute. It looks like I've got my work cut out for me.

I'm already starting to think about my next record re-breaking attempt. In order to high five all those people I'll have to do plan it at a sporting event or parade or something like that. Stay tuned for details...

Shine your kazoos! We're planning a party!

After weeks of toil, hours spent on eBay, and a soft open a few weeks ago the Kazoo Museum is having an official grand opening! I spent a week in Beaufort, SC in June installing the museum in its new spacious home at the Kazoobie Kazoos Factory and now we're ready to share it with the world! Or something like that. I'm still not exactly sure what this event will include but I guarantee fun, wonder, and definitely kazoos. I'm prepping a short film on the history of the instrument which will premiere at the event and then play year-round in the Kazoo Museum Theatre. The Kazoo-Spectacular will be going down at a yet-to-be-determined time on Wednesday, October 6th. So book those tickets!


I've also been toying with the idea of starting a kazoo podcast. Maybe something quarterly? Anyone have interesting insights on the kazoo and want to be a guest?

Post production is moving along...

For the longest time the Un-Road Trip was just me. I started planning the trip in August of 2008 and for nearly a year it was just me sitting at my computer, doing lots of research, sending a lot of emails, and looking at a lot of Google maps. And then I set off on the trip in April of 2009 and suddenly a lot more people were involved. So many folks helped me out along the way. They lent me their horses and boats, invited me to spend the night, and offered a ton of helpful advice. Those people really made the trip the amazing experience that it was, and I still keep in touch with a lot of them. In the last few months production has really ramped up on the Un-Road Trip TV show and now the whole Halogen TV family has gotten involved. I can't even track all the folks currently working on it. From what I gather they include musicians writing a theme song, animators creating the show open, editors cutting it together, marketing people planning how to promote, and probably some other people I'm not even aware of. And suddenly there are dozens of people involved in the Un-Road Trip that I've never met. It's a pretty strange/funny/wild thing to have this little project suddenly employing people. So it's bizarre to talk to Todd (who's producing the show for Halogen) and have him show me all these clips created by people who I don't know. During an iChat conversation yesterday Todd showed me a rough cut of a segment from the show:

It was crazy to watch. Sure, I was there but I had no concept of what it would all look like. And I probably still don't have a great idea since when I look at these clips I remember my thoughts during filming and interactions with the off-camera crew. And then came the really wild part. Todd showed me an early version of the animated opening segment of the show. It features a little collage-animated version of me traveling around the world on all sorts of modes of transportation. I had no concept of what the opening would look like and this really blew my mind. I can't believe that a guy I've never met had to sit at a desk somewhere and animate me. So strange. Here's the end of the intro as photographed on my laptop:

It looks pretty sweet and I can't wait to start sharing clips with you guys- thought that probably won't be for another few months.

There's other wacky stuff on the horizon too. My documentary about the endangered Salt Creek Tiger Beetle is coming along, I'm helping to plan a big grand opening for the kazoo museum in South Carolina, and I'm working on a little music video too. Stay tuned!