The Art of Not Losing Customers...

So I go to sign up for a gym membership today. I know, I am officially a New Yorker now. I didn't really want to, but with no access to a basketball court I find myself getting fat. With Muki and Kris here last week, I got the inevitable, "man, you're getting fat." Not that I actually think I am fat but I can't deny the slight double chin and the ever-present rice tummy. I'm still 10 pounds lighter than when I was actually fat though. So I go to this gym to find out their rates because I heard they have a deal where you can go 3 days a week for 19 dollars and that sounded pretty good to me. Unfortunately that deal no longer exists. So they tell me the cheapest deal they have for a month to month (I'd do a contract for a year but not sure where I will be next year) is $50, plus a $150 initial payment. There is a "non-negotiable" $100 dollar initiation fee though I'm not sure what that meant. That was the best they could do.Finally I told them no and left (there was two of them trying to goad me into something like a car salesman selling you the undercarriage rust proofing). I get two blocks away when they call me (I made the mistake of giving them my phone number). The guy says that he went over it some more and found a deal for 35 dollars and month including any class I want to go to and I can do it month to month and the initiation fee was only 75. Anyways I go there and the guy was going to be shady about it and put me on someone's friends and family package only no one has my last name. So I had to go with Kumar, my middle name, to get someone with the same last name. So my name is Marty Kumar, which doesn't make any sense, but at least I didn't have to sign anything and I can quit whenever I want.

I realized I started 2007 without doing a best of 2006 list, and you all know how much I love lists. So here it is the best of 2006. First up, is top 5 movies. As I was making a list of all the movies that came out last year that I saw, I realized I saw a ridiculous amount of movies and also that there were a lot of good movies that came out. Now this list only consits of movies that I saw and may not be completely accurate because of that. There were also some honorable mentions, Talladega Nights, Superman Return, and Tokyo Drift.At number 5, is V for Vendetta. This movie was amazing and Natalie Portman was hot even with no hair. At number 4 is Little Miss Sunshine. Hilarious, though some may say it was a cliched indie flick, I say boo to you. At 3 is Scoop. Woody Allen followed up Match Point with the complete opposite movie, a comedy with an informative ghost. It was the funniest movie of the year. Coming in at number 2 is the surprisingly amazing Lucky Number Slevin. I loved this movie and it turned me on to Lucy Liu. And the number 1 movie of last year was...The Illusionist. This was by far the most original movie of the year and the cinematography was amazing. All in all, if you haven't seen it you need to.















Hmm that took a while so I will only do one more list for now. The top 5 albums of last year. Again this is only music that I listen to and while my taste is probably better than yours, it doesn't mean I'm better than you. Honestly though, these are albums that I think are amazing and if you haven't heard it you at least need to listen to the free samples on i-tunes to see if you might like it. So here it is, artist firt followed by the album name. At number 5 is The Hold Steady with their album, Boys and Girls in America. The album was everything I hoped for after the first 2. I feel more connected with them somehow after moving to ny. At number 4 is Regina Spektor with her sophmore album Begin to Hope. This album may have been better than her first which is almost impossible. Her voice is amazing and so is the album, At number 3 is TV on the Radio with their album Return to Cookie Mountain. It is one of the best albums I have heard in a long time, it was very very close to being either number 2 or 1. However, at number 2, is Ghostface Killah with Fishscale. Easily the best hip-hop album I have heard in years. Every single song is ridiculously hype, the beats are ridiculous and I love how chrismatic he is. At number 1 is the Shout Out Louds with Howl Howl Gaff Gaff. This album is prefect start to finish. Any time a band uses the intro to the old atari game Pole Position in one of their songs, they are bound to be awesome. Buy these albums, they are all amazing.



















Anyways, that's all for now. As always, get your feet off the ground and reach for the stars. Go big or go home. Pain heals, chicks dig scars and glory lasts forever. Carpe diem. Your heart is free, have the courage to follow it.

I'm out like like rudolphs nose

-M, p & z

oh ps - if there are any albums or movies that I missed let me know and I will see if you have a valid point.
also here is my next car (can someone tell me how to hyperlink on a mac)
http://autos.aol.com/article/detroit-auto-show/_a/toyota-ft-hs/20070103101109990001

So Long, So Long...

Another year come and gone. I was going to say not much happened but 2006 was a pretty eventful year. I graduated, moved to nyc and have already made 5 films. Granted graduating was more of an inevitability than an accomplishment, and those first 4 films sucked, but I have learned a lot or at least I hope I have. Life is pretty strange I guess, I won't feel like I am doing anything with my life until I am out of school. Everyone I hang out with, from people that were younger to those that are older, it seems are at the same position in life. People have degrees and masters and doctorates and are still trying to figure out what to do in life and are just passing time for the moment. I am excited for the day that I won't be wondering what I'm doing next year and instead just start living. Hopefully with a dog.

2007 is shaping up to be pretty warm which probably means the world is going to end soon. New Years was a blast, good food and good friends is about all one could ask for. I realize I haven't blogged in a while so I will try and remember everything that I have been meaning to blog about. First of all, I have to tell this story about this kid on my plane when I flew home. While in line to board the plane I noticed this family with a young boy and younger girl who looked like trouble. They were yelling at each other a lot and didn't seem to have control over the kids which is never good when travelling by plane. So of course they end up sitting on the other side of the aisle from me. All is going well for the first half hour or so but as soon as I had drifted off I awoke to some heightened excitement next to me. I look over and see this little 7 year old boy leaning all the way forward in his seat, looking behind him with a look of absolute terror. I mean you would have thought this kid saw a demon coming out from his seat. So I follow his gaze to his seat and see that he has had an ass explosion in his pants that went through his underwear and jeans and left brown ooze in his chair. Amazed at what happened I looked back at the kid who clearly wasn't done and mid-poop said, "I can't hold it!" I started cracking up and had to turn away so his parents didn't see me. Good times.

Christmas was low key, the highlight was the x-box 360 my brother and I got for ourselves. Gears of War really is one of the best first person shooter games I have ever played. The story is so lacking though that after we spent 3 days beating the game we realized we had no idea what it was about. Anyways, you shoot people and can saw them in half. Road trip with Muki Jordon Bill and Heidi back was fun. I will say this however, 5 people with small bladders makes a 9 hour trip almost 11 hours. Good times though, but damn Pennsylvania is a very looong state. New Years was good, a bunch of folks came up and we went to a bar and had copius amounts of alcohol. I don't understand a bar having a bathroon with only one stall though. I can't believe how much of my night was spent waiting in line. It got to a point where you went to get in line before you had to go because by the time you got to the front you really had to.

Having a lot of people hang out for four days straight is about the most fun you can have, the only problem is getting back to reality. I forgot how hard it was to sit and think about plot lines and ideas and characters and film, and now I am here procrastinating because I have a monstrous brain fart and can't think of some ideas for my final film which is shaping up to be pretty funny thus far. I abandoned all hope of making something serious, at least for now, I think I'll stick with comedy because that's about the only thing I can do well. Anyways, this was a pretty boring blog just catching you up on my life. So i'm gonna go now and try and get soe real work done. Hope everyone has a wonderful 2007.

As always, get your feet off the ground and keep reching for the stars. Go big or go home, Pain heals, chicks dig scars and glory lasts forever. Carpe diem. Your heart is free, have the courage to follow it.

I'm out like 2006
-M, p & z

oh ps - I spend a lot of my time thinking and talking about poop and pooping so I thought I would reel off some names that I have come up with for the runs. There's the dirty water, the PBRuns, the butt faucet (my fave). Anyways there are a bunch more and much more poop things to talk about. but i'm done for now. ciao.

happy new year

The Year is Almost Over?...

With only a few weeks left in the year I feel like I should talk about the year but I will do that later I suppose. First let's talk about Christmas. Never in my life has there been such little build up to what used to be my favorite holiday. I realize this is for a few reasons. The first is that I have just been too busy to even think about Christmas (except for the fact that my semester final film is about christmas). I mean who has time to sit and think about what to get people when I haven't even thought about what I want myself. Another reason is the weather. I mean seriously, who can go christmas shopping when you don't even need to wear a coat to go outside. I realize that the mid-50 temperatures we have been having here in NY are warmer than MI, but still, there's not even snow on the ground in michigan. It just doesn't feel like christmas when I have yet to see a single snow flake. The last reason is that now that I live in NY, there is nothing around that reminds me of the holidays. Everyone is back home in Michigan and so is our tree, christmas lights, cold(er) temperatues, ice and evergreens not being sold on the side of the road. In an effort to remedy my situation I walked over to Rockefeller Center (actually I was location scouting for a scene in my movie). It was the first time I had been down there since the tree lighting and I must say, it was pretty cool. Very nostalgic even though I have never been there at christmas. Riddle me this: is my lack of christmas anxiety/hype/euphoria because of the reasons I've listed above, or because I'm getting older?

I'm currently watching VH1's top 40 of '06 and it reminds me of MTV's top 100 videos of the year that I used to watch religiously on new years eve. Do they still even do that? If I didn't already have plans I would definitely stay home and watch if it was still on. As my first semester of school comes to a close, I am amazed at how much i have learned so far. It has happened to naturally over the last few months that I almost don't notice. I guess the only way to do something like this is to immerse yourself into it 100 percent for a year. I am excited to see where I'll be 6 months from now and what my upcoming projects will be like compared to my early ones. I can already see the difference between my last project and this one. This is the first one that I have had everything planned out and prepared for, dialogue, actors and a script that I wrote. It still blows my mind that people would audition to act out something that I wrote and directed.

Okay, I had a lot to say before I walked to my computer but it all escapes me at the moment. I will probably try again in a few days after production week is over. As always, get your feet off the ground and reach for the stars. Go big or go home. Pain heals, chicks dig scars and glory lasts forever. Carpe diem.

Your heart is free, have the courage to follow it.

I'm out like the Wii
-M, p & z

oh ps - I can't figure out what to get my mom or dad for christmas, they are notoriously impossible to shop for. Any suggestions of what you are getting your folks? Also, if you are gonna be in nyc for new years and want to hang, let me know asap, we're going to a bar that will be sold out of new years tix any day.

A Clogged Toilet...

First of all, a couple people have suggested that I may be a hazard in the kitchen. Now, while I can't argue the facts (me burning down a kitchen and last week going to the ER), I can put it into context. Many students and young adults simply do not cook, and no, anything that comes in a box or prepackaged does not count as cooking. I enjoy cooking and grocery shopping, and fresh produce and such in my meals is key to having fun. My point is that I cook a lot. More than most people. So by sheer volume of meals cooked there are bound to be some mishaps along the way. Bill, how can you injure yourself when the foreman grill is your savior, and Kelsey, you live at home - when was the lat time you cooked? You can't injure yourself if you don't get in the kitchen. Not that I took offense to being banned from the kitchen by both of you, I agree I should not be there unmonitored, but I just wanted people to know that injuries are bound to occur, espescially when you are as big of a bad ass as I am.

In other news, my brother was here over the weekend. Well, not here as in he stayed in our apartment, but in NYC - staying somewhere else. Anyways he was in my apt. for about 5 minutes before the place fell to shits - literally. After a night of drinking and a hearty brunch, a few people came back to our apartment to play some Nintendo. Muki had to use the bathroom and emerged 15 minutes later claiming "I didn't break the toilet, but it won't flush." Dax and I agree that if it was working before he went in, and broken after he came out, then logic points to him breaking it. Regardless of how it was broken there were many attempts to fix it over the next couple hours and it ended with Graham on his kneed wearing a wife beater with all of his glorious plumber's crack hanging out, sticking his hand (no glove on) into the toilet trying to use a hanger to unclog it. I almost threw up when I saw this happen but the water looked clean and from what I hear, urine is sterile. Nothing would work including a plunger they went to buy at bed bath and beyond. Anyways, i have a phobia of pooping in public bathrooms (I can count on one hand the number of times I was forced to do it) so I went to home depot, got a man's plunger and beat the shit out of the toilet until it relenquished the evil it concealed. My bowels are now empty.

Other things. Brian and I held our first casting calls on Saturday. Things went awesome, we had people audition for us for about 5 hours and all in all it was a success. It was very exciting being in charge and having people try out to be in something I am making. Like I am so cool, I have to pick and choose who I am going to allow being awesome with me. Anyways, good times. I am almost done casting for my film except for one part but hopefully everything works out and I will post the finished product in about a month.

Anyways, I have an insane amount of work to do so I will leave you now. Remember, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kicthen. As always, get your feet off the ground and reach for the stars. Go big or go home. Pain heals chicks dig scars and glory lasts forever. Carpe diem. Your heart is free, have the courage to follow it.

much love
-M, p & z

oh ps - anyone going to be in nyc for new years let me know (kelsey, you know you and dave want to come). I have a large couch. Also, if anyone wants to be an extra in a movie let me know, we could use a few people.