Break a Leg

Sometimes, sometimes you just have to know when to call it in.

Maybe it was the article I wrote myself that caused us to realize that we're not making any money, maybe it was the comments from two or three people from my Gawker article who said, "MAYBE IF THIS WAS FUNNY YOU'D GET PAID" or maybe it was Kent Nichols, creator of Ask a Ninja, who posted a graph on the NewTeeVee site comparing the numbers for the Break a Leg site to his apparently popular (who knew?) Ask a Ninja site -- proving once and for all that that we're not in the same category (we, for one, have hardly ANY ninjas).

Whatever it was that caused it, we yield, we fold, we lay down our swords and we announce today that there will be no future episodes of Break a Leg, there will be no conclusion, there will be no ending, there will just be this blog post and an upcoming Mint song thanking you all for voting for us in that Yahoo contest.

You know. The one that we lost...

...to a girl.

Do not shed a tear for us just yet, though. I mean really, who knows? Maybe a year from now, maybe two years from now, maybe even three, when Ask a Ninja is not only a movie and a TV show, but a brand of cereal, Break a Leg will make its triumphant return. If we're lucky, NewTeeVee will write a blurb about it, if we're not lucky, Joe of Joe's Blog may say that it's an okay show but it's seriously lacking ninjas -- however it'll happen, maybe April 1st, 2009, we'll return for one special holiday episode just to shoot David in the head for you.

There is good news, however. We're going to be fully dedicating ourselves to creating a scripted video blog. Now, hear me out. I know you're going to say, "It's been done" or "It's derivative" or, "Seriously?" But, the idea, we think, is solid gold. It's a video blog about people making a video blog.

Let the emails from the venture capitalists flow forth like a river of gold.

The series will be called "Web Cammin' Womens" and it'll star our very own Alexis Boozer (Amber Turnipseed) who will be playing the star of her own vlog. Daniela DiIorio will play the director who hired Alexis to film her vlog. They will make out. And they will wear bikinis. And yes, sometimes, there will be ninjas.

Roommates, eat your heart out.

So, don't weep for us, don't mourn us, don't even hold mock funerals for Break a Leg. Instead, tell your friends of us, tell them -- there was this show that hoped and dared and then they were crushed by all the "gays" and "wtfs" that rained down on them like lightning bolts from a very angry, YouTube-watching God. Tell them there was once a web show that hoped and dreamed to be a real show, and when it failed the creators went on to bigger and better things, like porn and, in my particular case, juggling.

Oh, and while you're at it, tell them Happy April Fools Day.

Have a good April!

-Yuri and the Break a Leg Team, who's absolutely releasing another episode. 

Hey Swamblers --

The new conversation, Jen-Ashamed, is out and ready for your giggling. Jennifer admits to his wife that he had an affair ten years ago and she admits something right back to him. 

You can check it out on our website or you can go to YouTube and comment, favorite and subscribe as per usual!

Also, I recently wrote an article titled, "I'm a Web Celebrity. Am I Rich Yet?" for Gawker -- a very, very big blog -- and I'd love for you guys to check it out and tell me what you think! Just click the link to read it.

Thanks all! 

-Yuri 

Alright Broommates and Broomettes, it's that time again, the time to sort of kind of reveal what may or may not happen in the next episode of Break a Leg. This episode was written by me (I?), Vlad, and it takes place a few weeks after David's crack at leadership scatters the cast and crew. What can I expect from this episode, you may ask?  Let's see:

1. A major plot point revealed: David Penn is in Hollywood for a reason, but what could that reason be?

2. Action action action. That's right, you'll finally see exactly why we're more dangerous than I Love Lucy. Expect more child actors, long journeys, secret meetings, etc. If all goes as planned, this will be the most epic Break a Leg yet.

3. Once again, somebody will die.

4. Guest Star! Brian Forster who, among other roles, played Chris Partridge on the Partridge Family, has graciously agreed to join the cast of Break a Leg for this episode. He will be playing himself (or, you know, our version of himself), and I don't need to tell anyone what guild he belongs to.

5. A secondary character from a minisode will be making a comeback.

6. Mimes!

7. Swamblers?

...and much much more!

Shooting's in the early phases, and we'll let you know as soon as we have an official release date. In the mean time, we'll have new content every Monday to hold you over, including the continuation of the Jen-affair saga.

That's all for now--

Vlad

I decided just today that most of the population of this country is dead inside. By most I mean only around 90%, so there may still be some people actually alive around here somewhere.

You know that old (I mean old) song Big Rock Candy Mountain? I love that song. It's a beautiful hobo fantasy about a land where cigarettes grow on trees, lemonade springs forth from the ground, and the jails are made of tin. They have also apparently, in this land of milk and honey, "killed the jerk that invented work". That sounds like my kind of place.

The country is dead inside because 90% of us have been trapped in this nightmare lifestyle where we spend 40 hours or more per week doing something for somebody else that we most likely don't want to be doing. It's the logical, ridiculous conclusion to what began eons ago when our ancestors settled down from a life of hunting and gathering and founded agricultural society, supposedly offering us more leisure and the ability to pursue the arts, literature, music, politics, etc.

If you have a job, take a moment now and think about how absurd it is. A schedule is established, either on a weekly basis or just "these are always your hours", and you just show up. At the time on the schedule. You willingly show up. It's like at the end of 25th Hour when Edward Norton's dad drives him to prison, you know, he has an appointment to turn himself in to jail? If you have a job, you do that five days a week or more.

Some of us maybe have jobs that aren't half bad, but what does that really mean? In my case it means I hate my job not quite enough to stab my eyes out with pencils, red ones, repeatedly. I'm just not quite there. And I don't even have that bad a job; I do it well, I'm the boss at my office, there's even actually a lot of downtime on the job depending on the season and the level of business.

I hate my job even when 75% of what I did on a given day is check my personal email and read feeds in my RSS reader.

Why do I do it then? Why do you do it? Have you ever read Walden Two? It's a utopian fantasy yarn about a little commune somewhere where people don't have jobs. They are obligated to work something like 20 hours per week, but they can choose what job to do to fill those hours. Each job has a multiplier for how much it "pays" in hours. So being a, oh I don't know, chocolate taster would only count 30 minutes for each hour worked, whereas working the sewage treatment plant would count double.

I went on a rant about Battlestar Galactica, but I tell you, Star Trek is worse. BSG at least has balls; you don't talk in BSG, you shoot. Picard would have been dead before he said "hailing frequencies" if he came anywhere near a Battlestar. The one thing though that Star Trek got right is that they don't have money, they don't have jobs, they don't have obligations. In a society where a replicator can make matter out of energy, what do you need money for? If you don't need money, you don't need work, and if you don't have work then you have people doing what they love.

In a lot of ways I'm doing what I love everyday, and that's what's even more depressing. I know there are people out there who do exactly like I do every day: they go to work, they come home, they start all over again. At least I have a few things going for me ,and I try to live what little life I can call me own to my fullest, and I hope all of you do too. I have a great family, I have acting and filmmaking (and Break A Leg, of course), and I have the ability to bitch to apparently hundreds of thousands of people on a weekly basis.

Thanks for listening. Now it's time for cookies and American Idol.

 So, a couple of weeks ago I gave a sort of State of the Chad address, in which I mentioned that what's really important is being around your loved ones.  I also mentioned that last Thursday was my 31st birthday.  The following of an example of why I truly believe what I said.  Here's how rad my friends are...

 My friends are pirates.  I.e. we drink, we sing, we cause anarchy, and we occasionally steal things.  And oh yeah: breaking and entering.  We go to "War" about twice a year where we dress up as pirates and go camping with about 3000 other people.  We are the Crew of the Dread Ship Black Rose.  It's not pertinant to the story, it's just to explain that we really are piratey.  Anywho... Seeing as my birthday was on Thursday I decided to take Friday off so I could have the 3 day weekend, which was nice.  On Thursday, I worked all day...and it was a hellish day.  But that night I had steak and got a new digital camera which will be put to use in this very blog.

 Friday night the plan was to go out to dinner with my friends.  My friend Nate came to pick me up and as we were leaving the house I forgot to grab my keys and wallet.  Yeah, I locked myself out.  But this was excusable because I had been celebrating all day. 

At my house there is what is known as "The Hobo Guard".  I'll explain: there is a back door to my house, through which is a small storage room and another back door.  That second back door has a lock that nobody in the house has a key for.  There is a long and tangled story behind that which I'll tell at another time.  So, in general, we leave that door unlocked.  The theory is that any hobos who happen to find our place and happen to find out the back back door is open will then be so flummoxed by there being a second door which IS locked that their brains will explode at the mere incomprehension of it all.  Also, by the use of the word "flummoxed".  However, I have a new roommate and he doesn't know not to lock the hobo guard, so when Nate and I went around the back to see if it was open and hopefully the other door was unlocked for some reason, the hobo guard was locked.  The door isn't in very good condition.  Nate gave me a look.  I gave him a nob.  He shoulder jammed it open in one go and insured that the lock would never be a problem again.  And of course, that back door was locked.  Ok, problem for later.  Time for food.

 Not having a wallet was not a problem because my friends were taking me out for dinner and we weren't going anywhere super fancy.  I had been craving fettuccini alfredo for a while, so we went to Pasta Pomodoro.  I like Pasta Pomodoro.  It's easy, it's good, it's inexpensive...but something seemed to have happened, some corporate assholes made each other think it would be great to earn themselves more money by not paying their waitstaff as much.  So the service kinda sucked.  But hey, I was with my crew and we stole all the sugar packets and tea from the table when we left.

 We went back to my place.  Now the issue of getting inside.  Remember what I said about breaking and entering?  I think I will use some visual aids in this portion of the story.

1. First we found a ladder laying about, as they do.  This is Nate with the ladder.

2. This is still Nate with the ladder.  You can tell I was really getting into my subject matter as an artist with my camera.

3.  Here's Nate up the ladder discovering that the screen to my window is screwed in place.

4.  This is the view from the top of the ladder I took while Nate went and got his screw gun.

5.  I think these pretty much speak for themselves at this point.

6.  I was not as drunk as I look in this picture...yet.

7.  Open the window...

8.  And slide inside!

After that the party ran it's course with the usual motley and laughter and insobriety.  I had a great time.  Then I made the mistake of falling asleep before the party was over.  This is why I should never do this.

9. This is Scott.  He's the captain of the pirate crew.  He's also devious and prone to acts of chaos.  So when I woke in the morning I had a new friend in my room.

10.  I'm still laughing.

And that, my friends, is why you should party with pirates.

Happy Jenday